According to waste prevention site, www.greenwaste.com, less than one percent of all plastic products are recycled in the U.S. Americans throw away 250,000,000 plastic beverages bottles every hour. When one fails to recycle, they are putting the environment in danger. Plastic take about 700 years to decompose, and ends ups destroying sea and marine life at an estimated 1,000,000 sea creatures per year.

Recycling helps the environment and also helps the economy. According to a waste reduction and recycling website, www.kab.org, in 2009, $485 million worth of plastic was wasted in the United States. That’s enough for 1,000 households to live on the U.S. median income for nearly a decade. When one fails to recycle, they are not only wasting plastic, they are throwing away money. Recycling plastic could benefit energy as well. Every pound of recycled plastic reduces energy use in plastic production by 84 percent and also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 71 percent. One may not think that one plastic bottle can make a difference in the world, but unfortunately so do millions of others. Recycled plastic can be used to create shirts, cars, furniture, and many other beneficial items.

Paper also plays an important role in the recycling world. We go through thousands of papers throughout the school year, and it is our duty to recycle them. We could potentially be an even greener school, but the student body has to act upon the recycling movement and to think green. In 2010, Americans trashed enough paper to cover 26,700 football fields or 17,800 soccer fields in paper three feet deep. Recycled paper can be made into many items such as newspapers, cardboard, and drywall.

We, as students, could make a large impact in the reduction of paper waste by making one simple change: putting our papers into the recycling bin. It is not a difficult task. If we don’t change our ways now, our environment and future generations will suffer later.