What is recycling to you? Probably reusing the products you use right? Yes, but what benefits does it have, and why it must be mandatory by now. Let’s ponder. We humans, advanced in everything made new inventions invented paper, plastic, and a lot of waste.
Where does the waste go?
Well nowhere, it isn’t going anywhere and we are producing more day by day, we humans are endangering all other species. Global plastic production is around 300 million metric tons per year and it isn’t going anywhere. Our carbon footprint has increased over the years due to the big industries we have. According to IPCC’s document published in august 2021 we Earthians are in ‘code red for humanity’ that means we have ZERO years left to protect our climate and save us from the irreversible damage we all have been doing to our planet.
How our actions are destroying us?
How are we all potentially harming our future generations? The amount of plastic products we use in daily life is insane. Plastics take hundreds of years to decompose plastic shopping bags that we use excessively never decompose so it stays with us. The waste we put into landfills produces greenhouse gases like methane, carbon dioxide that further adds to polluting our environment. The paper we use and waste never really goes anywhere and we keep on cutting more trees to produce more hence causing deforestation leaving wild animals homeless. We are producing million tons of waste every year and our big industries releasing their waste into oceans are causing hazards to marine life as well. According to statistics collected plastic bags take up to 20 years to decompose, other plastic products that have polypropylene take up to 500 years.
Solutions to our Waste problem
The only solution is RECYCLING. The paper you waste must be recycled, the plastic we leave in our environment we can recycle into other products to use again. By using biodegradable products we can help the waste decompose on its own. It’s all about the choices. But sadly 75% of waste is never really recycled. All of the waste products of our industries are never decomposed properly or recycled.
Benefits of Recycling
Recycling helps the economy, how? It reduces the cost of making the products from scratch. Reduces labor for the extra work. Especially benefitting 3rd world countries in reducing their cost on remaking products such as paper from wood and also by increasing jobs in the recycling industry. It helps you restore your forests and let trees live. Imagine saving up trees by recycling paper that otherwise would have been cut to make paper. It helps reduce the plastic that can take up to 500 years to decompose to not let go in the oceans or land but be converted into another product of use.
Other measures to help the Environment
- Shift to biodegradable products,
- eliminate plastic bags,
- putting recycling bins wherever possible.
- Submit waste to recycle on our own.
- Recycling does not necessarily need you to transform waste but also produce less by reusing your items for different purposes and living a sustainable life.
Conclusion
With only 6% of waste getting recycled in the USA and similar conditions being present in other countries. We are already late but, better late than never. We can still start using sustainable products, produce less waste, recycle most of our household items. In fact, must make recycling compulsory so that we let our Earth breathe and stop doing irrecoverable damage that our future generations would be facing, and who knows if we leave proper conditions behind on Earth for humans to survive.