The need for recycling - Essay Example

Recycling is the process reusing a product at the end of its useful life and using all or part of it as a raw material of its useful life and using to make another product. Recycling serves a dual purpose of not only saving our environment from unnecessary wastage, but serves as raw materials to create a new product that are environmentally conscious and sustainable. The U.S. EPA estimates that 75 percent of our waste that Americans produce everyday is potentially recyclable. Americans in general are not taking advantage of the opportunities to implement recycling programs as part of a law, and not just on a voluntary basis.

But a main problem that we face is that Recycling costs money. There is an array of costs associated in the implementation of a recycling initiative. There are collection, sorting, transportation, handling, storage and other costs associated with providing quality control and administrative concerns related with a of a large scale recycling program. Capital investments such as equipment and container costs and labor fees. In the long run recycling makes sense not only environmentally but also makes economic sense.

An example can be taken from the city of New Jersey has to pay around a $100 to dump a ton of trash or garbage in one of the local landfills. It costs the city of New Jersey approximately $25 dollars per ton to recycle that same waste. This proves to be a far better option for the city, from both environmental and economic factors, instead of going to the very limited landfill space available. Recycling captures valuable materials that would otherwise be discarded as trash, further contributing to our garbage problem.

It prevents and chemicals such as poisons, fertilizers, chemical waste, lead and mercury from ending up in landfills, which will contaminate the soil and leach poisoning our drinking water, so recycling viewed in the right context recycling really saves money. Areas where savings can be easily captured include: lower manufacturing costs for products made from recycled rather than virgin materials and avoiding landfill/disposal or incineration fees. Despite these advantages over $100 per ton in Passaic County, New Jersey the value of conserving our natural resources and the amount of saved energy / petroleum and contamination are only a few of the beneficial factors of reusing and recycling (Passoiccountyny).

Recycling materials rather than obtaining virgin materials should be our main goal in the usage of resources. We should start avoiding unnecessary disposable items and start avoiding products that do not utilize recycled materials in their products. Only you the customer, through your purchasing power can help drive and push the manufacturers to be more socially responsible. The impact of recycling if implemented fully can truly be beneficial to our society, since we are addicted to disposable cups, containers, and unnecessary packaging in our everyday products.

These and others are some of the factors that contribute to our excessive amount of garbage per capita. We can conclude that although education, commitment and government involvement is necessary to implement a successful recycling initiative one can truly conclude that recycling can really help everyone on our society save money. Works Cited Page Passoicountryny.org. 2009. “Is there still a garbage crisis?” 15 March 2009.