With the Power in You, We Can Change The Whole World

          My friend asked me the other day why I am so hateful of the world. So I decided to add another post to show why people are annoying. This is something that has been driving me crazy ever since returning to Utah from California. I wrote a report on it and I also gave a 10 minute speech on this; so yeah, it is pretty important.
          There is a little phrase that goes like this “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Yes, I am talking about aluminum, plastic and glass. The three of these items are hurting our environment. It has been bothering me because I am made fun of a lot for having a concern for things like this. I want to talk about these things because when I talk about it with someone they just roll their eyes and think about other things because they do not believe me. Or if they do believe me it is not a strong enough belief to actually do something. But let me tell you people something; this is real, and it is affecting us and it will affect our children severely in the near future if we do not work on it now.

          I will begin with glass because it has the least effect on the environment: As most people know, glass is made from sand after lightning strikes it. Another place is from volcanos erupting and melting rocks and sand together (http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/how-is-glass-made). The point is it is a natural thing. Glass is a substance that does not put off toxic gasses, or chemically harms the environment. That does not mean you should just throw glass away. There are plenty of land-fills that have been made into parks or other places like that. Now, if we have broken glass in these land-fills it is hazardous to the people using these parks. Think of taking kids or animals to these parks and them getting a severe cut that has a high possibility of getting infected. Not only this, but think about the animals in the ocean that are making empty glass bottles a home. Hermit crabs will find a home in almost anything, but it is not natural. When we throw away a glass bottle it takes 10,000 years to decompose. It takes less energy and fewer resources when we recycle glass. This may not be the most important thing to recycle but it is still a pressing issue.

          This next chemical has been a major revolution for us. It is used in just about everything we use; from doctors’ offices to kid’s toys, from cell phones to clothes hangers. Plastic is a very useful in our world for obvious reasons. It is cheap to process and use, and it is durable. One thing that has been helpful with the use of plastic is it has lifted the weight of cars so they do not put out as much CO₂ into the air, which causes pollution and smog. Unfortunately with all the good things that come with plastic there are a few bad things, which we can do to help eliminate. When plastic is burned it releases toxins in the air called dioxins. Dioxin is a chorine based chemical that can cause deadly results such as Lung Cancer, Suppression of the Immune System, Liver damage, and much more. So throwing your plastic water bottles into a fire is not the best idea. Burning plastic on your own does not kill the chemicals released. In recycling factories the temperatures kill the chemicals released from plastic, and the plastic is being re-used. Another issue is we are guessing plastic degrades slowly; it takes an estimated 1,000 years for it to decompose entirely. This is just an estimate though because no one has lived long enough to know how long it actually takes. You might think it is just one plastic bottle but if everyone in the world says that it actually ends up being over 6 billion plastic bottles. Recycling is as easy as throwing something away.

          The last item I want to talk about is the one that I get annoyed with people over. Something that needs to be recycled the most is aluminum. I have heard people say that it is a metal so it is natural. This is very bad thinking. Beginning with how aluminum has to be pulled from the earth because it is a mineral. This causes environmental damage because we just keep pulling it from the earth. Why are we continually pulling something out of the planet when we can recycle it? A huge issue is with the amount of energy it takes to make aluminum cans out of new resources. 3% of the world’s energy goes to making aluminum cans. Recycling just one aluminum can saves energy enough to power your television for 3 hours. It takes the same amount of energy to make one new aluminum can out of new material as it does to make 20 cans out of recycles material. That is actually really gross if you think about the amount of energy we use just making aluminum cans. Thrown away aluminum can take 80-200 years to decompose. When we do not recycle it adds to our landfills and pollutes what will be parks we’ll be using with our children one day.  Also non-recycled cans also put chemicals into the ground and air, Dioxide and nitrogen oxide chemicals are released into the air. Both are contributors to smog and acid rain. The chemicals put into the ground are very bad for anything around the dumping zone. Each ton of aluminum cans requires 5 tons of bauxite ore to be strip-mined, crushed, washed, and refined into alumina before it is smelted, creating about 5 tons of caustic red mud residues which can seep into surface and groundwater. People and animals have suffered from the effects of bauxite mining in Jamaica, Brazil, Australia, and other tropical areas (http://www.container-recycling.org/facts/aluminum/dirty.htm). I know for a fact that if this mud was seeping into our ground water people would have a problem with it. But it is not, so people don’t think about it. Most people don’t even know about it. These are reasons why we need to recycle! It helps in eras we do not even know about!

         Please stop asking why and stop being lazy about something as important as this. I know there are many people out there who do not know about all of this. Some people know about it but do not believe the facts. But let me ask you this; what would it hurt to recycle? For arguments sake, let’s say that all the information I just told you about was bogus. It will not hurt anyone to recycle your stuff; whether it is items we use daily or things like batteries or cell phones. There are areas in the world being affected because of our laziness. Our world is not going to remain beautiful much longer if we do not try and do something about it now.

Dr.K

(Song: Superhero; Artist: Simon Curtis)

          While I was looking up pictures for this post, I found many pictures I wish people would look at. Many animals are suffering because of our plastic being put into the ocean; animals are being hurt because of our laziness. But the thing that got me the most was caustic red mud residues. This stuff burns; it is very damaging to all wild life and even damaging to people who come in contact with it. For us to help is such an easy task. All you have to do is recycle your stuff.