Recycling Waste
One way of helping the environment is by recycling, which means using again. There are two main ways of recycling: either you can use things again yourself, or you can take them somewhere so that they can be processed to make something new.
We can recycle the following: tins, jars, old clothes, paper, gift wrapping paper. For example, we can recycle tins by taking them to the nearest recycling centre.
As for jars, we can wash out jars and use them to hold small things.
Old clothes - We can give old clothes to charity.
Paper - We can reuse paper to make notes on before recycling it.
Gift wrapping paper - We can reuse gift wrapping paper to wrap up other presents.
We can help recycling when we go shopping. We can buy things in bulk rather than in small quantities to cut down on packing. Grains and cereal are especially easy to purchase this way. Avoiding small individual packages of any product or consumable greatly reduces the amount of paper or boxboard that you buy and throw away. Of course, don't buy large quantities if the food would spoil before it is used. And we can check that products we buy have been or can be recycled.
We’d better invest in rechargeable batteries and a battery charger. We can run almost anything, from flashlights to digital cameras, with rechargeable batteries. In the long run it is cheaper and better for the environment.
If we are still collecting bags every time we shop, we should STOP and invest in a set of reusable shopping bags. They hold more, they make carrying heavy loads much easier, they hold larger volumes than most plastic bags, they protect glass jars and bottles better, they last seemingly forever (expect well over 15 years from cloth grocery bags), they save energy and resources, and they prevent litter. Even if we recycle your paper or plastic grocery bags, we consume some energy and resources.
Using computers and e-mails might help as well. Using e-mails cuts down on paper and envelopes and so save trees. Computers store information so we need to buy fewer books.
There are some ways of recycling that could help save resources and energy in schools. A lot of paper is used in schools and wasted. Do teachers and pupils need to make so many photocopies? Often pupils just throw them away afterwards. It would be better to have everything in an exercise book to keep. Perhaps we should also have school text books that pupils borrow and then give back at the end of the year. Pupils who have computers could send in their homework by e-mail to cut down on paper and the teacher could put the correct answers on a special web-site.
What do you do to recycle and help environment? What more could you do?
As for me, I reuse paper for notes and I give all my old clothes to charity. I also reuse gift wrapping paper for other presents. However, I know I could do more. I don’t go to the recycling centre as it’s rather long way from my home – I could perhaps go with someone who has a car.
These are just the easiest things that we can do. There are many more, but they will probably become apparent to us if I make these a part of my daily life.
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