RECYCLING
by: Kayleigh Dahl
What is happening?
Recycling is happening because many people rather toss everything into a garbage can instead of separating the things they are throwing away. Recycling also helps reduce the pollution caused by waste.
Why is it happening?
Recycling is happening because waste has become a huge negative impact on the natural environment making harmful chemicals and gasses released. People are buying more products meaning its going to create more waste. Increasing pollution means more people are going to create more waste. New life style changes , such as eating fast food means we create more waste that isn't biodegradable.
Global Effect
Recycling is essential to our cities and all around the world effecting the people that live in them too. Most of our landfills are filling up REALLY fast like in 2010 most of the landfills were already full in the U.K. Imagine now they are mostly full and there's not really anywhere else to place trash which will effect us in certain ways. Financial issues will happen because making things out of raw materials will cost more than making them out of recycled materials. Recycling uses less energy so preserving natural resources wont be a problem for the future.
SOLUTIONS
The Environment Agency aim to:
Continuously improve air, land and water quality.
Encourage conservation efforts regarding animals, plants and natural resources.
Implement pollution control efforts.
Reduce the amount of household waste by encouraging people to reuse and recycle.
Improve standards of waste disposal.
Educate and inform people about environmental issues.
FACTS
- Up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in the dustbin could be recycled.
- The unreleased energy contained in the average dustbin each year could power a television for 5,000 hours.
- The largest lake in the Britain could be filled with rubbish from the UK in 8 months.
- On average, 16% of the money you spend on a product pays for the packaging, which ultimately ends up as rubbish.
- As much as 50% of waste in the average dustbin could be composted.
- Up to 80% of a vehicle can be recycled.
- 9 out of 10 people would recycle more if it were made easier.
Aluminum
- 24 million tonnes of aluminium is produced annually, 51,000 tonnes of which ends up as packaging in the UK.
- If all cans in the UK and US were recycled, we would need 14 million fewer dustbins.
Glass
- The largest glass furnace produces over 1 million glass bottles and jars per day.
- Glass is 100% recyclable and can be used again and again.
- Glass that is thrown away and ends up in landfills will never decompose.
Plastic
- Most families throw away about 40kg of plastic per year, which could otherwise be recycled.
- The use of plastic in Western Europe is growing about 4% each year.
- Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose.