Do you truly know how much refuse is out there littering the Earth?! Just yesterday, I was at the beach on Anna Maria Island, FL for a beach clean-up organized by a club at my college, Manatee Community College. We all got together for the purpose of making our community a cleaner place, earn points towards free tuition, and to meet new people. It was all headed by the
Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup. There were about 25 students picking up litter for a combined heap of trash and recyclables of about 30-35 lbs. What we found most of were cigarette butts, of course, and bits of broken plastic and pieces of plastic wrappers.
This experience opened my eyes a bit more and I did some research on where all this garbage comes from and where it goes. Have you ever heard of the Pacific Garbage Patch? This accumulate of garbage is swirled together by circling currents and is about the size of Texas. Countless bits of broken up plastic is mainly what constitutes this. There are tons of facts on recycling out there. Take a look at these facts.
We all need to realize how much plastic hurts the Earth. Nearly EVERYTHING that our food comes in is plastic. We store the food in plastic, we eat food with plastic-ware sometimes, we drink our sodas out of plastic bottles. Did you know that bottle caps are not recyclable? Its astounding to think about how much plastic everyone in the world uses and disposes of everyday. Take a look at this great video that does an excellent job of showing how consumerism is disrupting the Earth's natural ebb: storyofstuff.com.
I will definitely make more of an effort to recycle, despite the fact that my apartment complex offers no recycling outlet on site. You can find a places to recycle almost anything in your area at this web site.
I hope you look at these resources and please leave a comment about it!
Here is a link to a local news article about our clean-up project on Anna Maria Island.
Talk to your superintendent about starting a recycling program in your building. You can volunteer to help run it. You'd be surprised at how many people are concerned about the same things you are. If it isn't an option, find out where the nearest recycling center is, and take your stuff down yourself. Perhaps you can take turns with some of your friends and neighbors. Also, remember that it is better to reduce and reuse. Refill water bottles before recycling them, and zip lock bags can be washed. I'm glad that you are concerned about this issue and I hope that you will take steps to help and encourage others to do so as well.
Like what you've read? Well, then here's more:
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
I was actually just thinking about how much America runs by being a disposable economy. We don't really reuse anything; we just throw it away. It's a far cry from the Native Americans who used to use every part of any animal they killed. It's a little sickening and kind of pathetic that we are so reliant on trash