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The Controversy Of Recycling In The United States

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Each Friday, my family takes out their trash to be picked up and hauled off to who knows where, and every other week the same goes for our recyclables. But how much is truly recycled, and how do we fare against other countries? We, as Americans, should learn from across the pond and recycle more of our waste instead of throwing it away to a landfill. America tries to sound green and eco-friendly, but we only recycle 34.3 percent of our waste (EPA, 2013) and 12 percent goes to energy recovery (EPA, 2011). Of what we produce before recycling, paper takes the lead at 27 percent, followed by food at 14.6 percent, yard trimmings at 13.5 percent, plastics at 12.8 percent, metals at 9.1 percent, rubber/leather/textiles at 9 percent, wood at 6.2 …show more content…

If you do not have this sticker, your trash will just have to rot on the streets- so sad, too bad. In Germany, they are a lot stricter and willing to recycle. Per surveys, 90 percent of Germans are willing to sort their trash (Tristana Moore, BBC, 2005) into the five separate recycling containers: yellow for packaging (like milk cartons), blue for paper and cardboard, three bins for clear, brown, and green glass, a bio bin for food and yard waste, and black for everything else or if one is just too lazy to sort these themselves.
But wait, there’s more. Denmark regards waste as not just waste, but a resource (Thomas Buch-Anderson, BBC, 2005). Tough government standards have led the Danish to recycle 31 percent of their waste, incinerate 62 percent, and put the remaining 6 percent in landfills. Since Denmark isn’t big enough to have their own recycling plants, they ship it off to other countries and have them properly recycle it. Greece seems to be the worst out of Europe in recycling- a mere one percent. All sorts of recyclables go to their one and only landfill, which is near perhaps one of Europe’s largest recycling facilities. But this plant is at a standstill, after, ironically, it was badly damaged by a mountain of waste.
Rome seems to be at Greece’s level of recycling. Their government is trying quite desperately to fix this. They have ordered to set out 2,500 new bins, since Romans have a hard time to find a bin, and one that is not already full (Jeremy

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