We need to help out more with recycling in the U.S.

By: Olivia S.

       Have you ever seen a piece of plastic on the ground? Pick it up and recycle; it can make a huge difference. Recycling is the process of turning old waste into a new product without completely discarding it. Recycling in the U.S. nowadays is not working too well.  It is important we understand the impacts recycling has on our world, positive and negative. We can change our world for the better, and that change starts with you. 

       In 2022 a beloved baby sea turtle by the name of Izzy passed away due to plastic in the ocean. Izzy was rescued by the Olive Ridley Project. The Olive Ridley Project is an organization dedicated to protecting sea turtles and their homes. Baby Izzy was being treated for a cloacal infection and plastic ingestion. When he first started out the treatment, he did not respond to it so well. In just a matter of days, Baby Izzy passed away from a gargantuan amount of microplastics. This is just one of one million sea turtles that die a year due to plastic. It is insane how we just let this keep happening every year. It's like we have no care in the world for any marine animals dying, especially animals that are already endangered. At least 100,000 marine animals die each year from plastic debris or getting tangled in plastic. 

       The article State Of the Planet from Columbia Climate School states, “Our oceans are drowning in plastic.” And you could make a big impact, even with a minuscule one, by picking up a piece of plastic. People throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour in America. There are thirty-eight million tons of plastic waste in the U.S. every year. Only five-six percent of that waste gets recycled.

       Recycling in the U.S. is a colossal dilemma. One reason for that is because of contamination. Some recyclables become contaminated when a dirty container gets into the recycling bin or when recyclables get placed in the wrong bin. 25% of all recycling is contaminated, and it can not be recovered to recycle. Contamination can stop large batches of material from being recycled. We not only have to recycle, but we have to do it the right way. It can create an even bigger problem with major contamination. 

       Of course, a major negative outcome of recycling the wrong way is landfills. “We need to recognize what landfill really is: a waste of waste!” said Stephanie Kersten Johnson, a professor in Columbia University’s Sustainability Management Master’s Program. Landfill is just a pile of waste putting trash in the ground that might take a long time to degrade. For a bottle to degrade, it will take about four hundred fifty years. Landfills are a huge part of the recycling problem. We need to end these immense amounts of landfills.

       In 2016, the U.S. exported sixteen million tons of plastic, paper, and metals to China. For decades China handled about half the world’s trash. Thirty percent of this trash was contaminated and never ended up being recycled. China’s oceans and countryside were filled with landfill. In 2018, China banned the import of most plastics and other materials that were contaminated. Thenceforth, the U.S. sent waste to countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Laos, Ethiopia, Kenya and Senegal. Today, America still ships one million metric tons of waste to other countries a year, often to countries who already have a problem with landfill. Sending all of this waste to other countries caused many inconveniences for the other countries. The ESG investing team states that plastic waste exported to Southeast Asia produced highly contaminated water, extremely toxic fumes, and rotten crops. Rancid smells, polluted oceans, their territory was becoming disgusting to be in. America’s recycling system was entirely subverted without the Chinese market for plastic. 

       Today in the U.S, people generate 4.9 pounds of trash a day, and only one third of the waste is recycled. Start to think of the many impacts recycling can do for us. Recycling one ton of newspapers can save fifteen trees. For every ton of recycled papers, it can power a T.V. for 31 hours straight. We need to stop just talking about it and take action. 

       So, how can you help? Well, you can start by recycling any piece of paper, plastic, or metal you see lying on the ground. Small things like that can make a big difference. But it’s more than just recycling, also try not to contaminate by placing trash or anything dirty in recycling bins. Clean out all of your items before they go in the recycling bin.

       This all just goes to show that we need to think more about recycling and how it can benefit us. It is something that most Americans don’t ever put an effort into. It’s an enormous problem in the United States. Contamination, landfill, and material waste. These components all lead up to issues that we will not be able to recover from eventually. We need to do our part now to prevent even worse inconveniences from happening to our world in the future.