COLUMN: Reduce, reuse, recycle — save the environment
Next century we could be drowning in unnecessary waste and suffocating from unnecessary pollution.
As Americans, residents of Utah, community members, students and family members, the future is in our hands.
Currently, “the garbage Americans throw away each year could cover 1,000 football fields, rising 30 stories high. Approximately 500,000 trees are used each week to produce the Sunday edition of United States papers. Each person in the United States throws away three to four pounds of garbage [on average] per day. And it costs United States taxpayers $15 million to clean up litter from national parks,” said Kathlyn Gay in “Garbage and Recycling.”
Are we going to let America be a dumping sight for all our trash? It’s obvious many of us don’t really care. It’s easy to not care about something affecting us right now. The problem here lies in our future. If we keep this up, we won’t have anywhere for our trash to go except in our back yards.
This sickness of the environment could be cured by one simple phrase: Reduce, reuse and recycle.
Back in Maryland, where I’m from, yellow and blue recycling bins line the curbs for weekly pick-up. The problem is the places that don’t provide recycling curb-side. It is far too hard for people to get off the couch and drive to Wal-Mart to recycle; we’re too lazy if it’s not
convenient.
“People in the United States produce more waste than any other society in the world. In one year, Americans throw away 1.6 billion disposable pens, 240 million tires, 2 billion disposable razors and blades, 18 billion disposable diapers and enough aluminum is discarded each year to rebuild all of the commercial airplanes in the United States every three months,” Gay said.
As students we take tests, hand-in papers, and read the campus newspapers and advertisements almost daily. Think of all the food we consume and all the things we just ‘toss’: paper, plastic, newspapers, cans and bottles.
Such waste is hazardous to the health of the environment and humankind.
“On average at Utah State University, for example, each person accounts for approximately 350 pounds of waste per year. If you jultiply that amount by 10,000 or 20,000 people on a campus each day, it adds up to thousands of tons each year,” said Kevin Phillips, manager of resource recovery at USU. “Throwing that much garbage away costs a lot of money and hundreds of thousands of dollars go to pay for garbage removal each year.”
Waste pollutes our lives in every way possible. Many may think pollution is only found in inner cities, where the overwhelming smog makes a dark cloud in the sky. However, if anyone has ever waited too long to take out the garbage, things start to grow and you might encounter unwanted visitors. This is also considered pollution.
By refusing to recycle, it’s like we are agreeing to a life full of garbage.
How would you like your children to have to look out their bedroom window to see a gigantic pile of trash? I’m sure it wouldn’t smell too great either.
Some might think recycling is only about that giant truck coming to gather curb-side materials that will go to different plants and mills to get smashed and reformed. Many people may not realize they can be the best recyclers, instead of relying on paid workers.
I don’t know what it is about the west, but from what I’ve seen, it seems as if people feel there is enough open land to dump in, so there is no need to worry. It hasn’t been until recently that Utah finally started getting it’s act together.
It has been a culture shock for me to not have a weekly recycling pick-up. Washing out milk jugs and glass bottles and setting aside my soda cans has been such a routine for me back in Maryland. However, after living out here for the last couple years, my habits seem to be sliding.
The best place to start recycling is in the home. The first thing we need to do is to reduce. Stop over-shopping and over-spending on useless items you will soon throw away.
The second step is to reuse. A ripped pair of jeans can become a quilt, or parts of a broken bike can make another tool.
Recycling is all about reusing things. This process also saves money because people are not going out to buy new things when old ones break. Also, engage in purchasing recycled items.
It’s really not that hard to set aside the items you can recycle. The hard part is taking them to a bin. Take the initiative, take the responsibility, because what we do now will soon affect our future.
Katie Higgins is a junior majoring in speech communication. Comments can be sent to klm@cc.usu.edu.