"According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American produces about 4.4 pounds (2 kg) of garbage a day, or a total of 29 pounds (13 kg) per week and 1,600 pounds (726 kg) a year. This only takes into consideration the average household member and does not count industrial waste or commercial trash. If this sounds like a staggering number, you would be surprised to know that Americans are not the number one producers of garbage in the world. In Mexico, the average household produces 30 percent more garbage than in America."
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What Should I Recycle?
Things that should be added to Recycling bins and kept out of landfills:
Batteries, Cell Phones, Computers, car batteries, motor oil, paint, etc. This type of waste is a big deal. It definitely needs to be recycled because they are highly toxic, and if they are put into landfills, can cause big damage.
Paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, steel, and copper.
Paper means all paper items, such as phone books, magazines, paper towel rolls, cardboard boxes, etc.
One thing that you need to know is that you need to keep your paper products separate from everything else, such as peanut butter jars, because paper products cannot be recycled when they’ve come into contact with moisture, which is why pizza boxes are not allowed to be recycled.
Deodorant and chapstic containers can also be recycled as well, placing them alongside the plastic.
Any canned items can be added to your recycle bin.
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Why Should I Care?
When someone brings up the idea of recycling or saving the planet, a great many people react with "Why Should I Care?" or "Why Should I Recycle?"
The benefits of recycling can have a tremendous effect on our planet. "Well why should I care about the planet? I'm not going to be here long."
That is a terrible way of looking at things. We need to preserve and keep the earth healthy and beautiful for our children, for our children's children, for all future generations of human and animals.
The Environmental Protection Agency reports the United States produces approximately 220 million tons of garbage each year. Considering the United States is about 4% of the worlds population, one can estimate the entire planet's yearly production of garbage to be around 5 billion tons.
Imagine a world where nobody recycled. 5 billion tons of garbage a year, laying around in our rain-forests, our towns or cities, landfills reaching their capacity and pouring onto the streets. Our earth would be ruined.
Every little bit of recycling counts. Every effort makes a dent, even if you are just making sure to recycle paper every morning, you are keeping something that can be recycled out of the landfill, and making sure it gets reused.
"Recycling takes up too much of my time. It's far too time consuming."
Many people feel this way, however, it is not true. You need to focus on adding recycling as a daily part of your day, until you don't even realize that you're putting any extra effort into keeping the world a better place.
"Will Recycling cost me anything?"
It depends on how far you want to go to help. If you just plan on recycling at home, it will usually not need to cost you any money. It may cost you time however, because you usually need to wash, dry, and set aside the items you wish to recycle, but like I said, if you just focus on putting this as part of your daily routine, it will not feel like you've wasted any time of your day at all. It also helps to know that you are saving the planet just by spending an extra hour or so a day.
"Why should I do something now about recycling?
Because the biggest most powerful changes lie in the habits and attitudes of ordinary people. Becoming environmentally aware and responsible is no longer an option for the few. If we want to save our world from an environmental catastrophe we must all act now and together. This is the only way to send a clear message to politicians and decision makers that we need change"
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The Big E and Recycling
Recently, I attended the Big E. The Big E is The Eastern States Exposition, which is a large fair in Massachusetts. It is the sixth largest agricultural fair in the county, and the largest in New England. This fair draws large crowds, people from all over the country, who want to walk the 175 acre fair, eat the food, and participate in any of the other types of entertainment. Due to the immense amount of people (nearly one million people!), you can just imagine how much littering, pollution from smoke, and other types of environmentally harming behavior that occurs at this one event.
In previous years, The Big E did not have any means of recycling the many cans and containers for food. There were just large trash cans placed everywhere.
However, this year, The Big E has tried to become a little more green and more friendly, placing recycling bins at certain areas, along with the garbage cans, giving a people a chance to recycle if they wish.
They have a bit of work to do, because there are still issues in the bathrooms and in restaurants.
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Here is this image I found from www.TheNewEcologist.com. It really shows the true impact of Recycling.
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Did You Know?
Smoking Tobacco and Cigarettes aids in the destruction of trees?
According to both www.ucanbreathe.com and www.tobaccoleaf.org, since the late 1800's, far before humanity became concerned with the environment, the tobacco industry has been reported to use at least 1% of all trees.
Nearly 12.5 million acres of forest are destroyed each year to provide trees to cure tobacco. That's about a tree every two weeks for the average smoker.
That means tobacco kills more humans and trees than fires ever would.
You can read more about Tobacco and it's effects on trees, here.
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Easy Ways to Help Save the Earth
One website that I hold dear to me, that has excellent advice is http://www.50waystohelp.com/
I first discovered this website when doing research on how to become an environmentalist, and how to help save the earth. I was young and really had no ideas on how to make an impact. Could one person really make an impact? The answer is yes, no matter how small your impact may be, it is still one more step in the correct direction, one more step to saving our Mother Earth.
Some of my favorite pieces of advice that this website gives are;
-Go Vegetarian once a week.
-Use both sides of the paper
-Shower with your partner
and
-Use rechargeable batteries.
Not only are these pieces of advice given, but reasons for them are mentioned as well. The advice is short, and concise. Sure to not lose attention of those who are less inclined to reading.
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