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Persuasive Essay : Why Do We Recycle?

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Why do we recycle? You were taught in grade school that in order to “save the planet” we need to recycle. We recycle paper, plastic, cardboard, aluminum, glass, plastic, etc. We recycle to save landfill space, trees, energy, and money. We started recycling out of fear but in reality, everything we are afraid of isn't being helped by recycling. It's being made worse. I hope you come into my essay with an open mind and without biased opinions. First, let’s talk regarding “saving the trees”. According to Jerry Taylor, Director of National Resource studies at Cato Institute, approximately 80% of all material recycled today is paper and 87% of our paper comes from trees that are grown as a crop specifically for paper production. Companies grow trees just for paper, hence saying that we’re wasting trees by making paper is like saying we’re wasting potatoes by making french fries. As long as we use paper, they will always keep growing more trees. “America has 3 ½ times more forest land than it did in 1920. We are growing 22 million new acres of forest annually, while only harvesting 15 million acres. That's a net gain of 7 million acres a year.” (Jerry Taylor, 2015). It's also important to understand that trees are used for more than just paper products. Like Natives used every part of the buffalo, we use every part of the tree, The twigs are used for fuel, the trunk is lumber and the branches (pulpwood) are used for paper. After learning these facts I can’t help but wonder why everyone was taught this. It’s obvious to me now that trees aren’t dying out due to paper, provided that, why even recycle it? Well, another reason is to save landfill space. In 1987, the Mobro 4000 floated back and forth along the east coast from New York to Belize until it could find a place to raze New York’s 3,168 tons of trash. This prodigious barge full of disgusting trash traveled along the coast from March to October. The media and the EPA saw their opportunity to engender fear and panic and ran with it. They had everyone watching the Mobro on the news, telling the American people that we were running out of landfill space and if we didn’t start recycling now we’d be buried in our trash. The Environmental Protection Agency

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