Curbside Recycling Programs Should Be Implemented in All States and Counties - Argumentative Essay

Introduction

All living creatures on earth are dependent on the raw materials which are extracted from the ground. No individual will survive through the coming years if people continue taking resources from the planet at a higher rate than they naturally produce them. There is a definite necessity to conserve the earth's resources through recycling of wastes so that a healthy atmosphere can be provided for the next generation. Through recycling, materials are turned into essential resources and yields financial, environmental and social returns; in the conservation of energy, competitiveness, economic expansion and prevention of pollution. The most effective method for encouraging people to recycle and reduce waste generation is through an implementation of convenient curbside pickup recyclables, in all States and counties.

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Problem Definition

In America, a massive amount of garbage is produced daily. The current rates are about three hundred tons every year. By the year 2020, the amount of waste that is generated in America might increase by twenty percent. Poisoning of groundwater and emissions of gas are some of the environmental concerns that have been associated with an excess generation of wastes. As these emissions continue, people must cut down on the garbage they throw away, through techniques like; trimming of yards and composting. An accepted definition of recycling is: "recovering some used materials like glass plastic, paper, and metals from trash so that they can be utilized to make new products and cut down on the new raw materials required (Schultz 95)."

Presentation of the Issue

Most counties and towns lack waste management practices which back up the recycling of materials. These situations make people lack an incentive to recycle wastes, leading to more generation (Oskamp et al. 494). Individuals have ignored the problems brought about by trash, leaving the job of collection and management to the local governments and the state at large. Citizens are lucky to have at least an agency, a commission, a department or authority in their countries that deal with waste disposal management. Most disposal and collection is taken care of by the local authorities with some private hiring companies to manage the trash. Through awareness programs, most communities have tried recycling and have found out how beneficial it is.

Evaluation

Recently, about forty percent of municipal waste is recycled in America. Whenever municipal solid waste is considered, the role of recycling has to be remembered. There are a lot of resources contained in what people throw away every day including; glass, metal, wood, and plastic that can be utilized as raw materials after re-processing.in most agencies, the essence of incorporating recycling as a part of their management of solid waste programs have been developed through a variety of techniques. By the year 1998, around 136 million of the total population of the United States had had access to curbside recycling programs. There were approximately 13,000 centers for recyclables and 4000-yard trimmings composting programs. One hundred fifty projects for composting had been implemented to handle county biosolids; selecting organics, by separating food remains and industrial organics. Various studies have been carried out to look into the waste management techniques that create the highest recycling results. Three main recycling methods used in the contemporary world are; market-based incentives, pay as you throw and curbside pickup. Curbside pickup is when a homeowner leaves their recyclables in a container along the streets to be picked up by a truck which in turn drives them to a recycling plant. Market-based incentive involves individuals dropping off recyclable material at a local station and in turn, receive a discount coupon to local businesses. The pay as you throw method is when a citizen pays a fee to obtain a bag, each time they throw trash away. In a study conducted in Florida, it was confirmed that most citizens preferred the use of curbside programs as compared to market incentives and pay as you throw methods (Hopper, Joseph and Nielsen 195).

Proposal

While recycling programs implemented are inadequate, these programs can work. Most societies across Canada and in the United States have implemented some recycling programs successfully. More focus needs to be made on the communities yet to achieve the recycling programs (Derksen, Linda, and Gartrell 434). In Chicago, health care centers have been reported to produce at least ten percent of the total gas emissions in the United States. National recycling survey data has confirmed that the rates of recycling have become minimal as compared to how they were in the year 2000. Improvement of municipal solid waste management arises as a major topic of discussion with distinct subdivisions on the subject. First, the effectiveness of the curbside recycling technique has to be evaluated. A survey that includes door to door interviews, coordination with recycling centers can be done since they all have an impact on an increase of rates of recycling. Through the use of curbside pickups, the rates at which people recycle have been a convenience, since they only recycle when they do not need to use a lot of efforts (Gamba, Raymond and Oskamp 587). The use of these pickups is useful in most states since there is a possibility that citizens will recycle due to ease and convenience.

When various hypotheses are made to investigate how people get motivated to recycle, it is likely that areas with curbside recycling will encourage and reduce the amount of garbage collected by the municipal solid waste. Areas with pay as you throw, Recycle banks and those making the use of recycling market programs will exhibit higher recycling rates than those areas that do not have any plans. When recycling is explained using the government's economic incentives, the government could provide education to manufacturing institutions to enable selling of their products in packages that can be recycled; this will, in turn, benefit the companies through creating minimal waste and generating more income. Several scholars have shown that through quantity based pricing of waste programs, a company can get paid for the recycling of trash. Park and Berry (2013) in the article 'Waste management Research' outlined some numerical data which confirmed that nations whose counties have financial recycling incentives were able to produce more recycled waste per capital as compared to those that were not offering similar incentives (Derksen, Linda, and Gartrell 435). To attain improvements on people participation in recycling programs, the government needs to create awareness on the topic, through education schemes that will most likely adjust their habits and behaviors. It is necessary for people to be sure that recycling is vital in the long run.

Various recycling programs can be used to generate income. For instance, when materials that have been recycled are sold, thy benefit the seller and the recycling program. Job opportunities are created when the manufacturing businesses are expanded. Increases in competition in these programs generate more programs which in turn lead to a conducive environment. An example is a study conducted in Florida that found out that the processing and manufacturing recyclables in the part of the country had added more than 8 billion to the general materials value. On a national level, the total market value for the region was approximately 5 billion by the year 1995 (Derksen, Linda, and Gartrell 436). Recycling lowers down on the quantity of waste that needs to be buried in a landfill; this reduces the amount of waste that could increase costs of disposal. Through recycling, and reduction of reliability on virgin materials, pollution is reduced. Recycling also cuts down on the pressures of biodiversity, saves energy and balances global climate changes. When the need to process and extract new materials is decreased, recycling will ensure elimination of pollution related to the first stages of product development; processing and extraction of content. Further research shows that minimal energy is required to manufacture products from recycled materials as compared to new materials (Derksen, Linda, and Gartrell 437). Reducing pollution, ensuring conservation of natural resources and saving on energy yields a cut down on the emission of greenhouse gases and contributes to global changes in climate, impacting biodiversity.

Audience Objections

The greatest challenge to the recycling programs is encouraging the participation of citizens in increasing the number of recovered materials; multiple ways are available for improving the involvement and recovery of materials. In most societies, there are environmental promotional campaigns to ensure participation and motivation. Through a provision of more containers for recyclables, recycling has been made more convenient with some places incorporating additional mandatory voluntary programs. Despite these, there exist some reasons why people do not participate in recycling efforts including; lack of knowledge and inconveniences (Derksen, Linda, and Gartrell 440). Surveys conducted have confirmed that difficulties are a significant barrier to participation by the audience. This is inclusive of a lack of enough space to reuse and recycles. Regarding this issue, authorities at the local levels need to come up with favorable recycling plans, by offering containers labeled with materials to dispose of in each. Recycling pickups should be utilized as often as the trash pickups are, to lower the quantity of space the residents would require to store their recyclables, and make sorting of materials much more manageable.

Lack of knowledge is another issue among the audience. The government should strive to increase learning programs that will raise awareness of the public on recycling programs. This knowledge will allow a transformation of people's waste relationship through emphasizing on economic, environmental, personal and community advantages of reducing wastes. When different campaigns put more emphasis on waste and its symbolic reflection of death, people will gain an unconscious decision of reducing hazards of waste disposal (Derksen, Linda, and Gartrell 441). There are many fears associated with wasting which the non-government and government campaigns should discover, to find methods of overcoming the negative feelings. Through comparing waste disposal rates, recycling rates, benefits, and phenomena in different communities, the public will identify that minimization of wastes is a social expectation. While technology is essential in minimizing damages caused by immense disposal of wastes, it will only be useful when the public acknowledges the need for new practices and attitudes towards waste management.

Refutations

With the rise of curbside recycling programs; however, there has been an increase resetting of prices by service providers, making local governments to struggle to adapt to the new costs. While Residential recycling programs are beneficial, the curbside system is undergoing a severe transformative change; this is because most communities and some municipalities are vulnerable to an increase in costs and changes in programs. There is no clarity in whether these prices will get favorable in the future or not, and this might result in serious recycling problems, with a few communities in urban centers enjoying the services. The impact of accessibility to curbside recycling is controversial and costly due to its policy implications. The costs of collection, transportation, processing costs, and sorting are high, approximately 3-8 dollars per household in a month (Derksen, L...