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Recycling: The Garbage-Go-Round
| Article
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16312 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1989 |
1,424 Words |
| Author
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Robert J. Rand
Robert J. Rand is a free-lance writer and publications
consultant living in Riverdale, Maryland. He graduated from
the University of Maine with a B.A. in wildlife ecology. |
A well-dressed young woman approached her host near the end of the party and asked if he intended to recycle the numerous soda cans discarded during the evening. Somewhat surprised, has said no. Then he watched, even more surprised, as she began pulling the cans from the garbage to recycle them herself.
A recycling bug has recently bitten people throughout America. The most obvious symptom: an interest in household garbage, accompanied by a desire to rescue newspapers, bottles and cans from the trash bin and give them an extended life. This growing interest is appropriate and timely. In recent years, the volume of garbage annually produced by Americans has increased 80 percent, rising from 87.5 million tons in 1960 to 157.7 million tons in 1986; it is expected to increase another 22 percent, growing to 192.7 million tons by the year 2000. Finding environmentally sound and inexpensive approaches to trash disposal has become more and more difficult.
In an era when media stories of widespread environmental problems such as oil spills, the greenhouse effect, toxic waste poisoning, and ocean dumping compete with other news for our attention, recycling stands out as a refreshingly simple and rewarding activity that directly helps conserve environmental and energy resources.
Further, as our nation's landfills are beginning to reach capacity and closing, recycling has received intense interest from both public officials and taxpayers as the most consumer-oriented approach to defray spiraling solid water disposal costs. Americans are producing more garbage than municipalities can dispose of easily or cheaply.
Recycling is the most ecologically responsible approach to trash management. In promoting the reuse of recyclable materials, both renewable substances (such as wood for paper fiber) and non-renewable (such as petroleum and metal ores) are conserved. Because the manufacture of glass, aluminum, and paper from recycled materials requires less energy than making them from virgin materials, energy is also conserved. For example, use of recycled paper fiber instead of virgin fiber for making paper products yields energy savings of 52 percent for newsprint and 74 percent for tissue and towel products. Further, recycling helps reduce air and water pollution, since some manufacturing processes, such as those for glass, generate less pollutants when recycled materials are used.
Recycling removes significant volumes from the waste stream.
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