I suddenly realised that if I recycle 1 ton of plastic, it means that 2 people can live ‘free of carbon cost’ for one whole year i.e. I can save on a couple’s annual energy usage and carbon footprint.

Incidentally, that’s almost 2000 pounds of oil saved.

And the next time you open the garbage bin to toss away something, take a hard look at it – more than half of what you throw away can be recycled or re-used. This includes packaging – simple wrapping paper, covers, lids, etc.

German Style Recycling

I know that in just one year, citizens of just one country, Germany, recycled this type of ‘light’ packaging – almost 2 and half tonnes of it and they saved 400,000 tons of CO2 or carbon dioxide. This means that 64 000 German households lived ‘free of carbon cost’ that year i.e. the CO2 they produced annually that year had already been set off and their carbon footprint was almost close to zero. So if a car weighs about 1 tonne, then German recyclers manage to save the weight of about half a million cars in CO2.

Think about it like this – if you just recycle just one glass bottle, you can use a light bulb for about 4 hours, ‘for free’.

So tomorrow morning, I intend to wash and re-use my bottle of milk instead of throwing it in the garbage bin. What can I use it for? Grow a plant it, refrigerate some freshly squeezed orange juice in it, use it to keep some drinking water, and so on.

Why just half my garbage, imagine if I start recycling by 30%, that is, I re-use and recycle just 1 in 3 things, and imagine if the whole nation did that and we achieved a national recycling rate of 30%, then what?
Well, then we will have managed to keep greenhouse gases emitted by 25 million cars off the road!

What are the recyling’s other benefits:

- Recycling creates more than a million jobs
- Recycling prevents destruction of habitat
- Recycling reduces soil erosion
- Recycling prevents, to a certain extent, loss of natural biodiversity
- Recycling helps save money. Corporate America saves millions of dollars on voluntary recycling programs. Am sure these guys will chip in only if it helps save them money!

Taking this thought forward, ordinary folks like you and me can keep 70 million tons of garbage away from landfills.

So let’s recycle now!

by Shradha Merchant

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