How does recycling affect the environment in 2 different cities:
Environment is highly affected by recycling which is becoming more and more a daily part of our lives, if we want to help in cleaning the environment and become a part of the solution rather than being a part of the problem. Solid waste generation has increased from 3.66 to 4.62 pounds/ per person/ per day between 1980 and 2007, but also recycling increased from 10% in 1980 to more than 33% in 2007. According to the EPA, plastics accounted for 12.1 percent of the 254 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2007 of that, only 6.8 percent was recycled.
Plastic recycling affecting the environment
1st City to ban Plastic water bottles:
A couple of weeks ago, the town of Bundanoon, about two hours south of Sydney, Australia, has banned the sale of plastic water bottles. Merchants are offering alternatives to their population for reusable water bottles, as charging them a small amount to fill their reusable water bottles with purified water, or to offer the reusable bottles at the same price of the disposable ones. Banning the plastic bottles will reduce the fossil fuel energy consumption of petroleum and natural gas, used to manufacture PET (Form of plastic found in water bottles packaging).
styrofoam recycling affecting the environment
1st city that could have banned using Styrofoam:
While California has shut down the proposition to ban using Styrofoam for fear of loosing more jobs in the state, if this bill would have passed CA would have been the state to ban Styrofoam foam containers The reason that Styrofoam is bad for our environment is made from Expanded Polystyrene which is an end product meaning it can be only be recycled to more Styrofoam, the good news is that a bacteria found in beetles can break down Styrofoam into smaller pieces (Not decompose it).
Other good news is that the State might have not passed the bill but there are more than 20 cities in CA banned Styrofoam food containers.
Next blog will be discussing the future of plastic recycling
Sahar Andrade
www.linkedin.com/in/saharandrade
Twitter:@saharAndrade
