Duke University Professor Helena Bachmann announced, “As you sort everything into the right bins, you recall that recycling is helping your community and protecting the environment” (Bachman). As a responsible human in society, recycling is very important because citizens save 130 million tons of scrap metals, paper, plastics, rubber, glass, and textiles (Wiener, Jhen, et al.). Recycling can eliminate landfills, too. In the United States there are 13,091 landfills, and there are 261 landfills in each state. A landfill is a location where people dispose recyclable materials. Out of the 13,091 landfills 10,000 of them are already filled up (Kraft). The U.S makes 220 million tons of waste per year (“EPA Report Shows Progress”). Yet, where does …show more content…
One major contribution to global warming comes from greenhouse gasses.According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "reports that the greenhouse gas emissions emitted directly from our waste being burned in an incinerator or buried in a landfill account for about 3% of the total greenhouse gas emitted in the U.S each year (“EPA Report Shows Progress”).” Our job is to stop the production of greenhouse gasses. As just stated, greenhouse gasses are a major contributor to pollution. These gasses are slowly killing earth (Bachman). According to environmental scientist Michael Kraft, these gasses are eroding the ozone layer, which holds the heat captured in our planet’s atmosphere. People might ask, What does recycling paper-products have to do with global warming? Well, paper products are not biodegradable, and as they dissolve, methane gasses are created. Methane gasses are three times worse than carbon dioxide (Kraft). To clarify, these gases increase due to human pollution. To explain further, the gasses are created by burning trash, and they slow down the process of recycling (Daigneau). Every type of harmful gas has a chemical composition. Greenhouse gasses are composed of carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide. To sum this up recycling helps decrease the rate of global warming and the production of greenhouse gasses because, recycling takes the product and repurposes the product all without any