Recycling

It’s about time I blogged about the issue I’m most passionate about (it’s a tie between recycling and gay marriage rights… but I’ve already blogged about that). I was inspired by these statistics published today in Dear Abby – this is how long it takes specific materials to decompose:

Paper ................................ 2 to 5 months
Orange peels ................... 6 months
Milk cartons .................... 5 years
Filter-tip cigarettes ....... 10 to 12 years
Plastic bags ..................... 10 to 20 years
Leather shoes ................. 24 to 40 years
Plastic containers ........... 50 to 80 years
Disposable diapers ......... 75 years
Tin cans ........................... 100 years
Aluminum cans .............. 200 to 500 years
Styrofoam ....................... Never

Styrofoam – Never! Never?! I cringe when thinking about all the styrofoam out there in the world, taking up space in landfills. It will be there forever! Forever, because people are too lazy to put it in the recycling bin. Or even have a recycling bin.

Our world has limited space, and I’d prefer not to use it as a landfill. Or as little landfill as possible. Every item that’s recycled is one less item that goes into a dump. Even better, it’s remade into another item – thus removing the need to create a new item. Is this not the best idea EVER?

To avoid turning our planet into one big dump, it’s so, so important that we recycle the items we can – paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminum. That’s not everything by all means… if you want to know what you can recycle, go here.

Oh, and shopping bags! Before I started using cloth bags, I had hundreds of bags in my house. It was ridiculous. Those bags can be taken back to most stores and placed in a bin at the entrance. Look up there ^ If you throw them away, they will be in our ground for 10 to 20 years. Just bring them back to the store on your way to shop.

I’ve gotten into the habit of using cloth shopping bags though, and I love it. They are much sturdier and can hold more stuff. I keep them in my car and just grab them before I go into a store. My mom got me started with this (thank you!). At first I would always forget to use them, but it eventually became my normal routine. I still forget sometimes, and I hate it because the cloth bags are much easier to carry.

At our house, we recycle almost everything. It’s just as easy as putting it in the trash. Think about most groceries – they’re packaged in a cardboard box. Or your drinks are in a plastic container. That’s all recyclable and can be remade into another box or bottle. Please don’t send it to take up space in a landfill when it doesn’t have to!