Recycling
One thing that humankind is
very adept at making is garbage, especially today with the amount of disposable
goods that are on the market. Recycling is a process that allows for materials
that seem to no longer have a use be reused to prevent waste from filling up a landfill
( Recycling - Wikipedia,
the free encyclopaedia). This may be by
melting down the item to create a new item, repurposing the item to be recycled
into something new, or reusing the item for its original purpose.
Recycling may seem to be something
that was recently invented with the green movement, but that is not actually
the case. “In fact, the scrap recycling industry estimates that people were
reusing metal scrap as far back as 3000 B.C. or so, while the reuse of
wastepaper and textiles goes back about half that far” (Carless, J. 1992 Taking Out the Trash Page
27). This means that pinpointing the exact inventor or person that discovered
recycling would be hard to do overall. In the past, many items were not like
the good made today that are intended to last for only a short time and need to
be repurchased again. Items were made to last, but if something were broken, it
would be repaired or repurposed. For example, a frying pan could have the dents
removed by hammering them out, and a ripped dress could be ripped up further
into cleaning rags. Many times these individuals would recycle without even
realizing that they are participating in the concept of recycling because goods
were not as readily available as today. It was just acting to extend the life
of the product to remain usefulness for the individual. Not everyone was able
to find a new use for an item, and some people actual made a career out of
collecting metal scraps to be repaired and sold.
There had been times in
history when recycling has been further developed to serve a particular purpose
when items have not been as accessible as they had been before. A perfect
example of a time where recycling was important in the past would be during the
Second World War. Many items were not available because so much focus was on
the war effort, and items needed to last as long as possible because of the
fact that a replacement would not be as readily available to the individual.
Metals were needed to create weapons and vehicles along with rubber and nylon,
so products that used these materials were not produced as readily because they
were considered luxury items. The environmental movement itself was not
established until the 1960s and 70s, and the first Earth Day, recycling’s “holiday”
happened in 1970.
Recycling today is still an important
topic, even if as a people, we are not forced to recycle due to a lack of goods
or money. There is a fall of goods that are produced that are used for a time,
and then thrown away for the next new thing. An excellent example for this is
mobile phones. Once a person has finished their contract or is ready to move on
to the newest generation mobile, they discard their last one and all the
accessories that was used for that particular model. There are companies out
there that do recycle cell phones and other electronics by either deleting
previous information and reselling the mobiles, donating them to those in need,
such as soldiers, or recycling unwanted phones in an environmentally friendly
way. Today, there is more awareness of the importance of recycling beyond just
being frugal, but there is still room for improvement. More people need to
recycle everything that they can to keep it from the landfill, and more options
need to be created to recycle materials that seem to have no future purpose.
In conclusion, recycling
may appear to be a very recent concept that allows for people to reduce the
amount of waste that they throw away, but it is actually something that has
existed for a lot longer. In the past, people may not have been able to replace
items due to the scarcity of money or the item itself, so it made sense to
ensure that the item would last for as long as possible by repairing it or
using it for another purpose. Today, there is a spare of most goods as they are
being mass produced, and many are not made of good quality materials that allow
for it to be easily repaired. Many times, the product is cheaper to replace
than repair. Recycling items by finding a purpose for the items to keep it from
the landfill is essential to keep the planet from being overloaded from the
amount of garbage that is being produced today.
Words: 780
Bibliography:
Carless,
J. (1992). Taking Out the Trash: A No-Nonsense Guide To Recycling.
Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Earth
Day: The History of A Movement | Earth Day Network. (n.d.). Earth Day
Network. Retrieved April 25, 2013, from
http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement
Grabianowski,
E. (n.d.). Recycling History. HowStuffWorks. Retrieved April 25, 2013,
from http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/recycling1.htm
Silverman,
B. (2008). Recycling: reducing waste. Chicago, Ill.: Heinemann Library.
Ezproxy Login. (n.d.). Ezproxy Login. Retrieved
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