Recycling

Recycling

Andrew Mendez

English 101

Professor Hoffman

May 18, 2014


Recycling

"DID YOU TAKE OUT THE TRASH?" How many times have you or someone you know been told this by family members throughout your lives? Our parents asked us that question without a Probably more than most of us care to remember. Well, one day many of you will have children and most of the basics of parenting will remain the same. However, one may be changing. Instead of asking if your "little angel" took out the trash, you will probably be asking if he or she sorted the trash. If you are wondering what I mean by sort the trash, listen to these staggering environmental statistics: In one year, the United States produces 200 million tons of garbage, and that only includes what is legally dumped. Really, how much in 200M tons? It's enough metal to build four million automobiles, enough wood to construct 2 million homes, enough paper to publish all the daily newspapers in the country, enough aluminum to rebuild the entire American air fleet 100 times, and would fill 15 million garbage trucks.
Trash. We're drowning in it. Unless Americans take a more responsible role in recycling today, we are going to all be dead tomorrow! So, sort your trash. It is easy to recycle most household products and it will only take a little of your time. What’s the deal with recycling? It is such an important environmental issue, and yet it seems as though there isn’t much done about it as a community. If you ask a random person on the street what they think about recycling, nine times out of ten they’ll smirk and tell you “It’s good for the environment.” But, really, they don’t understand the significance of recycling. Recycling is plainly returning an item back to its original condition so that it can be reused. As astonishing as it may seem, the average american citizen disposes of 4.6 pounds of waste per day, which would equate to more than a thousand six hundred pounds per year. Surprising,...

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