Repeat after me:
"I pledge to find out what materials I can and cannot recycle in ___________ (your community's name).I pledge to lead by example in my community by recycling. I pledge to recycle batteries, cell phones, and other electronic waste. I pledge to email my elected officials and ask them to increase funding for recycling efforts in my community. I pledge to tell five friends that recycling is the EASIEST thing they can do to slow global warming. "
Yet much remains to be done. Many families issued recycling bins chose to ignore the bins and drop everything into their garbage pickup, which is destined for landfill. Aluminum, selling at 50 cents per pound, flows into landfill in thousands of tons, requiring energy intensive and highly polluting smelting to replace from fresh ores. Public schools usually fail to recycle the aluminum or plastic of the containers sold in their drink vending machines. While newsprint recycling rates have shot up in recent years, every ton of newspaper or coardboard sent to landfill requires a ton of pine tree to replace.
It is relatively easy to put a small recycling center into your basement or even a closet- you will be surprised that half your weekly trash can be recycled! If you have a garden, fill a lidded container with potato peels and overripe fruit for your garden compost. If you do your own oil changes, Please Please be careful with that used oil and store it for a yearly trip to an oil recycling facility! One quart of used oil poured into one million quarts of clean water makes the clean water undrinkable. Politically speaking, if you fail to recycle you are not hurting Al Gore, you are hurting your own grandchildren. Visit Americarecyclesday.org for more ideas. Please, do not just read this, say "how nice", and forget about it. Build a habit and stay with it. Please make recycling a part of your life!
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 6
I recycle everything that I possibly can, and try to get all of my friends to as well.
I actually wrote out a list for a couple of my friends, and told them, I am going to call the county for them, to get them recycle buckets, since they didn't have any. So that they can start recyling everything they can. They drink A LOT of beer, in bottles and cans, so they put a lot of waste to the curb, that could be getting recycled instead..
I also have been trying to get my husband to build me a compost box, so that I can start composting. But he thinks it will stink and cause bugs. Altho, I also have to go to the trash can after him to retrieve the recycleables, and place them in my bag to later go out to the bins...
I only get paper now at the grocery stores, instead of plastic. Except for places that don't have paper. Then I put my recycle stuff in those paper bags under the kitchen sink, untill I am ready to take them out!
Most localities are only able to recycle plastics #1 and #2, so where you live is no worse than normal. Aluminum should never be put in landfill, it is worth too much to our nation financially.