Between 1990 and 2000, we did not take recycling seriously. We (Americans) wasted a total of 7.1 million tons of aluminum cans while enjoying and then conveniently tossing our beverage. How much is 7.1 million tons? According to a study by Container Recycling Institute’s study: Enough to reproduce the world’s entire commercial air-fleet 25 times over! The alarmingly sad side story is that it takes only about 6 weeks in total to manufacture, fill, sell, recycle, and then remanufacture an aluminum beverage can. PLUS every single aluminum can made out of recycled aluminum saves us enough energy to power our desktops for 2 hours and TVs for 3 hours straight!
So where are we lacking…seriously, alarmingly and forgetfully? Let’s begin with our communal attitude towards recycling, both as businesses and also as citizens of a great nation.
It’s Not Just about the Way we Produce and Consume
It’s also about how we dispose our used products that are cause of concern for us and our future generations. To begin with, our modern civilization has made us capable of consuming in 200 years what the past humanity as a whole had been unable to. The EPA reported that our advanced ways of production, consumption and disposal (products and food) accounts for 42% of the total U.S green house emissions. This is primarily because we have not paid heed to the requirements of our planet and our focus has been to only manage scarce resources for sustaining our wants.
When Beating the Competition Is Bad
According to the WorldWatch institute’s report (2010) the world’s production of metal increased by six-folds, oil consumption by an eight and gas consumption 14 folds. NOW, 50% more resources are extracted annually about 60 billion tons of resources. The result (since we like to compare ourselves with the next in line competitors, the Europeans) is that the average European uses 43 Kg of resources daily. We beat them by 100% utilizing 88 Kg worth of them.
Recycling Our Way Back Up
As a nation we have either buried or burned more than 166 million tons of resources in landfills and incinerators. This includes paper, plastic, metals, glass and organic materials. This means that we only composted one-third of our discards. The solution to this for the moment is to exercise our efforts in sending all the discard-able material to the recycling plants. Whether you’re a business or an individual simply get in touch with a specialized hauling service provider. They’ll come straight to your door step.
Source: www.ecocycle.org
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