The Potential Pros And Cons Of Recycling Environmental Sciences Essay

What is the reason behind recycle?

Using less money is behind think the desire to save money, energy and earth’s resources is the main reason behind recycling. As is well known that the less energy is used the less pollution is released by factories.

What is the importance of Recycling?

We can summarize the importance of Recycling by the following points:

saving energy

saving land space

saving money

creating new jobs

reducing air and water pollution

preserving habitat for wildlife.

For the above mentioned reasons you should make recycling as a habit in your daily life.

Saving energy:

Producing new materials takes more energy than using recycled materials.

We can use the paper as an example, creating paper from new woodland cost more energy than recycle paper from waste materials, since there will be no need to cut down a new tree to process the wood from the tree and make it into paper.

The most attractive thing is that energy from non-renewable resources is protected and saved for future generations therefore, money will be saved which means more competitively priced goods, and on the other hand pollution and missions are reduced when less energy is used.

When we transfer the above information in to numbers we find that production of recycled paper uses 80% less water and 65% less energy, and produces 95% less air pollution than virgin paper production.

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Air Pollution and Water Pollution

Noxious gases and chemicals are released by decomposing waste at landfill sites.

And it is very well known that gas and chemicals create air pollution Air pollution .

And when chemicals leach into the groundwater this creates water pollution and our water is contaminated . It is noticed that in 2000, recycling of solid waste prevented the release of 32.9 million metric tons of carbon equivalent (MMTCE, the unit of measure for greenhouse gases) into the air.‌ (Recycling-Guide)

We are able to breathe cleaner air and drink cleaner water if we could prevent pollution by using recycling centers instead of landfills.

Additional Benefits

Preserving wildlife is a result of recycling, because fewer trees are cut down to make virgin material or to make space landfills, habitat for wildlife remains. More habitats for animals mean less animal extinction.

It obvious that recycling is important and it can makes a difference. We may not be able to solve our landfill and pollution problems anytime soon, but at least we can help keep them from getting worse.

Recycling is simple it might start by taking paper or plastic or both to a recycling bin near your home and no need to drive or to waste your time or your gas. You can make it a habit that in your shopping you can fill up your car with your box of recyclable paper and dump it at the recycling bin near the store especially that many grocery stores now have these bins available or even start in your neighborhoods curbside recycling program.

Recycling helps conserve energy and reduce the consumption of natural resources. And it is the best way to save the environment and avoid environmental harm. You can make useful items from used plastic bottles, glass, and newspapers.

Recycling has positive effects such as :

1- Recycling Preserves the Environment

Protecting the environment is processed by recycling . For example we as the demand for paper increases, a number of trees are being cut to produce paper since the demand for paper increases. We can prevent the destruction of forests by recycling paper. We can notice how number of forests is being destroyed to meet the ever increasing demand of paper. Recycling a ton of mixed paper or newspaper is equivalent to saving 12 trees by this way we can save our natural resources.

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2- Recycling Saves Energy

Recycling used materials reduces energy requirements in many manufacturing processes such as refining and mining. Recycling materials like aluminum and glass can greatly reduce the pressure on energy resources.

3- Recycling Reduces Pollution

Hazardous substances in the form of plastics, empty cans, chemicals and ordinary waste contaminate our environment and cause pollution. Plastic recycling is an effective solution for the pollution of soil and water which is caused by the Plastic waste. Using materials from the plastic waste by recycling process can be used in manufacturing industry.

Environment can also be polluted by greenhouse gas emissions which were found that this recycling 35,116 tons of material could be equivalent of taking 22,140 cars off road and this could help to mitigate global warming effects.

Recycling material requires less amount of energy therefore by Manufacturing plastics and paper from recycled material save our environment than making them from new or virgin materials which also need transport this virgin materials and Transportation means using vehicles that run on fuels like diesel and gasoline. It is very well known that fuels are considered the main source of green gas emissions. In this case recycling means less fuel being utilized and lower amount of carbon dioxide will be released into the environment.

4- Negative Effects of Recycling

There can be a few harmful effects of recycling, if the sites where recycling is done, are not managed properly. Which means that those sites can become unhygienic as a result of collecting lot of debris every day for recycling?

The surrounding environment can be severely damaged by the abandoned dump sited, a poisonous mixture knows as leachate will be formed and it is highly dangerous if it reached the water supplies. The water and soil can be mixed by the harmful chemicals in the trash then mixed with rainwater which falls on open dumps which will percolate deep into the ground and pollutes the ground water.

Paper recycling can be a bit costly, as additional industrial processes such as bleaching, are required to make the paper reusable. There is no guarantee that the new recycled product obtained will be of good quality. This is because recycling involves manufacturing products from used materials.

Protecting the environment is processed by recycling. For example we as the demand for paper increases, a number of trees are being cut to produce paper.

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Due to the use of harsh chemicals in the process of bleaching and this can cause health problems on exposure. It is quite difficult to recycle all the material such as find plastic convenient for everyday use because there different kinds of plastic and one has to sort them systematically so as make a useful recycled product. One cannot simply manufacture a new product by combining different kinds of plastic.

Still it is observed that different kinds of plastic and one has to sort them systematically so as make a useful recycled product. One cannot simply manufacture a new product by combining different kinds of plastic.

It is obvious that taking everyday trash to the nearest recycling center can make a positive impact on the environment therefore everyone must take the initiative to recycle waste material in order to preserve and protect our planet,

The Cairo Slum is an example of Recycle success

A local school funded by Procter & Gamble teaches the urban poor how to recycle plastics.

Thomas Taha Rassam Culhane is the founder of Solar Cities, it is an organization that install solar hot-water heaters on the rooftops of Coptic Christian and Muslim communities in Cairo’s slums.

Zamalek is in Cairo , a lush island neighborhood in the Nile, is the heart of the city’s upscale area and it is thrives with tourists and commerce. Residents have learned to make a living off the trash from Zamalek and other parts of the Egyptian City.

The Zabaleen , an Arabic word means in English garbage collectors, who used to gather and recycle Cairo’s garbage by their own hands for decades. Tens of thousands of these people took home to a place called Manshiyet Nasser ,which is a narrow dirt streets and precariously built houses, as a place for them to live in.

A closer look at primarily Coptic Christian community reveals that Al Zabaleen means of survival may seem lowly but it reveals that something greater is going on here. The Zabaleen, like people living in poor countries around the world, are on the front lines of climate change.

The United Nations last year Cited Egypt as an example, and reported that greenhouse gas emissions will have disproportionately negative effects on the planet’s most impoverished nations.

Thomas Taha Rassam Culhane, the founder of Solar Cities and studying for his doctorate in urban planning at UCLA, has a nongovernmental organization that is installing environment-friendly solar hot-water heaters on the rooftops of Coptic Christian and Muslim communities in Cairo’s slums, says that people in Manshiyet Nasser, environmental degradation is already a reality and they are already living in the worst of it and they don’t want to see it getting any worse.

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Culhane, says although poor people like the Zabaleen don’t leave a large carbon footprint because their individual energy use is low but they create a problem for the economy and this should attract an International Attention because the power they do use is subsidized by the government. The Zabaleen are using small vehicles and donkey carts, they haul massive bundles of trash from Cairo and about 80 percent of the garbage they bring into the community is recycled by hand.

Picture of children as young as three sitting with their mothers and grandmothers and sorting through broken glass, scraps of metal, aluminum cans, dirty diapers and rotted food is a very normal scene in Cairo. One of the women sorting through piles of refuse saying that she is working all the time and that her hands getting dirty there’s no water. She is stating that the food is expensive and gas prices are seven pounds a bottle so they can not afford buying for heat and this why she work such like this.

Culhane says that few years ago the Egyptian government decided to privatize the country’s waste-management system, threatening the Zabaleen way of life.

But because of Cairo’s narrow streets foreign companies ,hired to do the job, found that their garbage trucks couldn’t do the job stating the donkeys can do such job and therefore the slum’s residents still collecting much of the city’s trash.

Several years ago, UNESCO and Procter & Gamble began investing in an informal recycling school, officially called the Mokattam Non-Formal Education Project. after the Zabaleen’s efforts have attracted attention from the international community. The Culhane says counterfeiters used to sift through garbage, take Procter & Gamble shampoo bottles, fill them with cheaper products and resell them. In order to get the bottles off the streets, , the Cincinnati-based company agreed to fund the school and help the community learn how to recycle plastic.

Now days, the school serves as a center where young people can learn about the business and economics of recycling and it is colorfully painted with P&G shampoo bottles. Students are trained to use Excel spreadsheets, and they learn how to shred plastic in machines, wash and dry it using solar energy, bag it and send it out to be melted down for reuse.