Let me tell you, my mom LOVES recycling. It’s almost as if she has a radar for it because anytime my siblings and I would try to throw away anything that was recyclable, she would take it out of the trash, rinse it out, and throw it in the recycling bin. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to appreciate all of the times she’d yell at me for throwing away a plastic apple sauce container, because now, recycling is just something that I do without thinking about. Sometimes I do wonder where she got it from because my grandma has absolutely no qualms about throwing everything away.
Recycling is important, it saves our environment, reduce and reuse; these are all things we’ve heard thousands of times in our lives. We’ve seen the impact that plastic water bottles have on the oceans and the animals that live there. In this day and age, there are so many ways that we each can lessen our impact on the environment by reusing and recycling. With the number of reusable water bottles out there, there should be no reason that plastic water bottles need to be used. And for the plastic water water bottles that have been used, they can be turned into cool new things like yoga mats. Penn States does a great job at promoting recycling; whenever you go to the dining halls, there are all of the different receptors for compost, landfill, paper, plastic, and even more. This makes us more conscientious about what we are throwing away and whether or not it can be reused or not. Penn State also has things like Green2Gos for the buffets, which are the perfect solution for more sustainable take out containers than the regular styrofoam. Styrofoam is not biodegradable and can take 500 years to fully decompose, so the less of it that we can use, the better off our environment will be.
Image 1: EPA
One of the important things that people don’t often think about with recycling is that using recycled materials reduces the need for new materials. This means less mining for raw materials, which takes tremendous energy and emits a lot of greenhouse gases. It means less trees being felled to make new paper. It means less food decomposing and releasing methane into the air. So, no matter how cheesy it sounds, make sure that you reduce, reuse, and recycle, the environment will thank you.
Image 2: Cannon Hygiene International
I personally am not super big into recycling. Occasionally, if I see a recycling bin, I will try to sort my items, but normally I just throw them away. I believe that this is because I was raised in a home that did not have any recycling bins and threw all trash in the same can. I have been trying to get better at recycling with all of the recent news about the environment.
My family doesn’t recycle at home, so when I came to Penn State and saw the categorized waste bins I was thrown off. Now, however, I am consistently and constantly recycling and it feels great! I still have to think for a little at the bins when I’m throwing things away but I’ll get there.
I did notice at Penn State that some buildings have over seven trash cans lined up right next to each other. Each one is for a different material such as metals, plastics, food etc… I am really proud that Penn State is trash sensitive because like you stated, recycling means less mining for raw material, leading to the conserving of more energy.