Essay About Saving Resources Through Recycling

Since the 20th century, the increase in the production of human waste has encouraged rapid steps to be taken in developing different methods of recycling. The disposal of products being consumed such as electronic, plastic, and garbage are filling up of landfills, creating health hazards all around the world. Recycling has many benefits because it reduces the need of landfill sites used to dispose trash, and greatly reduces the amount of pollution excreted. Recycling also conserves energy, and helps save resources that are scarce around the world.

Recycling creates jobs which is important for our economy. Recycling is in no way a new concept and was in existence thousands of years ago. Recycling’s beginning efforts were very small. It involved few groups of people who collected waste to be recycled for profit. Initio attemps of f recycling, there was a person who usually went around and collected waste from households to sell for profit. According to my reading of the Industrial Revolution that took place in the mid nineteenth century started the pollution and refuse problem because of the surplus of metals and textiles.

Individuals for the first time had the opportunity to throw things away. But in the 1930-40s, the economic depression that came after World War II, forced people to consider reusing items previously used. There was a lack of resources and money due to the war effort. This post World War II era saw how plastic and households’ everyday items were being made in large scale factories by companies. To this day, the so called “throw away” society was born, mainly because it was a whole lot cheaper to dispose of materials and objects than to reuse them or recycle them. When the first Earth day was marked on April 22, 1970, it affected the way people viewed recycling.

Over the future years, new recycling requirements and schemes began to appear with bottles and paper. To this current day, there are still recycling programs being created. One such form of recycling is curbside recycling which is a home service, such as a trash service, that also picks up recycling at the same time. (?). For materials to be reused and resold on the market for profit, recycling materials first need to be collected from homes and businesses, and then are transported to a Materials Recycling Facility.

Once at the facility, the workers then process all the materials in order to increase their value. They separate all the materials into different sections, such as glass being separated by color, plastics to be transported to pallet (?), and paper being baled. Depending on the types of equipment that are available, materials may be cleaned and reduced in large groups or volumes. PCMs are mixed materials, meaning that they can sometimes be contaminated with toxic or nontoxic residue (“RECYCLING”). Depending on the types of equipment that is available, materials may be cleaned and reduced in large groups or volumes. Once all the items go through this large process, the items are then able to be reused and sold back into the market. One major problem in the world is that the increasing amount of garbage in landfills is causing environmental problems.

For more than 100 years, countries around the world put its unwanted waste in landfills, and in Europe, there are at least 500,000 of these sites (Jones). Although most sites are “sanitary” landfills, which are equipped with modern environmental protection and gas collection systems. Thankfully, most of these landfill sites avoid environmental pollution and the release of greenhouse gas. What about the other “non-sanitary” sites though? Well, these other landfill sites do not have any protection mechanisms for the environment, therefore releasing all these toxins. The waste dumps can cause various environmental problems, from the pollution of health, soil, and water (Jones).

By recycling everyday objects, household, and business items, it avoids filling up these landfills. Landfills cause harm to our environment and can cause a variety of health hazards to humans all around the country. Energy is being consumed at an extraordinary rate in our current day. Our demand for energy is increasing every day since countries are becoming more modernized and being introduced to the new wonders of technology. Recycling saves energy because the products that are being recycled usually require less processing to turn them back into usable materials. The energy that is saved depends on the material though.

For example, recycled aluminum saves more energy than recycling glass. Aluminum is produced from aluminum ore, and in order to process it uses a huge amount of heat and electricity (American Geosciences). Even though cans are made out of aluminum, none of this processing is done with them because they can simply be cleaned and re-melted. In 2017, 3.7 million tons of aluminum were produced by recycling in the US, which saved enough energy to provide electricity for 7.7 million homes (American Geosciences). Making glass does not use much energy at all because the only energy-intensive action involved is getting the heat to melt the mineral mixture. It still uses energy, and in return it does not save nearly as much energy as producing aluminum (American Geosciences). Other than just helping the environment, recycling can also help the economy by creating jobs around the world.

Around the world, an estimated amount of 15-20 million collectors earn a living while scavenging trash (Ecocycle). Many local, national, and international businesses and industries depend on recyclable materials, so they need capable workers to complete these jobs. One job is the collection, processing, and preparing of the recyclable materials. Those who work in these jobs, pick up discarded materials and then bring it to processing facilities. This is where the materials are sorted and prepared to sell to markets for profit. (tie in introThe need for recycling has become more evident over time, acts from past generations.histroic or long term damage has made it more urgent Previously, the impact of trash and landfills was not proven.

Today, it is understood that dumping trash has detrimental effects to the environment. It is from these past experiences that the concept of recycling was created. Changing our trash into something useful has been proven to be one way to protect our environment. There have been even more increased efforts through recycling to stop future damage.

Although we are still exploring options to improve our efficiency and recreate old items, many more organizations are now involved in correcting the problem. Over time, it is anticipated that more aggressive efforts will be discovered to make an even bigger impact. It will be the responsibility of all of us to support these efforts and make our own changes.

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