Recycling
One of the best, easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint on the earth is to focus on recycling. Many different things can be recycled, though with varying levels of success. In some cases, it seems to take more money and energy to recycle an item than it would to make the item from scratch. In that case, the benefit of recycling is purely a selfish one—it feels good to believe yourself to be responsible and to recycle. However, aluminum cans have a net gain when recycled. It costs less and uses less energy to make new cans from the recycled ones. So what is the benefit of recycling and can we do something better?
It’s difficult to say if we can do anything better, especially since it is so easy to be utterly entranced and seduced by the concept of recycling. And why not? The basic concept of reusing all our items seems to work on an intuitive level. If we reuse our plastic and our paper, we won’t make more. If we don’t make more, we aren’t expending money and energy and other resources. At the same time, the items that are recycled will not be cluttering land fills. This is so attractive and intuitive, it is illegal in some areas to not recycle, and people who refuse to use the recycle bins are looked down on as wasteful jerks. But it is worth asking what good it does, what resources it saves, and who, exactly, it benefits. In some municipalities, it costs more tax payers money than it ultimately saves. .
Related Information
Air Polution
In urban areas, people tend to produce a lot of waste that pollutes land and air.
National Park Preservation
National park preservation is critical for the nation’s health and way of life.
