You Can Make A Difference
By Marlon Schumacher
What is Happening to Our Trash?
Every year, about 450 million cubic yards of garbage is thrown away by people in the United States into landfills. Half of that trash can be recycled. As Earth continues to be polluted with garbage, we must soon act to stop the overflowing of landfills and the deaths of animals that have suffered from this waste. There are three major methods that you can perform to help keep our planet a clean and safe place to live.
Reduce
Try to keep the amount of materials you use to a minimum. This will help keep the resources these materials are made of available longer for necessary use in the future. Buying fresh produce at the store is a great example of reducing because there is little to no plastic packaging on the products. Using technology like computers and mobile devices to write your papers is a very effective way to cut the amount of paper you use every day.
Reuse
Many materials that are in good shape can be used again before being thrown away. Donating goods like toys and clothes to others and using cloth bags for shopping instead of plastic or paper bags are great ways to reuse your resources. Some organic materials like wood can also be reused if taken care of properly.
Recycle
Recycling is turning one form of a material into a new form of that material. Many things can be recycled; like paper, plastic, glass, cardboard, and aluminum. Besides aluminum, many other metals can be recycled by melting them down and then solidifying them again. Another type of material that not many people think of recycling is yard waste. As yard waste is collected, it can be put in the soil as compost, which acts like a natural fertilizer. Producing products from recycled materials require much less energy than using new materials because the materials are already completely present in one piece and cleansed.
Video
J175 Recycling PSA
Image and Video Resources
- http://www.maine.gov/spo/recycle/clipart/clipart3.htm
- http://www.teachengineering.org/view_lesson.php?url=collection/cub_/lessons/cub_enveng/cub_enveng_lesson05.xml
- http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/simple-how-to-use-tin-cans-as-63262
- http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/recycling/stories/recycling-symbols-decoded
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHovohAu3D4