The Reasons of Why Recycling Should Be Required and Benefits of Recycling

Pollution research

How would you like to see piles of garbage cluttered all around the Earth? Recycling preserves resources, prevents pollution, and helps the economy. Pollution is one of the most serious issues in the world. It is happening at a very large rate due to the amount of people on Earth. Recycling prevents pollution in many ways: recycling saves resources, recycling saves energy, recycling reduces emissions, recycling reduces garbage sent to landfills, and recycling helps create more jobs.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency watches how much Americans recycle and just throw things in the trash. “The EPA statistics show that from 1960 to 2012, the amount of waste generated in the United States increased from 2.68 to 4.38 pounds per person per day, an increase of more than 60%” (Sun 293). The EPA created the phrase; reduce, reuse, and recycle to help promote its recycling campaign.

The government spends lots of tax money on promoting recycling to people in the U.S. Recycling is great for the Earth, but it is only good if people don’t start using even more resources. Researchers did an experiment to test people’s feelings when they decide how much of a material to use when they have the option to recycle. The results found that people use more of a material when they have the option to recycle. Good emotions that comes with recycling could exercise control over consumers negative emotions from wasting.

Hotels can benefit greatly from recycling. There isn’t a lot of research to support the monetary benefits. “This study uses a waste-audit technique on five hotel properties and conducts cost–benefit analysis based on the waste-audit results” (Singh 14). This study also approximates impacts on the environment from recycling with greenhouse gas minimization. The research recommends that hotels should recycle more often to help the environment and to receive more financial benefits. Cooperation from the hotel guests in the recycling process is suggested to make the hotel experience cheaper and more profitable.

There are benefits to using higher quality paper grades when producing paper. Polycup stock is a high paper grade but is more expensive than the lower grades. Lower grades of paper are not cost effective after being recycled because the fibre becomes weaker and shorter each time it is recycled. “To produce a decent quality paper in terms of optical and physical strength properties, it would be better to use some percentage of white cutting papers or other high quality papers each and every time with a maximum share of low-grade papers” (Gangwar 5658).

The process can be very costly because white cuttings and quality paper are going to have a more expensive process than low paper grades. Polycup stock is a much better option because it is available in large quantities at a low price. It maintains the same brightness and strength that can be seen from high paper grades.

“There are over 65 million kilometers of roads and motorways in the world, of which several hundred thousand require important rehabilitation works every year” (Diana 44). The government spends lots of money every year to repair the roads and motorways. There are benefits from using recyclable material for road construction. The benefits of combining recycling with asphalt mixtures include reducing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Hot-in-place recycling and cold-in-place recycling are both very efficient and reuse the asphalt that is already on the ground to repair roads. A big machine doesn’t have to come and lay down new asphalt which reduces fuel consumption. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions because of all the toxins the machine releases into the air to do its job.

New and ingenius ways are being made to recycle waste materials that would most likely end up in landfill sites. Slag, a by-product of steel manufacturing is one such waste material. Pakistan is a developing country and does not have proper facilities to guarantee safe discarding and recycling of slag. New and ingenius methods for recycling slag are a need for Pakistan to move towards advancements in technology. Studies are directing their attention to explore the usefulness of using local induction furnace slag as a limited alternate of cement in concrete. “The test results showed that 15% or more slag replacement will make the concrete immune to chloride and sulphate damage” (Ahmed 703).

Nonetheless, results also point out that with increase in slag replacement percentage there is a major drop in split tensile strength of concrete. Considering the reduction in cost of making concrete and sustainability benefits; 15% slag replacement has been deemed the highest replacement value.

Conclusion

In conclusion, requiring people to recycle would be very beneficial to the Earth. It would save plenty of resources because they wouldn’t have to be mined as much. Recycling would save lots of energy because companies wouldn’t have to use a lot of their equipment that pollutes the air. Recycling would reduce the trash that is in landfills and make hospitals more cost effective, so patients won’t have to pay as much for medical bills. Recycling is very beneficial to the Earth. If nobody takes action the Earth could become uninhabitable for everyone.

Works Cited

1. Singh, Nripendra, et al. “Green Strategies for Hotels: Estimation of Recycling Benefits.” International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 43, Oct. 2014, pp. 13–22. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2014.07.006.
2. Avdhesh K. Gangwar. “Benefits of Polycups Stock over Other Waste Paper Grades in Paper Recycling.” BioResources, Vol 11, Iss 3, Pp 5658-5659 (2016), no. 3, 2016, p. 5658. EBSCOhost, doi:10.15376/biores.11.3.5658-5659.
3. Popescu Diana, and Burlacu Adrian. “Considerations on the Benefits of Using Recyclable Materials for Road Construction.” Romanian Journal of Transport Infrastructure, Vol 6, Iss 1, Pp 43-53 (2017), no. 1, 2017, p. 43. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1515/rjti-2017-0053.
4. Mohammad Laeeque Ahmed, et al. “Benefits of Incorporating Induction Furnace Slag in Concrete as Replacement of Cement: A Case Study of Pakistan.” Mehran University Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, Vol 37, Iss 4, Pp 701-714 (2018), no. 4, 2018, p. 701. EBSCOhost, doi:10.22581/muet1982.1804.20.
5. Riedel, Lisa M. “Environmental and Financial Impact of a Hospital Recycling Program.” AANA Journal, vol. 79, no. 4, Aug. 2011, pp. S8–S14. EBSCOhost, proxygsu-dekt.galileo.usg.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=c9h&AN=65139292&site=eds-live&scope=site.