Recycling Pros Cons Research Paper

Recycling

I support recycling. There are a number of arguments in favor of recycling and very few reasonable ones against. This paper will outline the balance of the arguments. Recycling in this context refers to materials such as glass, plastic and paper being sent to depots for gathering and subsequent processing. This processing essentially breaks down the material from its final consumer form to a more basic form. At that point, it is rebuilt back into consumer material and re-used.

Support for Recycling

One of the biggest arguments in favor of recycling is that materials typically sent out for recycling are finite. This is especially true of plastic, which is made from molecules found in hydrocarbons -- oil and gas, so non-renewable resources that are better used for energy than plastic bags anyway. Recycling allows us to use less of our finite resources, because every extraction contributes to multiple product life cycles, instead of just one (Kinnon, 2008).Even where materials are essentially infinite, there are arguments in favor of recycling. A major recycled product is glass, for example. Glass is made from sand, of which we have plenty, and it is an ancient technology so we do not rely on fossil fuels for its production even it came to that. The issue with glass is that glass bottles take up a lot of space in our landfills. Landfills are essentially just giant garbage piles that are eventually buried. By removing things like glass bottles that can be recycled from the landfill, less material goes into landfills. They take longer to fill, and ultimately we use less space on them. This is a particular issue in areas where there is not a lot of room for landfills. Some cities have landfills located far from town, requiring garbage to be trucked several hours, which is incredibly wasteful and a poor use of fossil….....