Why should we recycle?

Question

Why should we recycle?

Answer 1

prevents piles of unrotted waste sites, and the items are useful saves the planet

Answer 2

why we recycle???  Well first of all we can use the extra paper, plastic, metal (etc.) for many things. When were done with them we recycle. Then it goes to be added to the other  paper, plastic, metal (etc.) so we can reuse them. It prevents garbage and landfill overfill and it's alot cheaper.

Answer 3

we shouldnt

Answer 4

Because it's a good thing to do. :D

Answer 5

1) Saves costs (especially metals such as aluminium)

2) Reduces use of fossil fuels

3) Why shouldn't we?

4) Landfills are an eye-sore

5) Greater satisfaction knowing we aren't harming the planet as much.

Answer 6

Resources are growing short these days as the population grows. Theres just less space for garbage in the dumps because you cant dispose all the garbage we throw out each and everyday. also it takes alot of time for some garbage to decompose. and some garbage cant even decompose like styrofoam.  We really have no way to get rid of the garbage. We cant just throw it into space or dump it in the ocaen so its best to recycle and try to reduce our garbage. we can start by saving paper.

Answer 7

We should recycle some things, but things like paper should not be recycled because it uses more energy to recycle than to make from scratch.

One cool fact is that if we put ALL our waste in a landfill for the next 100 years it would cover 5 sq miles and would be underground, and out of the way(1).

Answer 8

Greenhouse-gas emissions have risen rapidly in the past two centuries, and levels today are higher than at any time in at least the past 650,000 years. In 1995, each of the six billion people on earth was responsible, on average, for one ton of carbon emissions. Oceans and forests can absorb about half that amount. Although specific estimates vary, scientists and policy officials increasingly agree that allowing emissions to continue at the current rate would induce dramatic changes in the global climate system. To avoid the most catastrophic effects of those changes, we will have to hold emissions steady in the next decade, then reduce them by at least 60-80 per cent by the middle of the century. (A delay of just 10 years in stopping the increase would require double the reductions.) Yet, even if all carbon emissions stopped today, the earth would continue to warm for at least another century. ...

A person's carbon footprint is simply a measure of his contribution to global warming. (CO2 is the best known of the gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, but others - including water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide - also play a role.) Virtually every human activity - from watching television ot buying a quart of milk - has some carbon cost associated with it. We all consume electricity generated by burning fossil fuels; most people rely on petroleum for transportation and heat. Emissions from those activities are not hard to quantify. Watching a plasma television for three hours every day contributes two hundred and fifty kilograms of carbon to the atmosphere each year; an LCD is responsible for less than half that number. Yet the calculations required to assess the full environmental impact of how we live can be dazzlingly complex. ... A few months ago, scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute reported that the carbon footprint of Christmas - including food, travel, lighting, and gifts - was 650 kg per person. That is as much, they estimated, as the weight of "one thousand Christmas puddings" for every resident of England. ...

Many factors influence the carbon footprint of a product: water use, cultivation and harvesting methods, quantity and type of fertilizer, even the type of fuel used to make the package. Sea-freight emissions are less than a 60th of those associated with airplanes, and you don't have to build highways to berth a ship. Last year, a study of the carbon cost of the global wine trade found that is actually more "green" for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. The study found that "the efficiencies of shipping drive a 'green line' all the way to Columbus, Ohio, the point where a wine from Bordeaux and Napa has the same carbon intensity."

The environmental burden imposed by importing apples from New Zealand to Northern Europe or New York can be lower than if the apples were raised fifty miles away. "In New Zealand, they have more sunshine than in the UlK, which helps productivity," (Adrian) Williams (agriculture researcher at the Natural Resources Department of Cranfield University, in England) explained. That means the yield of New Zealand apples far exceeds the yield of those grown in northern climates, so the energy required for farmers to grow the crop is correspondingly lower. It also helps that the electricity in New Zealand is mostly generated by renewable sources, none of which emit large amounts of CO2. Researchers at Loncoln University in Christchurch, found that lamb raised in New Zealand and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to England produced 688 kg of carbon-dioxide emissions per ton, about a fourth of the amount produced by British lamb. In part, that is because pastures in New Zealand need far less fertilizer than most grazing land in Britain (or in many parts of the U.S.). Similarly, importing beans from Uganda or Kenya - where the farms are small, tractor use is limited, and the fertilizer is almost always manure - tends to be more efficient than growing beans in Europe, with its reliance on energy-dependent irrigation systems. ...

... We are going to have to reduce our carbon footprint rapidly, and we can do that only by limiting the amount of fossil fuels released into the atmosphere. ... Each time we drive a car, use electricity generated by a coal-fired plant, or heat our homes with gas or oil, carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases escape into the air. We can use longer-lasting light bulbs, lower the termostat (and the air-conditioning), drive less, and buy more fuel-efficient cars. That will help, and so will switching to cleaner sources of energy. Flying has also emerged as a major carbon don't - with some reason, since airplanes at high altitudes release at least 10 times as many greenhouse gases per mile as trains do. Yet neither transportation - which accounts for 15 per cent of greenhouse gases - nor industrial activity (another 15 per cent) presents the most efficient way to shrink the carbon footprint of the globe. ...

(John O.) Niles, the chief science and policy officer for the environmental group Carbon Conservation, argues that spending $5 billion a year to prevent deforestation in countries like Indonesia would be one of the best investments the world could ever make. "The value of that land is seen as consisting only of the value of its lumber," he said. A logging company comes along and offers to strip the forest to make some trivial wooden product, or a palm-oil plantation. The governments in these places have no cash. They are sitting on this resource that is doing nothing for their economy. So when a guy says, 'I will give you a few hundred dollars if you let me cut down these trees,' it's not easy to turn your nose up at that. Those are dollars people can spend on shcools and hospitals."

... According to the latest figures, deforestation pushes nearly six billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That amounts to 30 million acreas - an area half the size of the UK - chopped down every year. Put another way, according to one recent calculation, during the next 24 hours the effect of losing forests in Brazil and Indonesia will be the same if 8 million people boarded airplanes at Heathrow Airport and flew en masse to New York.

... From both a political and economic perspective, it would be easier and cheaper to reduce the rate of deforestation than to cut back significantly on air travel. It would also have a far greater impact on climate change and on social welfare in the developing world. Possessing rights to carbon would grant new power to farmers who, for the first time, would be paid to preserve their forests rather than destroy them. Unfortunately, such plans are seen by many people as morally unattractive. "The whole issue is tied up with the misconceived notion of 'carbon colonialism," Niles told me. "Some activists do not want the Third World to have to alter their behavior, because the problem was largely caused by us in the West."

More short, easily-digested, fully cited excerpts to help explain climate change and a few of the solutions here (the blue bits, actually) http://www.pokerpulse.com/gogreen.php.

Basically, anything that reduces the carbon footprint should be encouraged. Re-using things is most often but not always preferable. The above provides a tool to help each of us measure a transaction.

Answer 9

It doesn`t take too long to put rubbish in different boxes, I don`t like paying extra for doing it though, council tax should come down

Answer 10

Because if something can be re-used without the costs outweighing the cost of gathering new raw material, then it seems pointless not to doesn't it?

Answer 11

because the earths resources are finite so we can't simply keep making new evrythin and then just dumping the old in a hole in the ground, it doesn't make any sense.

By recycling it reduces the amount of new materials that need to be created and consequently reduce our reliance on other countries.  

There is also the problem of us running out of suitable space to dump our rubbish.  A landfill is potentially very halmful to the environment because all the decaying material along with any contaminated material dumped can pollute water supplies and release potentially explosive gases.  no one wants a landfill built near them because of these reasons so it makes sense to try and stop our need for landfilling and recycle what we can.

Answer 12

it uses less energy to melt down a material to make a new one than to quarry, purify, transport, melt, mould e.t.c. it.

Answer 13

Because it is the latest rule the government want you to believe that it is necessary.

Answer 14

Only metal, not plastic or paper b/c it is cheaper to produce new plastic products than recycle it.

Answer 15

To try to save the planet but I think we could recycle alot more than we already do.

Answer 16

Because there is only so much material available to make the things we use.....eventually it will simply run out.

Whatever lazy people might tell you the fact is that the earth isn't infinite, there is only so much of it and after that it's empty.

Answer 17

I hope you're just polling...the answer should be obvious. If it isn't, then God help you...

Answer 18

We should all do our bit, to save the planet.

Answer 19

because it will help the earth.

Answer 20

Because after awhile there will be no more holes to stick our trash in.

Answer 21

in my personal opinion, we dont need to recycle much, landfills take care of everything and by the way: recycling costs more money than using something new

example: reycling a can

you have to melt the metal then clean it then shape it which cause heating and to shape it, it costs... whatever it costs.. and selling it, tax and so on

landfills are also a good idea for building houses on top of.. my global warming freak-science teacher agrees

Answer 22

Why not ??

Answer 23

To try to save our earth's environment!

I know it is alittle late..but we need to do what we can now!