Recycling be made Mandatory?

Recycling should be made mandatory

The earth has a limited quantity of natural resources, such as air, water, fuels and plants. We people all around the world are using these resources in our daily life. Some of these resources can be reused while some of these resources cannot be reused. Those resources which cannot be reused cause many problems in the long run such as Global Warming, climate change. To reduce these types of problems recycling should be conducted and if it’s not done so it should be made mandatory.

Recycling is the processing of waste materials in order to make them reusable. This helps conserve energy and reduce the consumption of natural resources. Recycling used products is one of the best ways to save the environment. It is important to recycle, so as to avoid environmental harm. Plastic covers, plastic bottles and other plastic goods can be reused. Paper can be recycled to make other things like toilet paper, tissue paper, paper cups etc. Old tyres can be recycled and reprocessed to make rubber mats and other rubber goods.

The process of recycling protects the environment. For instance, we know that paper is manufactured from trees. As the demand for paper increases, a number of trees are being cut to produce paper. By recycling paper, we can prevent the destruction of forests. Today, a number of forests are being destroyed to meet the ever increasing demand of paper. We can save our natural resources by recycling products made from raw materials. Recycling a ton of mixed paper or newspaper, is equivalent to saving 12 trees.

Pollution means the introduction of hazardous substances in the form of plastics, empty cans, chemicals and ordinary waste into the environment. These substances contaminate our environment. Plastic waste is responsible for causing increased soil and water pollution. Plastic recycling is an effective solution to this problem. The recycling process involves recovering used materials from the plastic waste, which is then used in the manufacturing industry.

Recycling can also help reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, thereby helping to mitigate global warming effects. Various effects would be on our environment if people were not recycling. Looking at the trash now, one can easily estimate the trash in the future. Among 80% of the world’s total trash can be recycled which leaves people with the confusion on the type of goods that can be recycled.

Recycling also has economical advantages. Initially one may think that recycling can be costly. But as the population of people recycling increases, it becomes more cost efficient. In addition, recycling saves money because products made from scratch take more time and energy to produce. If paper is made from used paper it is much more easy to make than making from the new raw materials.

There are many new technologies that enable man to easily recycle and reprocess the waste he/she generates. He/she must try his/her best to recycle. Processing raw materials consumes a considerable amount of energy resources. 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. But unfortunately this has not happened. People are not extensively recycling the products that they have used and as the consequences, many things have happened and it has left all of us with a question, “Should recycling be mandatory?”.

As people are not recycling, it should be made mandatory. If recycling isn’t made compulsory soon, our world may become a huge junkyard. This should be prevented from happening. Recycling should be enforced for a clean, healthy, civilized and waste-free society. For instance, the amount of trash that the United States produces, has tripled in the past 50 years. At that rate, US will be producing nearly a billion tons of trash a year by 2060.

In US in the year 1988, over 70% of the landfills were closed, the US government then had to figure out how they were going to deal with this huge amount of trash each year. The four main solutions they came up with were opening more landfills, incineration, shipping out of the country, and recycling. Three out of these four were very bad, both ecologically and ethically. But the fourth one on the other hand was very good, it reduced energy use to make knew products, saved the wilderness by not dumping trash on it, and best of all created basically new products without almost any waist.

One of the disadvantages of not recycling is that the Landfills are running out of room for waste, and some states are running out of space for landfills. Some of  the examples are the city area around ratnapark, asan, and the most reliable example is balkumari, in front of the KUSOM premises in Nepal. If we do not recycle more (as well as reuse and reduce more often), we will soon be surrounded by our own waste. So there should be compulsion to recycle things by everyone in the world.

Not recycling paper increases the amount of new paper that is produced. The new paper requires logging to harvest trees and contributes to deforestation when the trees are not logged from a sustainable timber farm. This contributes to the destabilization of river banks and increase in agricultural land use, which causes chemical herbicides and pesticides to runoff into the water system resulting in destruction of the environment.

Paper that does not reach recycling facilities must be processed by the environment. Paper does biodegrade but the chemicals used in ink on print paper are placed into the environment. The paper also enters landfills and must remain in the ground until it is absorbed and processed into the environment. Paper does degrade at a faster rate than many other manufactured items like Styrofoam and plastics but it is more efficient to recycle the paper than to consume. The amount of human waste has crowded landfills and paper that is not recycled contributes to the crowding.

Climate change is a major consequence of not recycling paper and other recyclable materials. The lack of recycling creates a demand for new resources and trees are logged to process into new paper. The removal of the trees reduces the amount of carbon dioxide that is processed by plants. The trees also require fuel to transport and process the material into new paper. The fuel burned is released into the environment as greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Chemical leeching from ink used in some newspapers and printers increases the risk of cancer in human populations near landfills. The trees removed from the environment also displace native animals. Trees are commonly harvested in remote areas of Nepal. The displacement of the people and animals leaves the land open for development and discourages protection after the damage becomes visible.

But people tend to be very reckless, indifferent and uncaring about the environment. They do not care about the undisputable garbage and wastes they create. They go on creating more and more garbage and they simply unwilling to recycle their stuff. The lack of recycling can be attributed to laziness, inconvenience, or ignorance. Many people simply don’t know the importance of recycling and the damage that is being done to the environment everyday.

One of the big myths which I think prevents a lot of people from recycling is that not many things can be recycled, maybe that was true 15 years ago but not any more. Since we also live in a city which suposively has one of the best recycling systems in the nation, we have no excuse not to recycle; the recycling center will take anything from fabric to cars.

Especially now, recycling is being promoted. There are many things in our day-to-day life that we can recycle, but very few of us do it. It stresses the demand to make new stuff when we could clearly use the recycled stuff. For example, it is possible for people to reuse plastic bags and plastic bottles for sometime, but they clearly won’t. They just throw them and buy new plastics. These plastics are very much unlike other bio-degradable items. They remain a very big question on the issue of waste management.

Many people have the misconception that plastics cannot be recycled. They are normally made from oil and natural gas. Recycling plastic containers helps to conserve landfill space and natural resources and to cut down on pollution. Since the number of landfills continues to diminish, keeping plastic containers out of landfills is important. Plastics do not degrade in landfills. Therefore, containers you throw away will be taking up landfill space hundreds of years from now. Making plastic products from recycled plastic also reduces air and water pollution, and energy used for making plastics from raw materials. Recycled plastic isused to make products such as plastic lumber, toys, containers, carpet, fiber fill for  jackets and flowerpots. There are over 1,500 products made with or packaged in recycled plastic. So we have got no option than recycling the plastics and it should be mandatory.

The potential for recycling the waste generated in Nepalese municipalities is high because most of the waste is recyclable and technologies for recycling most of the waste is readily available in the country. On average, about 70 percent of the household waste generated in Nepalese municipalities consists of organic matter, while about 20 percent consist of recyclable inorganic materials such as paper, plastic and metal, and about 10 percent is inert materials. Hetauda Municipality has developed a simple and effective way to manage the medical

waste generated in the city which can be a suitable model for other municipalities. Tribhuwan Nagar is one of only three municipalities in Nepal that has an engineered landfill for waste management; the others are Kathmandu and Pokhara. So it is clear that there is a huge prospect of recycling in Nepal but people are not simply following it forcing the government to make it mandatory.

Forcing to do a thing is not good, but if it’s betterment for the environment and betterment of the humanity, one should be forced to do the thing that helps the environment and themselves as a whole. Whether people feel like recycling or not recycling, they should do it viewing the consequences and the advantages. In a country like Nepal, if recycling is made mandatory, then many more recycling facilities will be available. If its made mandatory, then we need not need to hold our nose while walking in the city area, as less garbage would be produced which helps in tourism promotion as well. Economically, the more facilities that open, the more job opportunities that become available and therefore the more economical development.

If recycling were to be made mandatory then eco-awareness is also enforced. Many people, who know the importance of recycling, have the will to do it but just don’t find the time to. It is sometimes so infuriating when you see someone throw a Mineral water bottle in the way instead of moving some  feet away and throwing it in a recycling bin. It is like smoking inside a closed space, some people did not realize how awful it has until someone made it a big deal. Rules and laws are made for the benefit of the people, and certainly recycling should be made mandatory.

In keeping view of these points we have got no option than to recycle things and the goods we use rather than throwing them unnecessarily. It should be made mandatory so that every people follow it and it help the environment as a whole. Punishments should be enforced for not recycling. They must pay for causing excessive damage to the environment. They must be rewarded for the more they recycle. Then there will be competition for people to recycle and they will help conserve the environment. They will also lessen the burden to the waste management and lessen the burden to the earth.