Thinking Beyond Recycling - Essay Example

Thinking beyond recycling Before discussing the reasons as to why we need to think beyond recycling as a solution to garbage problem, it would be better to understand the term recycling and how it came about. Recycling involves material reprocessing in new products. The idea of recycling arose due to shortage of raw materials for making consumer products ((Short, 2004, 21). Recycling has been done in many parts of the world as a solution to environment problem management. It has helped in cut down of raw material consumption and energy usage. It has also helped in proper use of waste materials which have other potential usage. Recycling has been used by many modern environmentalists as a tool of waste management (Short, 2004, 21). However despite all the benefits that are associated with recycling I would wish to say that this is not the best idea to end the problem of garbage disposal. Understand the behavior of human beings we can not only rely on recycling as the measure to manage garbage disposal. People will keep consuming from time to time which has the implication the garbage disposal will continue to be there so long as what to be consumed is available (Short, 2004, 22). The reason as to why am saying this is because; recycling has lowered the cost of production in many manufacturing plants. This has on the other hand resulted to low cost of consumer products which are packed with non-degradable materials. The outcome of this is that, more and more garbage continues to be disposed instead of getting reduced (Rogers, 2002, 60). Every economy in the world is singing the music of sustainable development. I feel that having sustainable development will not only be achieved by recycling the waste materials. We need to use the already available raw materials in a manner that will ensure their existence without getting exhausted. Many business enterprises have taken the advantage of recycling as it is a cheap way of making consumer goods (Pellow, 2000, 230). The cheaper products which are made through recycling are lasting for short time before they lose their value. This has increased the rate of consumption since for an individual satisfy his needs or wants must use plenty of that product. This in turn has led to increased garbage disposal as the waste from recycled products is also increasing. As the garbage disposal increase most county councils are reluctant to transport these materials to the respective places for recycling. Therefore, for economies to achieve sustainable development, the stakeholders should change their mind from cheap recycled products to long lasting products which do not exhausted immediately. By doing this it will have solved garbage disposal problem as less of it will be disposed and also train people to economize the little resources available (Rogers, 2002, 60). We have had the idea that recycled products utilize the available resources effectively and optimally, but I would say that this is not the case. We have failed to factor in other costs which are incurred during the process of collecting the materials from garbage disposal sites. Techniques adopted in recycling waste materials utilize a lot of energy for processing and transportation (Pellow, 2000, 232). Other techniques have been found to use a lot of water. For this matter, it is rarely for recycling to yield products which have equivalent value of the resources which have been employed from the time period the resources where collected from garbage side to the time the final product is produced. For this matter it has been proved that recycled materials may cost more financially compared to the natural materials. Although it is not universal, it has been found to commonly occur in many situations (Short, 2004, 23). The collection methods used for waste products from the garbage sites add another problem to our environment. Garbage collection in separated places involves vehicle movements which have led to increase of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This may also lead to failure of collection of advanced materials. The biological treatment of separately mixed waste materials may fail to be done and thus leading to poor quality recycled products (Short, 2004, 23). There has been cases where recycling have had negative consequences on human health and environment. From the wall street journal it was cited that recycling of mercury in America resulted to unintended consequences to the environment. The article traces recovered mercury from recycling programs in unite states into mercury sale for mining alluvial activities in Brazil. During the 2006 autumn, there was a burn of liquid mercury exports by the European Union, and life-cycle analysis before to the recycling programs institutions so that they may cut down the unintended risks that could occur to the environment (Rogers, 2002, 62). In some situations, recycling some of the materials is more expensive if compared with the landfill disposal if the externalities are put into consideration. The opportunity cost of recycling the waste materials outweigh the benefits for the recycling the materials and other benefits to the environment. Some o the materials which are taken to be recycled could be useful in other areas such as green gardens (Short, 2004, 24). In United States, the government has mandated that in recycling process more resources are utilized than it may be saved. It is clear that most governments and economies encourage recycling so as to save the scarce available resources. In circumstances where actually recycling saves resources, it is reflected by the prices of the products of the recycled materials at the market. These in cases such as of large aluminum scrap metals and thus government need not to mandate the issue (Hardin, 2005, 44). In United States, every year, there are more than 10 landfill space in square miles is filled with waste materials. When those lands are filled with garbage, the land turns to be a park which has other benefits such as tourism, air purification, increased humidity in the atmosphere that raises the amount of rainfalls, and control of soil erosion (Rogers, 2002, 645). This in United States has been found to be of more benefits than it could have yielded if the materials were recycled. In addition, the garbage have also helped to improve the environmental conditions were the land was bear and subject to other worse environmewntal conditions. Therefore, farmers take this advantage of garbage disposal to plant more trees than they cut down. The idea here of thinking beyond recycling is seen applicable and should be encouraged to those desert regions, where the county councils should dispose garbage. This will help to change the desert places to fertile lands that can have other alternative uses such as lumbering (Hardin, 2005, 45). Those towns which have improved their landfills have now taken the opportunity to import garbage from other town count councils. They have invested in this area as it provides job opportunities and tax revenue. Their landfills have designed in a manner that they do not cause any harm to the environment as the old land fills have been impacting to the environment. The garbage disposed in their landfills is alternative used rather than recycling the waste materials (Hardin, 2005, 46). It is well known that, prevention is better than cure. Prevention of accumulating garbage will serve better to treat our environment than recycling the waste. Prevention is also cheaper when it comes to rural and urban environment treatment (Miller, 2006, 23). The best example to solve this problem is taking personal responsibility of your own garbage. In many town counties councils, the ethics of recycling has helped stem garbage flow into costly landfills. However, this is only part of the solution to the management of waste in many countries. Recycling as a solution remains to be a strategic goal aimed at management of problems of waste disposal, but this must diminish with time. This will be the case id we all appreciate the beauty of prevention (Miller, 2006, 23). Prevention of occurrence of waste materials in this case is known as source reduction. This is to mean that we need to do away with the waste prior to its accumulation or creation. This has the implication that if will have less waste accumulation; the cost of waste management will also go down too. Preventing accumulation of the waste will be the purchase, design or material use to cut down the toxicity or amount of the generated trash. If no waste created, it means no cost will be incurred for the storage (Zimring, 2004, 18). Preventing waste accumulation may serve more benefits that if the materials were recycled. It encourages proper use of the natural resources as people become more careful. This will also reduce the emission of pollutant products, waste disposal and making of excess products (Zimring, 2004, 18). Not only will the prevention of waste accumulation reduce the need to recycle, but also save the amount of money to be used. Costs involving handling and disposing are cut down as expensive procedures such as landfilling, municipal composting and combustion in incinerators or power plants are eliminated. This results to reduction of the government need for taxes (Pellow, 2000, 230). Also the consumers get the opportunity to buy directly products or commodities of their need in large quantity with less use of packing materials. To have the prevention on waste accumulation is not a government responsibility as we may think, but our own responsibility. The environment belongs to us and not to the government. Poor use of the environment will not affect the government but us. Therefore, prevention of waste means that our lifestyle will change in that will buy products which can last longer, reject wrapped individually or sold in one container, and make use of materials that would have been thrown away as a waste (Pellow, 2000, 230). References: Hardin Russell. ‘Garbage out, Garbage in,’ Social Research. Vol. 65, no. 12, 2005, p.44, 45, 46 Miller Benjamin. Fat of the Land: Garbage in New York: The Last Two Hundred Years. Mahwah, NJ: Praeger, 2006, p. 23 Pellow David. Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable development. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 230, 231,232 Rogers Heather. Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. New York: Greenwood, 2002, p. 60, 62, 64 Short Megan. ‘Taking Back the Trash: Comparing the European Extended Producer Responsibility and Take Back Liability to U.S. Environmental Policy and Attitudes,’ Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 37, no. 7, 2004. p. 21-24 Zimring Adam. Cash for You Trash: Scrap Recycling in America. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press, 2004, p.18 Read More