WHY PEOPLE SHOULD RECYCLE AND HOW TO CONVINCE THEM TO RECYCLE
It is the process of transforming the reused substances into the new ones. The efficient utilization and use of the resources include: “Lessen, Restate, recycle” is the main part of the world environmental management control. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Americans usually generate about 260 tons of garbage every year. Everyday people encounter the term “Recycling”, on the bottles, on Starbucks cups, on “green” billboards, on trash cans, and on a variety of other labels, but unfortunately, not everyone is familiar with what recycling is. In this paper, I will be exploring why people should be encouraged to reuse and recycle materials and ways on which to persuade them to do the recycling.
It helps the environment to sustain. Recycling reduces landfills. No one wants to be surrounded by landfills, due to unhealthy conditions. With recycling, the places for more landfills will be unnecessary. Recycling prevents air pollution from incineration. If people would recycle there is no need to burn materials and pollute the ecosystem. Recycling is important in protecting wildlife because with recycling technology people do not need to destroy habitats for animals and also it will save millions of trees. Mike Arms in his article “7 Benefits of Recycling” (2018), made a good comparison, which shows how recycling preserves resources. He wrote – “Throwing away a single aluminium can, versus recycling it, is like pouring out six ounces of gasoline. Last year, Americans recycled enough aluminium cans to conserve the energy equivalent of more than 15 million barrels of oil.”Educator Ronnie Citron-Fink stated in her article, – “Recycling helps our climate problems.” In this case, recycling is more than important, because all harmful gasses result to the changes experienced in the climate globally.
Recycling would not be so useful without direct benefits for the economy. Recycling saves energy and money, which is extremely helpful for the economy. Moreover, according to Mark Arms, recycling is energy efficient. Citron-Fink (2018) said, – “Reusing and buying reused or recycled products create may lead to a higher demand for more recycled and reused commodities.” Consequently, people start to realize that recycling has an enormous impact on the economy in terms of reducing energy costs, preventing the use of new resources and creating new businesses.
It has not been a secret that human’s brain is arranged in the way of self-benefit. Everyone is seeking profit from everything, and recycling can benefit people more than they can imagine. Recycling helps to create new well-paying jobs and expand existing ones in the manufacturing industries. It is like a boomerang. People recycle, companies use recycled materials and reduce energy consumption. That is why costs go down. Also, recycling is able to make a finance income (Arms, 2018). For example, there are a lot of useless things people surround themselves by, that can be recycled for money, such as old cell phones, old laptops that are not working anymore and so on. From the psychological perspective, recycling unites people. Nowadays, it is really important to build the community to protect the environment. If a contribution to society by recycling makes people feel better, they realize that they are doing something constructive, they understand that they are part of something, so it will be one of the greatest benefits.
It is noticeable that not everyone is recycling. The writer and educator Citron-Fink (2018) assumes that people have reasonable arguments for it. Some people do not recycle because it is inconvenient, some do not have self-benefit from it, but the majority simply do not understand the necessity.
For many people, recycling is very inconvenient. Boldero’s (2016) study, based on Aizen and Madden’s theory of planned behavior, found that recycling is not that easy from psychological perspectives. Some people just don’t want to work hard. Waste bins are not everywhere and people got used to putting trash in the closest one due to their laziness. Moreover, even though people can overcome the laziness there is another issue: trash should be sorted by type, such as paper, plastic, bottle etc. It can be challenging to define which kinds go where.
A lot of people are living by the principle – “If they would pay me, I would recycle.” There is no benefit for recycling and no penalties for not recycling. However, countries like South Korea and Singapore are taking action in situations like this and take serious actions on people who are not supporting the recycling process. Also, some regions pay for just bottle recycling. But actually, the majority of the countries, regions, and companies do not encourage people even paying one cent. Because of this, there is no motivation for people to recycle. It is proved in research by Boldero (2016) that all attitudes and intentions depend on material values.
Lastly, for people, recycling or not recycling does not make a difference. The reason is that people do not understand the necessity of this process. Some people believe there is no problem with our environment, other people think it is too late and humanity cannot handle it anymore. Citron-Fink (2018) said, – “Misinformation about overflowing landfills, depleted resources and climate change has convinced some people that recycling does not make a difference.”
We also have a serious crisis with the Earth’s environment. Mankind is on the tipping point of environment revolution. The only option to resolve this problem is taking action. Because of it, convincing people to recycle is the key concept of saving the world. There are four possible solutions, which are indeed helpful. They are to create the recycle law, provide self-benefit, inspire by personal example and educate since childhood.
The strongest way to convince people to recycle is the law. The experience of some European countries, such as Spain, Germany, and Poland show that it works well. Due to country laws, people recycle unconsciously, as a daily routine. People think if there is a law, there is no way not to do it. These are not just unwritten norms of behavior, these are written rules, which is why they are working well. If recycling is mandatory, and people can be punished for it, there is no way to avoid doing that. According to Alfano and O’Brien (2017), America also already has a “sustainable environment” programs and recycling laws. Some states in the USA, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and California are also practising this feature. So, establishing the law is a huge step to sustainable recycling.
A Second way to convince people is to provide a self-benefit. As it was mentioned before in psychological research, humans depend on money. According to this, people just need to get profit from anything they do. If the government would provide money for recycling or offer a discount for re-usage of a bag, that would be very efficient in terms of reaching the recycling goal.
The third one is inspired by personal example. The scholar from Cambridge University, Martin (2019), considers recycling not just as a process, but as a culture. If people will live in a society where everyone is recycling, they will recycle too. According to Boldero (2016), people tend to follow the “bandwagon” and it is scientifically proven. With this method people do not need to convince anyone, they just need to start from themselves. Consequently, inspiring others by personal example will lead to positive results.
For future generations, recycling will not be such a significant issue if people will learn it from the early years. People get basic knowledge and learn all norms of behavior in school. It means the consciousness is formed at that period, while the child explores the world, understands what is good and what is bad, and what to do and what not to do. That is the reason why today’s generations do not recycle. People simply did not use it from childhood. So, if educational institutes, such as kinder gardens, schools etc. would be able to persuade kids from early years to recycle, there will be no need in future to convince people to use previous methods.
Sooner or later, recycling should become part of a human’s life. People should recycle automatically and it is very important to convince them to do it because it helps us solve the climatically issues as wells boosting our economy as more energy is preserved and also it promotes our tourism sector. Without recycling people’s chances to have a bright future are negligible. The tipping point is already gone, so recycling should be mandatory in people’s minds as soon as possible.
References
Alfano, Christine L. And O’Brien, Alyssa J. (2017). Envision In-Depth. “Can America
Go Green? Pg 262-264
Arms, M. (2018, April 30). What is Recycling – 7 Benefits of Recycling?. Retrieved from
http://www.pacebutler.com/blog/what-is-recycling-7-reasons-why-we-should/
Boldero, J. (2016), The Prediction of Household Recycling of Newspapers: The Role of
Attitudes, Intentions, and Situational Factors. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 25: 440–462. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1995.tb01598.x
Martin, S. (2019). Recycling Culture(s). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2019.
Fink, C. (2018). Plastics recycling coupled with enhanced oil recovery. A. critical survey of the concept. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 40-41, 187-200. doi:10.1016/s0165-2370(97)00030-2
The United States Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Reduce, Reuse Recycle. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/recycle/recycle.html