Green New Year's
• Recycle plastic, aluminum and glass - It is pretty easy to buy an extra garbage can to throw your recyclables into. Check out my recycle blog to learn some tips on what you can recycle.
• Recycle paper and cardboard - Place a green bag or a brown paper bag (that you get at the grocery store because you forgot your green bags and you don’t use plastic bags) near the recyclable bin to collect paper and cardboard.
You may ask why? Without having to read the EPA reports I will try to summarize it simply. If you recycle plastic, aluminum and glass you will help reduce the harmful effects on the environment that come from manufacturing new materials as well as minimize waste. Recycling paper and cardboard reduces the number of trees that are cut down thus increasing the ability to combat those harmful effects from manufacturing.
The EPA has been monitoring our Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) or trash for years and the relationship it has with climate change. Since the industrial era when we learned how to mass manufacture, our trash has increased by a considerable amount. The additional manufacturing of “new things”, burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) for generating electricity and driving cars has caused an increase of 30%-50% of the natural gases (greenhouse gases including CO2, CH4, CFCs, N2O, etc.) that are warming the earth. This increase is causing the earth to heat up (global warming). What will happen if the earth warms up more than it already has (increased already by 1 degree in the last century)? It will lead to major environmental changes like:
• Rising sea levels flooding communities on the coast
• Melting glaciers and snow that can reduce fresh water supply
• Death from heat and infectious diseases that thrive in heat
• Extinction of animals that can’t live without food and water which disappear from impacts on the ecosystem
• Diminished ability to produce crops of yummy vegetables and fruit and grains. This of course will also kill livestock that needs those things to live. Eventually we will have no food.
Cutting down trees (Deforestation) contributes to 20% of global warming from greenhouse gasses. Because trees remove CO2 from the air when they are actively growing, when you cut them down and don’t replant you are removing the ability to reduce the greenhouse gases that are warming the earth. In effect, you are taking your soldiers off the front line before the war is over. In addition, most deforestation produces decay and burning of wood which releases CO2 in large amounts into the atmosphere. Below are some other environmental changes caused by cutting down trees:
• Cutting down trees leaves the soil dry from the sun and the minerals needed to grow plants disappear.
• Trees store water which is released into the atmosphere. When they are cut down we have less rain and fewer plants can survive.
• 80-90 percent of the entire species of the world live in rain forests. Cutting down those trees is killing off species.
• Like I said above, trees store water. When there are no trees there is nothing to absorb water from heavy rains which causes floods.
I hope that was enough to convince you to increase your recycle habits this year. If you are feeling like you want to make more than one New Year’s resolution about saving the environment then checkout the EPA’s site for their checklist to commit to 5 actions to help the environment. Once you start you will realize it is not that hard.
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