Andrew Hammond
English 1010-062
Nathan Cole
Assignment 9a
Final Argument Draft
Do You Know Where Your Waste Goes?
With the convenience of garbage bins and landfills people are becoming more ignorant of their waste;
we don’t think about where our garbage goes and figure we can forget about it when we throw it out.
Recycling has many great benefits with waste rather than just sending it to a landfill where it will stay for
hundreds of years. Some of the main benefits of recycling include-Protecting the environment for future generations.
-Minimizing the need for landfills.
-Reducing the use of our natural resources and energy.
One person in the United States produces about sixteen hundred pounds of waste in a year (Green
book). According to the U.S. census bureau there are an estimated three hundred million American’s,
which totals four hundred and eighty billion pounds of waste a year the U.S. produces alone. Only about
thirty percent (Kennedy Michael) of that waste is recycled, most of it ends up in landfills being buried or
incinerated. By the year 2050 our population is estimated to reach four hundred million Americans’
(Population Reference Bureau). With this rise in population for the next generation this will raise the
amount of waste going into landfills. Is a world covered in landfills the kind of place you want to leave
behind for the future, I don‘t. Recycling can help to lower the amount of waste that we create now,
which will in turn leave behind less waste and a cleaner environment for the next generations to deal
with. Recycling now can also keep our precious natural resources from being mined and save them for
those future generations who will need them. We need to take action now to educate people on the
benefits of recycling and how their waste not only effects the environment but the future as well.
A great aspect of recycling is that it reduces the need for landfills, because if we’re recycling our waste
there is obviously less to send to landfills. Even though landfills are constructed to be as safe for the
environment as possible(Freudenrich, Craig) the waste is still going to be there just buried underground,
though with recycling we are reusing that waste for new purposes. Although landfills are created with
the environment in mind there are still hazards that can threaten ecosystems near the site of the
landfill. One of the most major hazards is the pollution of vital groundwater, groundwater’s routes
typically take it downstream where it ends up flowing into rivers or lakes, so if groundwater near a
landfill became polluted it means that these rivers and lakes would become polluted as well causing
much of our freshwater to become contaminated(Zero Waste). While some argue that the number of
landfills are decreasing and ask themselves why we need to recycle or worry about these potential
hazards, in actuality the numbers have decreased but only because the landfills now are far larger to
accommodate the amount of waste produced mainly by large cities. If we all just make an effort to
recycle we can reduce the amount of waste going into landfills, this “cause” would then potentially lead
to an “effect” of fewer landfills and fewer hazards to the environment.
Recycling is the process of taking waste materials and reprocessing them into their raw materials to use
for new products (Ghosh, Paramita). This can reduce the amount of natural resources we use in the
production of products from new raw materials ex. the use of lumber for paper, if we recycle our old
office paper and newspapers that saves many trees from being cut down to use for new paper, this
could then benefit the environment by helping to reduce the effects of deforestation. An even more
surprising benefit of recycling is that recycling tin cans refines the tin even further which then creates
better and more valuable tin than the otherwise new mined materials create, also by recycling this tin
we can save more of its base minerals from being mined and wasted. “I think this is awesome that
recycling can actually refine metals even further to create a more valuable metal, I think everyone would
find this a pretty amazing feat“. Recycling can also reduce the amount of energy we waste ex. According
to the EPA the process of recycling aluminum can save 95 percent of the energy it would have taken to
create it from raw materials. This is different for all things that are recycled, another example is paper.
Recycling paper not only saves trees and water but it also saves the kilowatts it takes to refine the trees.
In the recycling and reproduction of one ton of paper we can save about seventeen trees and fifty
percent less water this equates to about 4000 kilowatts of energy that is used in the production of new
paper (EIA). While we can say that recycling will help save natural resources and energy from being
consumed, we are the ones who have to take action and make it possible.
Although recycling may seem like a hassle because it takes some time and effort, in the long run the
benefits will outweigh these downsides, by changing a few simple tasks in our daily lives we can make a
big difference in the world as individuals and an even bigger difference as a nation. I ask you to please
consider these benefits that I have written about, there are many more these just being some of the
main ones. I also hope that I have opened your mind to a new way of thinking about your waste as
something more than just garbage.
I will conclude with saying that we don’t know where we are going in the future and what will happen;
only we can decide that with the choices we make. I believe that we should care about the environment
and recycling is a great way to show that we care. So now I think that you will be able to answer my
question of “Do You Know Where Your Waste Goes”. I have told you what happens to your waste when
you throw it away and how it can affect many things, will you take action and make a difference?
Bibliography
Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen. The Green Book: The everyday guide to saving the planet. New
York, 2007. Print
Energy Information Administration.
Web. 30 July 2010.
Freudenrich, Craig Ph.D. “How Landfills Work.” HowStuffWorks
16 Oct 2000. Web. 10 July 2010
Ghosh, Paramita. “Why is recycling important.” Buzzle.com
2010. Web. 30 July 2010
Haub, Carl. “U.S. Population by 2050.” Population Reference Bureau
2010. Web. 29 July 2010
Kennedy Michael. “Seattle’s Recycling.” New York Times.
10 Oct 2007. Web. 21 July 2010
N.A. “Save Natural Resources.” Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
2010. Web. 30 July 2010
U.S. Census Bureau. “Population Clocks.” Web. 10 July 2010