Should recycling be mandatory?
Yes, Mandatory Recycling
No, Mandatory Recycling
Reduces energy consumption
Cost of recycling is much greater than landfills - sorting
process
Reduces natural resource
consumption
There is plenty of land available for additional landfills
Preserves landfill space for nonrecyclable materials
Recycling reduces the need for resources which leads
to lost resources (less paper = less trees = less forests)
Preserves natural habitat from
being used for landfills
Recycled plastics are not as strong as plastics made
from oil. This is a safety issue.
Provides jobs for people (drivers,
sorters, machine operators, etc)
Recycling pollutes the environment (chemicals needed
to clean the ink from paper, exhaust from extra trucks)
User fees can pay for recycling
program
Most plastics can’t be recycled
The greater good outweighs
individual rights
People have the right to not recycle if they don’t want it
Recycling is a way to reduce our
ecological footprint caused by
using raw materials only.
Just because we recycle, that is not lessening the
ecological footprint that is still incurred from resource
use. It may feel good, but the big picture is that we still
need these resources.
User fees are just like water bills,
User fees are unfair taxes on large families as opposed
you pay as you go (the more
to small families
garbage you produce the more cost
you incur)
Recycling is not meant to save
money, it is meant to save the
environment
Cities & states are cutting back on recycling to save
money for other needs (police, fire, education)
New market opportunities exist in
China.
Market to sell recyclable materials is unstable (except
metals) due to inferior quality or excess amount
available in the market
New technologies for single stream
recycling make it efficient and easy
for people to recycle.
May cause some jobs in the industry to be lost or
demand higher skills as technology improves.
Some items are much more
valuable as recycled materials
because it costs too much to get
the raw materials from the planet.
Some items don’t recoup any energy savings or costs
to recycle.
Main Themes to Consider: Energy, Sorting and Transport, Market Demand
Recycling Pros and Cons
8th Grade Science