preview

Argumentative Essay: Recycling In The United States

Decent Essays
Open Document

Recycling According to the EPA, in 2014, 259 million tons of the average person’s trash was thrown away, with about 30% of waste being recycled, this amounts to 169 million tons of materials being wasted. This high amount of waste ends up in landfills, which lets harmful chemicals rise up together and contribute to the greenhouse effect,which in turn contributes to global warming. Recycling should be mandatory for everyone because it preserves earth’s finite resources and keeps pollution,like greenhouse gases,down. Earth’s resources will eventually run out, today even some societies don’t even have access to bottled or clean water,yet some people still take it for granted and don’t even attempt to recycle. Most sources say ,about 30-35% …show more content…

Imagine if we had 50% even 60% of materials being recycled, that would mean less of the millions of trees being used every year, less of the millions of plastics used every year, the Earth’s resources would last so much longer. According to MRC polymers, Americans throw away about 2,500,000 styrofoam cups an hour, most without recycling. “The 2009 report, Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Materials and Land Management Practices, shows that approximately 42% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are associated with the energy used to produce, process, transport, and dispose of the food we eat and the goods we use.” Recycling saves a lot of energy leaving more for future generations to come, according to MRC polymers,“Recycling saves 3 to 5 times the energy generated by waste-to-energy plants...” Just by recycling you are setting off a chain reaction of good health for the Earth, yourself, and others, be it through saved money, or more time on this Earth. There is so much pollution caused by people not recycling, especially in foreign countries like Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines and more. According to LA Times,”1.3 million to 3.5 million metric tons of plastic to the world’s oceans each year.” Consequently, when the

Get Access