Archive for the ‘Recycle It’ Category

People often ask why they should recycle old products because it is a lot of trouble to seperate different materials for recycling and they do not see the need.

There are billions of people on our planet now and every one of those people uses things that have to be made from materials we dig out of the ground. Man has been making use of the Earths resources for thousands of years and there was no problem when the numbers of people could be measured in millions.

There are so many of us now using materials every day that at some point in the future those materials will start to become more difficult to find but it also uses a great deal of energy to mine those resources and convert them into products and materials.

Why throw stuf away when it can be easily and cheaply recycled and reused. It just makes more sense. It saves the country money on imported materials and is often cheaper to use than having to manufacture new products from basic minerals.

The bottom line is that recycling simply makes good sense for us, our country and the planet. Future generations will thank us for leaving them something to use so think of your children and your childrens children and recycle old products for them.

It can sometimes be difficult to decide which sort of metal something has been made from and if you want to separate metal objects into different types such as steel and aluminium a magnet can make identifying and sorting metals a whole lot easier.

A small magnet will stick to steel objects but have no effect on aluminium so a magnet makes it a whole lot simpler to sort out the steel cans and scrap from the aluminium and since aluminium is usually worth more money it can be worthwhile separating the two metals.

Many pressure groups that have campaigned for the environment, such as Greenpeace, started out on the fringes of society but nowadays, environmental issues are very much higher on the agenda of the major political parties. It has taken a while for them to understand the problems so has it all been left too late? Hopefully not and the will to overcome problems will be strong enough and practical solutions can be implemented.

Politicians have at last realized that their voters are worried about carbon gas emissions, pollution and climate change and these environmental issues must be addressed. Traditionally, the political parties have been more focused on winning elections and introducing voter friendly policies with a quick turnaround. Tackling the environment is about finding long term solutions and difficult ones at that.

Big business has now also joined the debate. Oil companies fund their own research into alternative energy sources. Of course, cynics will say, this is more to do with commercial reasons and not as a matter of conscience. The oil will run out sometime and alternatives have to be found if they are to stay in business.

The ordinary guy in the street can feel a bit swamped in the face of such global problems. We are all encouraged to reduce our carbon footprint but it has to be a unified effort. Taking your own personal responsibility is the first step. It doesn’t take much effort to recycle, buy long life light bulbs and leave the car in the garage for certain journeys. Everyone can get involved in environmental issues. If there is a problem, then there is a solution waiting. Wasted energy is a big factor. Heat escapes from homes with poor insulation, central heating is set too high and most people are guilty of leaving electrical appliances on stand by.

So what solutions are there to the problems? For people to be persuaded to leave their cars at home, there has to be a much improved public transport service. Some local authorities in the UK are piloting a scheme, whereby householders are fined if they don’t recycle their waste in the correct way. We all take our electrical appliances for granted and it’s inconceivable that people will do without their washing machines, fridges, TVs and stereo systems but do we really need leaf blowers, garden heaters and electric carving knives? Would civilization come to a halt if we got rid of dishwashers?

The other thorny subject is travel and as plane tickets get cheaper all the time and the British and Europeans particularly enjoy holidays abroad. Some people campaign for holiday airplane trips to be limited and domestic plane journeys in small countries such as Britain could be banned and replaced with quality train services. We all like to be mobile but there is a high price to the environment that we all have to pay. If we don’t compromise, we will have to explain to our grandchildren, why we didn’t stop constant floods, acid rain and other environmental issues.
Think of the children might be a good motto to keep in mind whenever we carelessly discard rubbish instead of recycling it properly.

Whatever you may think about climate change there is no doubt that we can all benefit from recycling more than we do at the moment. By recycling we reduce the amount of waste that has to be dumped somewhere. There are economic benefits for our nation and we can be reassured that less energy is wasted making new things from recycled waste products than is used making things from minerals which have to be dug out of the ground.

It is great to have a win win situation that we can all benefit from.