Recycling: How Has It Affected Us?
“Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products”, states the EPA, the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Recycling (specifically plastic) was first introduced in 1972, when the first plastic-recycling mill was built in Pennsylvania (first in the world)! Identifying recycling as a major benefit to the world is important to highlight how increased recycling has improved the planet in more ways than just climate change, ecosystems, spanning marketing and community as well.
In terms of recycling’s impact on the overall well-being of our planet, it is important to realize where the need of recycling plastic stems from. Since the production of products using different kinds of plastics have exponentially increased, specifically plastics that are meant to break easily and live short lives in terms of product-use, the result of continuously buying and using them creates an immense build up of plastic. Plastic is also notoriously hard to break down, as “[p]lastic waste can take up to 20 to 500 years to decompose”, which begs the question, is there a way for plastic to be reused (“In”)?
In today’s society, there are a plethora of ways that a person can reuse the plastic that they use. Simply taking a water bottle and using it as a pot for a plant, or making sure that consumed plastic ends up in a place where it will definitely be recycled is already adding to the cause. What’s interesting, however, is the impact of the plastic that is not recyclable. There’s no doubt that the environment in the modern world has been negatively impacted by plastic’s presence. There is plastic endangering wildlife, endangering human lives, microfibers floating in the oceans, and generating greenhouse gasses that continuously trap heat, warming the planet. In fact, “the recycling and composting of municipal solid waste” conserved over “193 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018”, which is a victory in of itself, but still not enough (“Recycling”). It is clear then, that the impact of recycling improves the well-being of the planet at large. With enough change and effort, hopefully, there will be a cooler atmosphere, a bit more balance, and a lot less death.
Believe it or not, but the way plastic has been produced has also had a significant impact on how marketing has fluctuated over the decades (a.k.a. companies capitalizing on plastic) and how recycling has developed to combat these challenges. Starting from the early 1900s when plastic was starting to be produced, it was “designed to be durable and reusable”, mainly because companies at the time wanted toys and such to be more affordable (“Hall”). However, those same companies quickly realized that producing products using such long-lasting plastic was bad for business, as “by the 1960s”, the industry surrounding plastic products began to shift from “long-lasting plastic to single-use packaging” (“Hall”).
It was much easier to profit from products that had shorter lives and would need to be replaced more often, “sell[ing] a new one every time someone needs it”. Due to the shift and long-lasting products still selling out because it was what consumers were most familiar with, corporations began to also “had to run ads to encourage people to throw plastic away”, instead of saving the plastic (“Hall”). This decision received constant backlash and as a solution, advertising, “recycling as a solution”, because, “it meant they wouldn’t have to change their product” (“Hall”). Such advertisements were meant to make the viewer feel guilty about throwing away their precious plastic and that it could be reused somewhere else. Indeed, it was a marketing gimmick all along.
It is because of those challenges along the way, throughout the decades, that plastic has made such an impact on society and the health of the world. Despite the efforts to minimize the damage dealt, it is easy to overlook the fact that this problem is long term. Plastic will still be here five generations from now and it will be an even worse problem if the world does not commit as much as it has been. Humans are organic but plastic is not, the world is organic, but plastic is not, and so even if one plastic bottle is recycled, at least there is one less in the oceans; or forests, endangering another life.
References
“Recycling Basics and Benefits.” EPA: United States Environmental Protection Agency, 8 November 2024, https://www.epa.gov/recycle/recycling-basics-and-benefits. Accessed 28 October 2024.
“In Images: Plastic is Forever.” United Nations, June 2021, https://www.un.org/en/exhibits/exhibit/in-images-plastic-forever#:~:text=But%20when%20does%20plastic%27s%20life,just%20gets%20smaller%20and%20smaller. Accessed 3 November 2024.
Hall, Megan, Katz, Harrison, and Schaller, Janek. “When did we start recycling?” Rhode Island PBS, Possibly Podcast, 29 November 2022, https://thepublicsradio.org/episode/when-did-we-start-recycling/#:~:text=Megan%20Hall%3A%20So%2C%20when%20did,made%20conserving%20resources%20very%20important. Accessed 28 October 2024.