Why Do We Need To Recycle Now More than Ever? - Part 2

Advantages of Recycling Waste

Recycling waste has a number of benefits. Some of them are mentioned below.

a. Recycling Gives a Boost to Our Economy

Many recycling programs and activities are involved in supplying companies with the required raw materials. If more raw materials are supplied, more products are formed. The formation of a larger number products ultimately leads to economic growth. Therefore, economic activities can be promoted by recycling waste. Increased economic activities would obviously boost any country’s economy.

b. Increases Energy Preservation

Energy wastage and exploitation are major issues in today’s world. This problem can be minimized by recycling, as it saves enormous amounts of energy. For instance, purification of aluminium requires a lot of energy and this amount can be saved if aluminium cans are recycled. Another way in which recycling helps to save energy, as well as energy resources, is generating electricity from waste products. Examples include power-stations using waste items as fuel or biogas production.

c. Reduces Area Covered by Garbage Dumps

Huge amounts of waste are dumped in landfill sites. Resultantly, vast areas of land have been converted into garbage dumps. It is obvious that land which is converted into a trash dump cannot be used for any productive activity. Recycling also helps in preserving and protecting vacant areas from becoming landfill sites. Furthermore, the areas which have become sites for dumping trash can be reduced by recycling too. This means that more land is available for other economically or environmentally beneficial activities. These can include reforestation, afforestation, cultivation and industrial activities.

d. Recycling Plays a Role in Wildlife Conservation

Continual urbanization and industrial development have led to the production of undesired effects on wildlife. Wildlife conservation is one of the most important issues nowadays. Recycling can be crucial in saving wildlife too. For example, if recycled items are brought into use, the ever increasing demands which lead to the destruction of forests or wetlands would decrease. This, in turn, would help in protecting wildlife as these areas are habitats for numerous organisms.

e. Leads to Increased Demand

In addition, another benefit that comes along with recycling, as well as the use of recycled products, is that the demand for recycled items (like raw materials for certain industries) increases greatly. This leads to more recycling in order to fulfil this increased demand. As a result, the advantages accompanied by recycling such as clearing of landfill sites and conservation of wildlife conservation are amplified as well.

To sum it all up, we should always recycle waste as this is a beneficial activity which brings a plethora of advantages along with it. Economic boosts, reduction of landfill sites and preservation of energy are some of the many pros that accompany this activity. On the other hand, if waste is not recycled, it can damage the environment in numerous ways.

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A Bleak and Uncertain Future

We’ve all seen what climate change has done to our planet. From Supertyphoon Haiyan (the first of its kind) that had the power of a small tactical nuclear bomb that killed over 10,000 Filipinos in her wake; to the predicted hottest ever El Niño event that will hit the Pacific region this summer. In the UK, we’ve had continual hottest months on record and more frequent floods. If there’s anything certain about planet Earth, it’s that it has a very disturbing future, where billions of people could suffer. The use of crude oil as a prime source of energy, though indispensable, is equally detrimental to the destruction of our atmosphere; there are coal power plants which are now affecting the health of 17 million children in China!

But the most surprising contributor to global warming was domesticated livestock for global food production. Scientists estimate that they produce 20 – 40 trillion tons of methane each year from their manure and we never even realized it. As a result, it spiked the warming of our planet to now uncontrollable levels that people – even the famous Hollywood superstar, Arnold Schwarzenegger – openly spoke out that we, as a species, should start considering having a vegan diet in order to cut down on methane emissions which destroys our atmosphere.

Help from Above

Recently A UK-based startup called BioCarbon Engineering reported that they could modify drones (quadcopters) to “carpet bomb” a designated area with trees – lots of trees – around 1 billion trees a year! This idea could work! From elementary biology, we learned that trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and breathe out precious oxygen that is otherwise known as air. So, let’s just imagine that the UK’s Ministry of Defense, NATO and the US Department of Defense decided that this is a worthy investment to save the planet and pour funding into this startup’s globally appealing project, we could see trees being planted within the next decade! Fifty years later, future generations will enjoy the benefits of a cooler climate and a better world, which is what we’ve been aiming for since the last century.

Can we still Save our Planet?

The ideas presented above might just work and we could see more green on our planet as time goes by. Recycling waste, plus planting 1 billion trees a year would help heal the planet in less than a century, surely if we damaged this planet in less than 50 years, we can restore it to its pristine condition in the same time frame or less. However, we need to do with 100% cooperation and no politics or bureaucracy included in the planning and implementation process; otherwise it will not work and we go back to the drawing board and try to figure things out.

That would be a tremendous waste of time and bad decision-making that will cause billions of people to suffer. Only by working together can we survive. If this is the test of fate, then we’ve surely failed it. Now is the time to unify against a common enemy – our reckless selves. We need to educate ourselves and discipline ourselves in handling our trash and make sure it does not go to landfill, but into recycling plants.