Trash In America

Recycling and conservation are the solution to climate change and to saving energy. America sends a majority of its trash to landfills when it could be put to much better use by means of recycling or even by burning it to produce energy. Pollution is greatly reduced when recycling because the need to collect new raw materials goes down. Recycling is great because it can help people conserve this Earth for future generations who deserve to have a healthy Earth. Once the United Stated reaches recycling levels of 75%, it would be the equivalent of getting rid of fifty five million cars from the roads in the U.S. each year.

Recycling is the process of making new products from a product that has originally served its purpose. The process of recycling starts when used products are disposed in an appropriate, environmentally friendly way. Items made from materials such as paper, tin cans, aluminum cans, plastic water bottles, and glass, which people use in everyday life, can be separated from regular trash and put in an appropriate recycling bin. The United States now realizes the importance of recycling. However, many ignorant people still think separating recyclables requires too much work. Requiring mandatory recycling would prod these individuals into action. Lack of recycling leads to dramatic consequences such as polluting the environment and raising the number of landfills. Delay is critical; time plays a significant role in waste management. The sooner American communities recycle properly the better it will be for the environment and our surroundings. People need to become conscious and take responsibility as a society to protect the earth, keep it clean and beautiful, and preserve the natural resources. The United States can achieve this goal by implementing mandatory recycling.

II. Listener Relevance- The world we live in is slowly being torn down by water pollution, air pollution, land pollution. Surprisingly, a very simple thing such as recycling helps reduce all of these.

Imagine you wake up in 20 years and all you see out your window is trash lining the streets and roads. This is what is going to happen if we don’t start recycling now. If we all start recycling now we will have beautiful streets and roads not full of trash. I picked this topic because it is a worldwide problem and I think this topic can be solved. I was very curious about this topic and I wanted to know more about recycling.These are some driving questions I had at the beginning of this project. Why don’t a lot of people recycle? What is the most recycled item? Where is recycling a very big problem in the world? How can more people be involved with recycling? How many people and animals get affected by recycling every year? My driving question was how can we as people create a better recycling society.

The society we live in is disposable we feel more than comfortable throwing away or removing things we use from cans, to shoes, and even plastic bottles because we feel as though it’s easier to throw them out then to fix them then reuse them. This process of renewal then reusing has been given a name; its name is “recycling”. The base word of recycle is cycle which according to Webster’s dictionary means to “a set of events or actions that happen again and again in the same order: a repeating series of events or actions.” While reading Garbology I learned the real reason why so much trash exists on our planet which is affecting our living conditions. Our planet is so “trashed” as a result undereducated people not pondering over where their trash ends up, allowing them to

Recycling is presently one of the most controversial topics, considering that while most individuals put across their support regarding the act the number of individuals who actually do something in order to recycle is much smaller. Many people are currently unable or unwilling to recycle properly because the process often requires a series of changes in one's life. It is thus essential for the authorities to provide educational programs meant to assist individuals in understanding why recycling is important and in learning how to recycle effectively. People need to accept the fact that the benefits of recycling will reflect on the future and that conditions are currently critical as a result of the fact that the masses are generally unacquainted with the importance of this process.

If people do not have clean and safe water to drink, they will die. Human activities are proven to have an effect on water pollution. Water is a vital environmental resource and when polluted it can create disease, illness, and even death. Recycling is an important role that people should take within society. Learning more and educating society about recycling can change the way the world functions. There is an over abundance of products that are being thrown away that could be recycled. Every single person creates waste. Many people disregard where their waste products are going. The cost of landfills and incinerators are becoming too much and cannot keep up with the amount of waste that is arriving. Sadly, a lot of the items being thrown away could have been sold to the needy or recycled. Most items thrown away are not trash or waste, they are simply unwanted and invaluable to the owner. The most critical part regarding these issues is that they can all be fixed. Society has the capabilities to reverse these issues and create a more sustainable world to live

Americans live in a consumer society where majority of products are packaged ready for use. This is attributed to the availability of disposable merchandise that is favorable and efficient in delivering the various products that are on demand. Among the various favorably consumed packed products is bottled water. It does not however, make sense for people to buy bottled water and throw the container away after they have emptied it. This is because the plastic bottles have a number of defects to the environment as well as to the general welfare of the economy. For example, in 1976 an average American drank 1.6 gallons of bottled water and since then the quantity has increased to an average of 30

According journalist Eric Goldschein, the United States drank 9 billion gallons of water in 2008 (Business Insider). Therefore, in order to prevent access waste and build up of plastic from the water bottles, many different varieties of reusable water bottles on the market today advertise the message of an eco-friendly product. This message, however, can be easily adulterated and twisted in the manufacturer’s favor for simply business purposes, thus promoting bottles that have only the perk of being used many times before they are eventually discarded, ultimately falsifying the term “reusable”. When compared to the message of perpetual reusability, as well as the “five steps to eco-effectiveness,” put forth in the book Cradle to Cradle

During the class presentation of the article Talking Trash, my fellow classmates presented their facts and opinions. For their powerpoint presentation, the two presenters expressed that when it comes to the topic of recycling, most of us would agree that it is good and necessary. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is the question of time. Whereas some are convinced that recycling is worth the extra spent seconds, the majority maintain their laziness. The presenters had personally admitted to this statement being true for themselves. Furthermore, while they did admit as much, many, themselves included, often take for granted recyclable products and tend to toss them into the garbage bin rather than where they belong in order to be recycled.

In the United States we live in a disposable society. We throw out plastic products after one use and dispose of gently used clothing and electronics. These products can take hundreds of years to decompose in a landfill or can affect

MacBride, S. (2012). Recycling reconsidered the present failure and future promise of environmental action in the United States. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

People Need to Recycle In the United Sates, where the population is inflated every year. The amount of space for landfills decreases every day. The need for recycling should not be asked, it should just be done out of habit. Everyone in America needs to recycle, to help the lamdfill problem, help the environment, and help produce new products from recycled goods. In America there is about two-hundred and eight tons of residential and commercial trash generated a year, 4.3 pounds per person a day (Prichard 1A). This is an overwhelming amount of trashed produced yearly. When people recycle this number can be drastically cut. But many people do not practice and use

Everyone buys things and sooner or later, we will throw it away. Or suppose we eat at Mc Donald's. After we are finished, we throw away our trash and never see or think of it ever again. In our fast passed world that we live in today, there are many people living in it and produce a lot of garbage and waste. The United States alone produces over 200 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste every year. That is equates to about 4.5 pounds of waste per person, per day. According to data from the EPA, about 35% of that is paper, 30% include yard trimmings and food scraps. Over 11% is plastic, 8% is metal, and the remainder contains wood, rubber, glass, and textiles. The main problem that we have is overflow of landfills. On top of this

Do you know what happens to water bottles after you’ve thrown them away? Have you considered recycling and what that does to the environment? Well when you throw away a water bottle, you’re basically throwing away plastic, so it takes years on end to biodegrade in the landfills that they are taken to after being thrown away. Then they release toxic additives, such as phthalates, in the environment destroying the ecosystem and water around it as it is trying to break down. But if you recycle the bottles they are put into factories where they’re recycled into more bottles or something else to be used again without harming the environment. But despite the drawbacks people still buy water bottles and, unfortunately, don’t recycle. But