America, the 'disposable' society
By JoyfulOne
@JoyfulOne (6232)
United States
September 26, 2006 10:22am CST
We Americans have often been called the disposable society. Many things take years and years to disintigrate in our landfills, and some things never break down...period. I try to recycle as much as I can so that metals, aluminums,glass, newspapers, etc, can be used once again in a more productive way. Today I wondered: how many of you try to recycle, and if you do, or don't, why not?
4 people like this
10 responses
@loved1 (5328)
• United States
6 Oct 06
I do try to recycle as much as possible for a few different reasons. I use as many clean recyclables for craft projects for the children I care for, it is good for the environment, and I can only have 2 cans of garbage a week without having to pay extra. If I don't recycle I usually have about 5 cans of garbage!
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
6 Oct 06
Guess I'll have to check that out sometime ShannaS. For me, the proof is our elementary school gets paid for collecting newspapers in this giant bin. The check they get everytime it's taken to our recycle plant is proof...why would they pay the school for collecting it if it didn't get reused and make them money. If they were really just taking it to the dump and duping people, why would they waste their money to pay the school for collecting it when a free trash can would be just as good?
I've been to one of the recycling plants and have seen first hand that they actually do do things with the materials they collect. Glass is remelted to be remade into new bottles, cans resmelted to make new cans, etc. From what I've seen it really does work.
1 person likes this
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
6 Oct 06
Thanks bhchy1, I didn't know they had programs for helping animal shelters. I'll have to look into it and see if there's anything like that in my area! That is a real good cause! It's great that you're helping with it. Here, all newspapers go to our local elementary school. They have a hopper in a side yard, and when it's filled, they get the recycling money in it to help the school.
@Brooke3 (610)
•
6 Oct 06
I'm not American (I'm British) but I do recycle. In the place where i live at the moment we actually have bins provided for various different things and then they are collected, so it really is no effort at all for me. But even before I had this I always tried to recycle as much as possible.
2 people like this
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
6 Oct 06
Brook3, I didn't know England has a recycling program! That's really great to know other countries are trying to tackle this problem too.
1 person likes this
@jaginfo2006 (1757)
• India
6 Oct 06
i guess we dont have that kind of problem we got all our stuff biologically reycled, cause its biodegradable. ur doing a good job, keep it up.
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
6 Oct 06
Wow! That's great that you can get all biodegradable stuff!! Wish that choice was available to everybody everywhere!
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (160978)
• United States
9 Jan 07
I don't do as much as I should or could. I keep putting it on my list of things to do. If we had curb side pickup of our recyclables I would be more likely to. I would not mind it if it were mandatory in our state. I think it would make it easier for me to do it.
1 person likes this
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
9 Jan 07
At least you're doing something positive towards it. I can't believe that every town in America isn't doing something about this. I too wouldn't mind if it was mandatory...think of how much less would be in the landfills, and how much more resources would be saved.
@caribe (2465)
• United States
3 Jan 07
I have noticed that I don't have bags and bags of trash here in Nicaragua like I did in the USA. I think everything there has so much packaging is one of the differences. Here you don't have all of the elaborate packaging. The only thing I see here is the plastic bags that just don't seem to ever break down. Also there are people going through the trash always looking for something they can recycle and make a few pennies from.
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
3 Jan 07
That's great that they sell the merchandise there without all the extra packaging. I bought a couple of toys for my grandson this Christmas and was really disturbed by all the extra packing materials that they used! One didn't need anything more than a regular square box to keep it safe as there were no parts to get lost, and it couldn't get damaged. Everything seems to be that way anymore...over-packaged even when it's not needed. What a waste! It's great too that they do a lot of recycling where you live to help good old Mother earth!
1 person likes this
@certified_alice (1854)
• Philippines
8 Jan 07
I noticed that too that Americans has no problem at all regarding there garbage matters while here in the Philippines it is a real problem. I tried to recycle as much as I can by not buying newspapers always, sell empty bottles to a junkshop. At the end, I think all must be responsible throwing their wastes on the right baskets. I congratulate Americans for doing a great job.
1 person likes this
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
9 Jan 07
Good job trying to do something positive and recycle what you can. I always wondered if other countries were doing anything about this problem because it really is a worldwide issue. Thanks for your comments!
@hockeygal4ever (10021)
• United States
11 Jan 07
It's law in my city so we have to recycle. It's not all that hard for us. We can put it all in one bag, a blue bag, together. Not sure how they separate it but they do! I also try to use fewer chemicals, like in cleaning and such. I'm trying my best to be 'green' but I'm far from one of those great people that live the green life!
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
14 Jan 07
That's good that they have a law in place for recycling everything. More cities should do that!
@SaraCate (184)
• Canada
13 Jan 07
I've always made an effort to recycle - starting with aluminum cans an about 8 years old! Often, through college years especially, the recycling more often took the form of re-use as facilities were sometimes less accessible.
Hoever, I now live in Toronto. I love the trash system here. It would take us at least 4-6 weeks to fill up our outside trash bin. Toronto not only promotes recycling aggressively (just about all dry trash except styrofoam goes into recycling), but they have a separate collection for organic waste. Everything from onion tops to chicken bones to dirty kleenex goes in the organic/biological waste bin. I don't know what happens to it after that - now that you've got me thinking about it, I'll have to find out!
~Sara
@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
14 Jan 07
That's great that you started recycling when you were young, it sets a good pattern for life. Sounds like Toronto's really doing well with it. If only more places would recycle it would be impressive how much waste we could reduce. Thanks for your input Sara!
