Blog 10: Make-Up For Monday

January 22, 2015

Blog 10: Make-Up For Monday

       

        In the text, Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States by Samantha MacBride, the author informs readers about the environmental success story of the recycling movement that has gain the public support. In fact more people actually recycle than vote. MacBride encourages recycling due to the fact it saves the earth and conserves our natural resources. However, in her argument she discuses that although recycling has been effective, there is plenty of our waste that go to landfills and incinerators. This is bad because landfills only bury the evidence and incinerators only burn the evidence. MacBride states that is the jobs of the consumers to stop this and the government to create long-lasting policies against the big companies and corporations.  MacBride suggests that zero waste is the best way to go about our waste.

In MacBride’s conclusion she stated a few things that she want to propose and bring specific changes to Zero Waste movement. One of the things she addressed was “Second, I controversially suggest that paper and metal be the only material collected in commingled curbsides form for recycling in cities” (MacBride 217). I completely disagree with this statement because I believe that we need to recyclable ALL items! Why? Because this is important, we need to make sure that consumers recycle all items. If we use MacBride’s suggestion and only collect paper and metal, consumers will think that other recyclable goods such as glass, and cardboard and not recyclable and throw it in the trash! This is wrong! Moreover, this confuses consumers and makes them think that only paper and metal are recyclable, when this is not the case. Similar in New York, they had a system similarly to what MacBride’s suggestion. In New York the recycling curbside system was to only collect plastics. This did not work well because many people were angry that the city did not do much in enforcing recycling. In addition, many people were confused.

I personally think for the Zero Waste movement to be successful we should have local living economies. These economies are controlled by the people and for the people! This method promises green chemistry in the creation of products. In addition due to this, there would be safer environment for the workers. Consumers would have a safe and “no-toxic” product in their homes. Lastly, consumers would be recycling, reusing, and reducing on consumption. A combination of this creates a zero waste movement that starts with me and ends with you.