After making my first tentative efforts at recycling
earlier in January 2012 (a work in progress), I continued to investigate the
topic on the internet. What really blew me away was the sheer enormity of the
problem we face in the form of a literal river of trash that is produced every
year, most of which continues to go into landfills. Consider these facts:
Municipal Solid Waste produced each
year ~ a quarter of a billion tons!
MSW that end up in landfills – ~165
million tons!
The average amount of trash produced
by the average person per day - 4.43 pounds
So, with only 34% of the potential
recyclable material actually recovered (2010 EPA figures), we have quite a way
to go if the country is going to get a handle on this growing problem. It’s a problem, you ask? Yes, it is!
Let’s take one form of plastic (PET) as an example.
'Each year, 29
billion plastic water bottles are produced for use in the United States,
according to the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental organization in
Washington, D.C. Manufacturing them requires the equivalent of 17 million barrels of crude oil, so
rising oil and natural gas prices have only exacerbated the high price of
virgin plastic.’(At right is a graphic of some of the waste that was produced in 2010 - Source EPA)
I gleaned the following quote from a site called 'Life's
Little Mysteries' where this problem was discussed more in detail. In the
above paragraph they are referring to PET plastic (also known as #1) that is
used in the manufacture of bottles that hold water and beverages. Currently
there are eleven kinds of plastics that are routinely used in consumer goods
with typically numbers 1 through 7 finding frequent use in kitchens across the
land. And, unlike glass and metal containers (aluminum and tin coated steel)
which are actually sought after, the cost of re-manufacturing plastic is high.
For that reason, much of what we discard into landfills (other than paper and
kitchen scraps) are in reality some form of used plastic container. Think about
29 billion used bottles getting discarded each year! Adding insult to injury, many
of these plastics will take as long as 500 years before they break down! So,
it’s plain to see that any form of recycling of plastic is better than no
recycling at all.
I would ask that everyone who reads this post give some
thought to recycling. I would encourage families, church members and community
leadership to all make this a topic of discussion. Maybe, with a little effort,
we can make a start in cleaning up this country we all call home.
