Should We Be Recyling?

Recycling has long been hailed as an important practice contributing to the fight against the overwhelming amount of waste humans have accumulated. In fact, the phrase “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is taught since elementary school, reminding everyone to lower their environmental impact. Despite its reputation as a solution to the immense amount of waste, recycling is not the complete miracle solution people believe it to be. Many wonder if it is even worth it to recycle. The potential drawbacks to recycling cause hesitation among those wanting to recycle to improve the environment.

The Only Option

It is a well-known fact that trash that isn’t recycled is disposed of in environmentally-damaging ways. Landfills hold profuse amounts of trash that can leak chemicals into the ground, water, or air. Pollution in various forms occurs, as landfill trash has nowhere to go but into the environment as it breaks down.

Trash that isn’t disposed of in landfills often gets dumped in the ocean or incinerated. These methods too pose a serious problem, as incineration creates smog that pollutes the air and dumping in the ocean causes water pollution. The surrounding populations of organisms in the water are greatly affected by the pollution, as fish die by ingesting plastic and chemicals released into the water make it difficult for plant life underwater to carry out normal functions. The smog created from incinerating trash can block sunlight, causing plants and other organisms to not grow properly. It can also cause acid rain, and overall damage organisms dependent on air. With few alternatives that are not outright environmentally-damaging, recycling is one of the only ways to prevent some trash from polluting the environment.

What about reusing trash for other purposes? Every minute, 3,825 tons of waste is produced and collected on Earth. The incredibly large amount of waste produced daily around the world makes it impossible to reuse all of it for other purposes. Even then, only so much of the trash can be used for other purposes.

For example, excess hair from hair salons can be felted together and reused as oil-absorbing hair mats for use during oil spills. The organization Matter of Trust collects donations of hair to be used for such purposes. Hair can be reused for another purpose in this way and avoid the landfill.

People have also begun to weave plastic bags together to form water-resistant mats for homeless people to sleep on. Many volunteers have banded together to donate their time to weave these mats. Plastic bags are considered too stretchy to be recycled by recycling facilities, as these bags get stuck in the equipment. Reusing plastic bags as sleeping mats for the homeless is an environmentally-beneficial way to reuse trash.

However, many products cannot be reused for various reasons. Products that are contaminated in some way pose a risk to those using products made from this material. Some materials also lack the structural integrity to be reused before going through the recycling process. Many eco-friendly, sustainable bricks for construction are made with some mixture of recycled plastic, as many plastic products before recycling are not strong enough. However, recycled plastic must be determined to be able to be recycled in a cost-effective, time-efficient way, so a lot of plastic does not meet these qualifications. Plastic bags, styrofoam, and soft plastics that retain their shape after being squeezed cannot be recycled. Composite plastics made of various different types of plastics are difficult to recycle with standard recycling processes due to its components requiring different breakdown methods. Polycarbonate also requires specialized equipment to recycle. Due to the various difficulties in recycling plastic, even reusing plastic in a larger scale beyond arts and crafts is difficult.

It is impossible to deny that recycling is one of the only methods of preventing some trash from ending up in the landfill. Reducing waste does not completely stop waste from being produced, though it is an environmentally-beneficial practice. Reusing waste is also helpful in reducing the amount of waste ending up in a landfill or ocean. However, even with the rise of biodegradable products and environmentally-friendly products, enormous amounts of waste continue to be produced. Recycling, though not perfect, still slows the damage to our environment from waste disposal.

Concerns

It is undeniable that recycled materials are of lower quality and value than new materials. Not only are new materials cheaper to produce, but the quality of new materials is better because there is little chance of contaminants compromising the structural integrity of recycled materials. Recycling materials is often inefficient and time-consuming, as people throw non-recyclable materials into their recycling bins, which causes contamination of the materials. Specialized equipment to remove contamination increases costs and time burdens of recycling, which contributes to its inefficiency. Due to the long amount of time needed to remove this contamination, fewer recyclable materials are recycled than facilities have potential for, which increases the amount of waste that could not be saved from the landfill or oceans.

Recycling takes its own burden on the environment in the form of the chemicals used, the high water and energy usage, and the pollutants released during the recycling process. To operate the necessary machinery to break down the materials, remove contamination, and make the materials ready for reuse takes substantial amounts of energy and water. This amount is further increased when considering the costs of transporting materials. Due to the enormous time burden of sorting non-recyclables from recyclables before recycling to lessen contamination, some facilities ship materials to foreign countries. This transport raises costs and resource use,, which further damages the environment. Recycling also takes a toll to the environment with the pollutants it releases during the breakdown of materials, along with the chemicals used to facilitate this breakdown.

Better Than Nothing

Disregarding the environmental benefit, recycling still has a positive impact on the world as facilities create jobs for the community and people. This is furthered by the awareness aspect of recycling. Many people are so far removed from the realities of waste when they throw something out that they forget about their environmental impact. Simply seeing a recycling can reminds people to be environmentally conscious and to promote environmental consciousness to others. Companies are also more encouraged to make environmentally friendly products when people are aware of their environmental impact.

Recap

Recycling can be considered one of the only methods to reduce waste from ending up in a landfill, ocean, or incinerator. Waste that is disposed of without recycling causes environmental harm, as air pollution occurs from contaminants, water pollution occurs from trash disturbing the underwater ecosystem, and land pollution occurs from chemicals leaching into the ground and harming nearby plants and animals. Reusing materials is possible, with products such as hair for oil spills and plastic bags for homeless sleeping mats. However, many materials can’t be reused due to contamination or lack of structural integrity. Reducing individual waste also won’t necessarily stop the total amount of waste heading towards environmentally-damaging disposal due to the sheer amount of people in the world.

Recycling is one of the only methods to significantly reduce the amount of waste if done to its fullest potential. However, recycling raises many concerns for its high burden of cost, energy/water usage, etc. Recyclable materials also are not of the same quality as new materials that are cheaper, so companies often wish to forgo the environmentally-friendly route. Despite all this, recycling is better than letting all waste be disposed of and harm the environment. New materials that are extracted in harmful ways can be forgone and greenhouse gasses can be reduced through recycling. Recycling also creates jobs and promotes awareness of the environmental burden of waste. Overall, recycling is a practice people should partake in more. Development of new recycling methods to increase efficiency can prevent even more waste from going to the landfill.

References

1. SmartAsset 2. Boise State University 3. Recycle Technologies 4. DevelopmentalAid 5. SL Recycling