Cem YILDIRIM
Cynthia APOLLO
Com 102 Section 11
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-*Recycling
Today, in our globalized world, people consume stuff more than they produce.
So where does all this stuff come from? We extract it from the earth, produce it in
factories, distribute it to the whole world and people consume it and dispose it. In
‘Story of Stuff’, Annie Leonard points out that extraction, production, distribution,
consumption and disposal is a linear system of consumerism. Our planet has limited
resources and in order to keep using these resources, we must find a way to make this
linear system a cycle. In order to that, we must recycle our waste rather than throwing
it away and keep the extraction of raw materials to the minimum.
When we recycle our stuff, used materials are converted into new products,
reducing the need to consume natural resources. It decreases the amount of waste sent
to landfills or incinerators (Porter,2002). If used materials are not recycled, new
materials are made by extracting fresh, raw materials from the earth, through mining
and forestry. Unfortunately, the earth is running out of resources. We are using too
much resources. The more we use, the more we produce. We destroy forests to make
paper, we dig the earth and blow up mountains to get the metals inside, we use all the
water without thinking. Annie Leonard claims in her video, ‘Story of Stuff’, that
recycling will not help to solve the problem, and people have to work on Green
Chemistry, Zero Waste, Renewable Energy or Closed Leap Production, which are
very expensive and hard to adapt people to do. How can you teach a person to do the
hard thing when they are not doing the easy thing, which is recycling? Today, in our
world, most of the people don’t recycle plastic, paper, glass, bottles, cans or
aluminum. If we teach them how to recycle these materials, then the new produced
materials will be from old materials. Also the linear process of stuff becomes a cycle,
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if people extract, produce, distribute, consume, dispose and recycle. Then the whole
process starts all over again with the same materials, and without extraction. When all
of the people are aware of this problem and start recycling, we can start using Annie
Leonard’s suggestions like Zero Waste, Renewable Energy or Closed Leap
Production. If people can’t do an easy thing like recycling, how can they adopt more
complex solutions like Zero Waste, Renewable Energy or Closed Leap Production?
Also recycling reduces energy usage, reduces air and water pollution. In most
of the world, people do one of two things with our ordinary garbage: burn it or bury it.
Neither one is good for us or for the environment. Burning garbage in incinerators
releases dangerous gases and dust, which contribute to global warming and pollute
lakes, forests, oceans and cities half a world away from where they originated.
Burying garbage also causes both air and water pollution, and simply transporting it
to the sites consumes much more valuable fossil fuels, which produces more
pollution. Dumping the trash into a landfill is another option, but landfills can pollute
air, water and soil. And yard and table waste actually contribute significantly to all of
these pollution problems, because they are wet and they are organic. Firstly, wet
garbage adds to the toxic stew of chemicals that mix in a landfill. This leakage,
diluted and made more mobile by rainwater, moves down to the bottom of the fill.
There, it would sink into the soil, spreading downwards and outwards, contaminating
soil and water as it moved. Secondly, air pollution may seem an unlikely consequence
of landfills, but in fact it is a major problem. The primary source is anything organic
such as yard and food waste. Waste at landfills is usually compressed to save space.
Each day's deposit is covered with a layer of dirt to discourage insects and rodents
and to help shed rain and thus minimize leakage. But the result is an almost oxygen-
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free environment. When organic materials decompose in such anaerobic conditions
they produce methane, a greenhouse gas. Methane "remains in the atmosphere for 915 years" and "is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than
carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period. So burning, burying or dumping your
waste has huge effects on environment. If we reduce our waste by recycling, we could
protect our environment.
Recycling has huge effects on environment, because it minimizes the need for
raw materials such as oil. Also using recycled material reduces the energy use and
carbon emission during the production process. And lastly, transport impacts are
reduced. To produce a car from raw materials, you need to collect from all over the
world. The engines are made in Europe, the steel comes from Asia, electronics come
from USA and they are all assembled in Japan or China, and shipped all over the
world, where they already came from.(Porter, 2002) But what if we produce a car
from recycled materials? Countries such as China are prepared to pay high prices for
recyclables, because they don’t have available sources for raw materials, and they
have a large manufacturing industry. In addition, using recycled materials during the
production process uses less energy than using raw materials. By recycling aluminum,
people save up to 95% of the energy than regular production. Also recycling glass,
paper, plastic and steel saves up the energy by 20%-70%. Also it reduces the air
pollution by 75%. It also cuts down the energy use for extraction, because there will
be no need for it.(Ackerman, 1997)
To cut down the pollution and reduce oil consumption, car producers came up
with an idea of hybrid cars. These cars operate both on gasoline and electric powered
engines. Producers claim that these cars, like Toyota Prius, will reduce air pollution
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and oil consumption. It can get up to 60 miles per gallon of gas. The Prius' battery
contains nickel, which is mined in Ontario Canada. This factory that produces nickel
pollutes the area and causes air pollution and acid rains for miles around it and
because of that the area is a wasteland. But the main problem that the "Dust to Dust"
study, which compares a Toyota Prius and a Hummer by their effect on the
environment in long term, has with the Prius' impact on the environment comes
next.That nickel then has to be sent to Europe via container ships to be refined. After
this process it has to travel to China to transfer it into ‘nickel foam’, which is used in
Prius batteries, then to Japan to put everything together and assembly, and lastly to
United States. All this tiny bits of transportation and production process costs a great
deal. This means not only the money also pollution that the transportation causes. The
‘Dust to Dust’ study than concludes that with all the production costs in mind, a Prius
is expected to last about 100,000 miles and it costs $3,25 per mile, while the Hummer
with all the same factors counted, expected to last 300,000 miles and it cost
amazingly $1.95 per mile. (CNW Marketing Research, 2006).
Recycling is the best option for now, so the people and the governments have
to find a way to make people recycle. There are few ways to do it. In some countries
government pays container deposit. When people buy a product in a container, a small
charge is added to the price. So when the container is returned to a collection point,
the charge is paid back. This program showed 80% of recycling rate (Ackerman,
1997). Also government can ban the disposal of such materials, as oil, batteries, tires,
etc. These products are toxic and they pollute nature for thousands of years until they
fully dissolve.
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So, recycling is the way to keep the cycle going. We cannot extract materials
forever, because they are limited and we can’t use so much energy, while we can use
less. We need to help the environment by giving back what we take. After disposal,
we need to recycle our stuff to put it in production again, without extraction. This will
create a cycle where there will be no need for raw materials.
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Cynthia APOLLO
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References:
Ackerman, F. (1997). Why Do We Recycle?: Markets, Values, and Public Policy.
Island Press.
CNW Marketing Research, Inc (2006). Dust to Dust - The Energy Cost of New
Vehicles From Concept to Disposal
Gleick, P. (2007, May). Hummer versus Prius. California: Pacific Institute
Leonard, A. (2008), Motion Picture: Free Range Studios
Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States:
Facts and Figures for 2008. (2008). Retrieved April 25, 2010 from
http://www.epa.gov
Porter, R. C. (2002). The economics of waste. Resources for the Future.
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