Every year I hear more and more people regurgitating such
phrases as “we need to save the planet” or “global warming is damaging our
planet” yet I don’t see nearly enough people taking the initiative to take part
in the simple activity known as recycling.
Yes, I know almost all people are aware that such an
activity exists between media attention, your first-grade “3Rs” principles, and
countless opportunities to actually recycle, but the bottom line is that more
people need to start caring about the planet that we so nonchalantly take for
granted. Do you want watch the same planet you have grown up on slowly be
destroyed? The answer to this question shouldn’t require thought. So in order
to motivate and educate students, I have taken the liberty of listing, with
examples, all the types of materials that can be recycled.
- Plastic
Bottles (juices, water, etc.)-I hope this one is obvious. - Other
plastic containers-shampoo bottles, plastic milk containers, and liquid
detergent containers. - Papers-this
isn’t just limited to newspapers, but also brown paper bags, notebook
paper, printer paper, magazines (less than half-inch thick), mail, pamphlets/brochures,
cardboard, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, phonebooks, and lastly, milk cartons. - Metals-aluminum,
steel, and tin cans, and non-hazardous
aerosol cans. - Glass-food
jars such as jelly and glass drink bottles.
Now this seems like a lot of items to be recycled, but if
you examine what you consume on a daily basis, especially those of you who live
in suites or without meal plans, you’ll see that a lot of the items can easily
be recycled.
If the aforementioned information has not motivated you,
then hopefully these next two facts will. It takes approximately 450 years for a
single plastic bottle to decompose and approximately 200 years for a single
aluminum can to decompose. So next time you’re about to throw a plastic bottle
in the trash rather than the recycling container, just remember that one bottle
will still be composing long after you, and your kids, are no longer living.