Should Recycling be Mandatory?

Recycling is an important aspect of the contemporary society. In particular, the level of pollution has risen considerably through increased toxicity as a result of release of toxic wastes into the environment. Through recycling, such wastes are converted into essential components of the environment that leads to improved socio-economic lifestyles of the people. Recycling also conserves raw materials through the use of old products to make new ones hence reducing the need for the consumption of precious resources. As a result, recycling assists in the protection of raw materials and the natural habitats that is essential for future use. The prospects of recycling are very important in the contemporary world if people are concerned about future generations.

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Recycling starts at homes. In case one does not throw away their old products but rather utilize them for other things, this reflects the concept of recycling. Recycling should however be executed through the entire idea conceptualized as reducing, reusing and recycling. People have been very careless in the manner in which they treat their environments and the earth in general (Gao et al. 23). Recycling should begin with changing the way people think. In this regard, this paper will form an argument taking position of making recycling a mandatory practice for all as a result of the accrued benefits highlighted above among others.

Recycling has many positive impacts on the environments. By virtue of using old and waste materials that have been rendered out of use by converting them back to useful product, this enhances the reduction of wastes released into the environment. Besides, the recycling process also results into saving resources and dispatching fewer trashes into landfills. In addition, it leads to reduction of water and air pollution. Recycling is also an important mechanism for energy saving. Energy saving is very important for a generation wishing to reduce impacts of global warming. For instance, research shows that for every one aluminum can recycled, it enables to save energy sufficient to run a TV set for about three hours (Friedman 18). This process however depend on the average energy consumption of the TV set but shows the important value attached to the ability to save energy through recycling.

In US, it is estimated that about 4o million newspapers are cut daily. This values leads to an equivalent value of approximately 500,000 trees being dumped into landfills per week. This could be perceived as shear carelessness of the people in treating the earth that must change. In the use of paper, aluminum and glasses are sample products that can be subjected to recycling with an impact of reduced releases of wastes into the environment and overall energy conservation (Friedman 21). Recycling also serves two main purposes namely; the avoidance of landfills which assist in the reduction of air and water pollution and the reuse of valuable materials such as plastic, glass and aluminum in other useful ways which could have otherwise ended into wastes.

Every individual should be mindful of their actions by paying particular attentions to items that they buy and check if they need them. Some people purchase items through impulse buying leading to waste rise in the end. Besides, some commodities come alongside intense packaging which at is very unnecessary but companies spend billions of money in packaging that end up in wastes. Every person has a role to pray in reducing wastes through recycling at any scale. In many instances, people should also engage in processes that reduce waste productions. For instance, reduction of use of plastic bags and papers would reduce the amount of wastes released and provide an avenue for recycling the little wastes released into the environment. Plastic materials in particular pollute the environment and result into filled up landfills (McCarty & Shrum et al. 13). Besides, when carrying out shopping, people should avoid products with bulk packaging in order to manage recycling at individual levels.

Every person has a role to play in recycling and maintaining a clean environment thus, making the earth a better place to live. As many people practice recycling, fewer spaces are filled up with landfills. Besides, when individuals recycle, they reuse products hence saving on the scarce resources. In case everybody engages in recycling, more space would be available in the landfills across the globe. The world has a very large space but majority of populations have been using these spaces for trash instead of engaging it into constructive uses. For instance, in the Clearlake, California, every busy day is associated with generating about 80,000 pounds of garbage into their local dumping site. Many people dumps wastes just because of shear laziness to sort the garbage (McCarty & Shrum et al. 9-10). Many people have no sense of recycling and the only option in their mindset is throwing the garbage to the landfills or the garbage sites instead of engaging simple recycling processes. If individuals are mandated with recycling, they would realize long term benefits such as savings from the need to be travelling to the dump site daily. In this regard, people are less informed about the big problem that waste has created to the world and the environment in particular.

In the light of recycling, conservation is another central issue that should be engaged in the mindset of persons undertaking recycling. The contemporary situation involves a scenario of scarce resources and energy supplies. Due to the non-renewable nature of most of the resources, recycling will impact positively to enhancing their supplies. Otherwise, these products will become depleted at some point. The more people recycle, the more the non-renewable resources are bound to last. If everybody engages in recycling, then, this would result in less demand for new resources being used. Recycling saves large components of natural resources since each times one converts an old product into a new one through recycling, this process reduces the essence of using new resources and therefore conserves resources for future uses. Failure to recycle doe not only leads to overuse of resources but also leads to increased burden on individuals as a result of increased landfills with serious environmental effects. Increasing the number of people undertaking recycling would minimize the cost of environmental management and the overall situation of the environmental conservation (van de Kamp & Jiddeke et al. 17). However, many people do not engage in recycling perhaps because they perceive recycling as inconveniencing.

Many garbage companies in the contemporary cases have emerged with equipped measures to collect garbage, sort out their recycling processes and provide individuals with new trash cans at relatively low prices. Thos mechanism is critical in enhancing recycling processes. Individuals can recycle products depending on the regional locations since not all products can be recyclable but can minimize wastes by focusing on absolute recycling prospects for all recyclable products. Some of the important resource centers that can assists individuals wishing to recycle their products include the regional recycle centers in order to identify what can be recycled and others. Similarly, some regions or cities also offers different disposal cans to ensure that individual efforts are enhanced deviating individuals attention to landfills and further focusing on the recycling centers (Cialdini & Carl 11). This is however an individual perspectives but the behavior can be molded through making recycling prospects a mandatory practice for all.

In addition, people should understand that recycling involves reusing products either in part or whole towards producing similar products again. Regular production involves sourcing raw materials from their exact natural settings. For instance, the use of tree pulp in production of papers or other products are deduced from cutting down trees. Instead, use of recycled paper can be incorporated towards producing new papers without significantly compromising qualities of the final product. Subsequently, this would result in reduced use of tree resources and conserves the resources for future use. The prospects of recycling are anchored on both attitude and choices one makes in protecting as well as enriching the natural environments without undue disturbance of the environment (Banerje 5). However, people have to consider facts responsible for driving and controlling the forces of demand and supply which can effectively minimize exploitation of the available natural resources besides engaging in mechanisms that can create a conservation perspective of use of natural products.

Finally, recycling should be made mandatory since undertaking recycling across the globe implies increasing the long-term supply of depleted natural resources. For instance, if everybody can engage in recycling landfills, they would not fill quickly while the natural resources would also last for long. Similarly, recycling results into reduced pollution caused by objects released into the environment as trash. The perception of individuals that recycling is a bothersome activity is mainly rooted on laziness and the unwillingness to make an extra effort to create room for the future generation. Lack of concerns for future generation through the current capitalists' society has been very detrimental to the supply of natural resources since people have been harvesting the resources uncontrollably thus posing the risks of depletion in the long-run. People must also stop being lazy and imagine what they need in order to recycle their recyclable waste products. It is important to realize that the government has a role to play but individuals who form the ultimate source of the wastes must take a central role in managing their wastes through recycling. In this regard, recycling should be mandatory.

Works Cited

Banerjee, Reshmi. "Importance of Recycling." International Journal of Innovative Research inElectrical, Electronics, Instrumentation and Control Engineering 3 (2015): 53-55.

Cialdini, Robert B., & Carl A. Kallgren. "A focus theory of normative conduct: recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places." Journal of personality and social psychology 58.6 (2000): 1015.

Friedman, Lauri S. "Garbage and recycling." (2009).

Gao, Weijun, et al. "Energy impacts of recycling disassembly material in residential buildings."Energy and Buildings 33.6 (2001): 553-562.

McCarty, John A., & L. J. Shrum. "The influence of individualism, collectivism, and locus of control on environmental beliefs and behavior." Journal of Public Policy & Marketing20.1 (2001): 93-104.

van de Kamp, Jiddeke M., et al. "New insights into creatine transporter deficiency: the importance of recycling creatine in the brain." Journal of inherited metabolic disease(2013): 1-2.