Francoise Christine east Orange NJ

By Michael Russell

Recycling makes a difference not only for us today, but also for future generations. The fact about natural resources is that not all natural resources are renewable, meaning that when they are gone, they are gone for good. Through recycling, we can make the most of the natural resources we do have, without depleting reserves. As people worldwide are turning more and more to disposable packaging for their products, there is more and more waste being created. Some items, such as plastic, take many years to biodegrade, if they do at all. Without recycling, these products fill up our landfills, taking much needed space and making it uninhabitable.

Through taking used materials and making new packaging and products, the use of natural resources is greatly reduced. For example, the state of Pennsylvania’s newspaper recycling alone has saved an estimated 8.2 million trees!

One great benefit of recycling is that often a better product is created through recycled materials than through fresh natural resources. Tin cans, for example, get more and more refined through the recycling process. A better quality and more valuable, tin is created through recycling.

Recycling not only saves natural resources, but it also saves energy. As the cost of energy continues to rise, recycling is one of the best ways to conserve. Why is this? Well, fossil fuels are one of those non-replenishing resources and recycling takes significantly less energy then creating new materials, when you take into consideration the entire process, from gathering materials to transporting the finished product to the store. Not only that, but since the materials used in recycling have already been processed once, much less energy is required to recycle them.

Here are some practical examples. According to the Department of Environmental Protection, ever pound of recycled steel saves enough energy to light a 60-watt light bulb for a period of 26 hours! What about pop cans? Recycling just one can will save the equivalent amount of energy as that which is needed to light a 100-watt bulb for over three hours! That is truly amazing! Just by recycling one pop can! Imagine what would happen to our energy consumption if we recycled all of our pop cans!

Recycling reduces many of the harmful pollutants in our atmosphere. When industries use less energy, there are fewer greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere, because less fossil fuels are burnt. Also, recycling reduces both air and water pollutants. Recycling helps the environment through removing fewer natural resources from nature.

There are many economic benefits associated with recycling. Recycling plants and services employ many people throughout the world. New products are being designed for recycling plants, which also help the economy. When businesses use recycled materials, they usually cost less, thus helping the business. The less landfills that we use, the more land is open for development and growth of business.

By Nathalie Fiset

Recycling is a very important step in slowing down and eventually stopping wasting of earth’s natural resources. Scientist worldwide are exploring new ways to have better fuel efficiency and lowering pollution emissions. In an attempt to reverse the effects of overusing earth’s valuable natural resources, everyone is called upon. Recycling is a big part of the effort to re-use and limit the use of our resources.

There are many categories of products people can recycle. Paper and its derived products such as carton are now being recycled successfully everyday.

Other resources like metals are being recycled daily. Such metal objects as tin cans, aluminum cans and tinfoil plates. Before recycling metal items, they have to be rinsed and free of food residue as this can cause toxic problems in the recycling process.

Another very useful way of giving a second life to metal products is to use them for storage or making crafts. By creating crafts with our children with used metal objects, we are showing them that many uses can be found and wasting is not the only solution.

Recycling glass has also been around for a while as bottles and jars are getting a second life everyday. Again, all these glass containers need to be rinsed before put in the recycling bin.

Plastic is now part of our lives and is very useful. The quantity of plastic we are discarding everyday is a major problem nowadays. Recycling and reusing plastic containers are the best way to ensure we are not polluting earth. Plastic bags can be also recycled. The easiest way to recycle them is by putting them all in one plastic bag.

Another very important point is to rethink our packaging methods and realize we are overusing wraps and seals unnecessarily. We have to honestly ask ourselves if a brand new music recording requires all this plastic wraps and sealing to conserve its “freshness”. It is more commonly accepted to walk out of a convenient store with a very small item and refuse the small plastic bag offered knowing it will be thrown away a couple of minutes later.

Not everyone is aware that milk cartons and juice cartons are recyclable and can be put in the glass/plastic/metal section of the recycling bin. They need to be rinsed out of their food residue first of course.

Another good way of recycling is to have consignment refunds on tin cans and bottles. Not every American state offers a valuable refund and recycles soda drinks bottles and cans. It is every citizen’s duty and right to ask their governments in power to implement such recycling politics.

If everyone starts recycling and takes environment seriously, we can have hope that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy nature’s resources as we did.