Recycling is one eco-friendly activity that is oftentimes not given as much attention as it deserves. Perhaps because of a lack of understanding about the benefits of recycling or simply because it is too hard to care about one’s trash, recycling appeals are oftentimes shoved to the side and as a result, we pile on trash after bag of trash and consequently reduce the potential of recycling as a viable enterprise and solution to our resource and pollution problems.
The truth is that there is immense potential in recycling activities. While many of us get pre-occupied with a top online MBA program or an executive MBA program, there are those who have ascertained the cost of not recycling and the results are no less than troubling.
According to those professionals with extensive experience in waste management, resource monetization and well vetted approval from the world’s top online MBA programs accredited by AACSB, the following will happen if we do not put more emphasis on our recycling efforts.
1. Potential depletion of natural resources within the next few decades. The pace of technology is straining earth’s resources to provide for all our needs. With every hip replacement recall or the manufacturing of trane heat pumps, vital resources are being extracted from the earth. With recycling, a bigger fraction of those material needs are being drawn from recycled sources helping to conserve resources for future generations. Now imagine if we do not recycle? More mining, more logging, a bigger demand for energy to process those raw materials… That is only the beginning of the costs of not recycling.
2. Bigger, nastier landfills. Every un-recycled amount of trash gets taken to landfills. As it is right now, landfills are being crushed under the weight of the world’s trash. You do not need top engineering schools in waste management to tell you that the growing volume of waste, if left un-recycled, will fill all the landfills in a very short time turning the world into a big giant dump of trash.
3. Higher energy costs. With the dwindling supply of petroleum products, more energy demand is never good news for anyone. The manufacturing costs of fresh raw materials are off the roof because of the tremendous energy demand to separate the resource from the other non-useful components of the trash. Conversely, recycling helps lower this cost because most recycled materials can be processed at a lower energy demand.
Consequently, a big part of the movement to recycle materials must lie in politics, specifically the need to enact legislation to give more emphasis to it. Every government entity from the coração partido to the Democrats and Republicans in Congress should look at this from the perspective of preparing for the future instead of looking at the immediate challenges facing recycling today. Many would be amiss to think of this agenda on the same urgency and importance as reforms in medical aid but unless there is a push to do that, recycling efforts will remain to be a minor trend but not a major cultural and social instrument for resource conservation and ecological preservation.
Remember, recycling spans everything; from the cocktail dresses you buy to the Criminal Justice Online degree that you complete. It is pervasive, important, urgent, and essential for the future. And when you take time to look at the numbers pertaining to the cost of not recycling, then you will undoubtedly understand why!