The Benefits Of Recycling Program

My name is Amber Garbs and I am a sophomore at Lamar University who has a keen interest in making the world a better place for future generations. Here at Lamar we participate in a thing called LU Green which encourages students to recycle in order to reduce the pollution caused by waste. In cities around Orchard, such as Rosenberg and Sugar Land, they have a Recycling Program that is much like your garbage trucks picking up trash, but instead they pick up recyclable items put in a green container. Having a Recycling Program of our own will help keep the air clean for generations to come, reduce the amount of waste sent to waste fields, and create jobs (Recycling Basics).

Our town, as small as it may be, is capable of making changes as long as we give it a shot. By giving families the opportunity to purchase a green trashcan, much like the ones they already use, will give them an opportunity to make the world a better place. Also, if the green can is right next to the old can used for trash, there is no excuse as to why you cannot simply sort through and recycle. Everyone has heard that recycling reduces air pollution, but I do not believe everyone knows how much. “According to the University of Central Oklahoma, when manufacturers use recycled paper, they cut air pollution by 73 percent and water pollution by 35 percent” (Brenner). These statistics are just with recycling paper just imagine all the other recyclable items and how much they can cut air pollution too! Those are some numbers the small town of Orchard could contribute to if we had a better means of recycling. To put the benefits of recycling into a smaller picture we will look at Sugar Land, Texas.

At the start of their Recycling Program, they were diverting only 10 percent of waste from landfills and in 2013 that number rose to more than 36 percent (City of Sugar Land). I would love to see how well the town of Sugar Land is doing now. Of course Sugar Land is a much bigger town than Orchard, but that does not go to show how much of a difference a small town with heart can make. Along with clean air and reducing what is sent to the waste lands, Orchard can contribute to the increase in nationwide jobs as well. The National Recycling Economic Information Study conducted in 2016, analyzed the economic benefits of recycling. According to the study, recycling accounted for, “757,000 jobs, $36.6 billion in wages; and $6.7 billion in tax revenues (Recycling Basics). Furthermore, a 2011 report made by Tellus Institute, says that if the nation can increase the recycle rate from the current 34% to 75% it would create 1.5 million new jobs (Goldstein).

Now I know our small town cannot make as big of a difference as a town like Sugar Land, but every little contribution helps make a difference in our lives. I believe if Orchard starts a Recycling Program then the other small towns surrounding us will get the idea as well and then we have started a domino effect. A Recycling Program is nothing more than your average garbage day with just a little more green. Of course big towns like Sugar Land and Rosenberg do it because they have a lot of people to help contribute, but I know the heart our town has. The town of Orchard is one to better the community in any way they can. It all starts with green trashcans, that leads to a cleaner air for not only our life but for the lives of everyone we care about. With that comes less waste lands to make Texas and the rest of the world a prettier place to live. It does not just stop there, in this economy finding a job gets tough, but with the jobs created with recycling we can put many humans back to work.