Our Recycling Metamorphosis

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Recycling is a balancing act for us, and our environment. Our views of recycling have altered a bit over the years.
I remember the first day I had to start recycling; it was day one at my first duty station. The base separated and recycled everything; I thought it was such a waste of my time. I was the lowest ranking so it was my job to take care of the divided wastes and recyclables. Before long we were given separate bins for trash, recyclables, and green waste to use at home. It didn’t take long to realize that I could save our home, from home. We bought a small compost container for the kitchen and a composter to go in the back yard, and had to repeatedly remind ourselves to use it. It was easy when doing the yard, but when preparing meals we were so used to tossing stuff in the garbage that we really had to work hard. We were able to keep the amount of actual trash to a minimum and use the compost at home. We didn’t have the need to fertilize as much since we now had the compost. Using the compost also saved us money. We all want to save money.
One of my boys loves to save our cans and plastic bottles so he can take them to the recycle center. While we have a recycling container for them, we don’t get the money if we let the garbage company haul them away. Chris does a great job at separating cans and bottle for us. “Job growth is directly related to the North Carolina Solid Waste Management Act of 1989. More than 2,600 recycling jobs have been created since then, an increase of 42 percent” (Shore; Ewadinger 36). Recycling saves money on a much larger level than I ever thought. When you recycle paper for instance the process takes much less time, money, and natural resources to make it. You don’t have ...

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...posal and minimized liability associated with RCRA” (Quinn 27-28).
In many ways recycling has been difficult to start and we have had to take more time out of our busy days to do it. While I don’t really like going outside just to put some scraps into the composter I know that I have taught my children to recycle and the importance of it. Hopefully we will continue to learn and teach each other the importance of recycling and in the process change perceptions as well.

Works Cited

Shore, Michael; Ewadinger, Matt. “Recycling Impact on Jobs” BioCycle 36.4 (1995): 36 ProQuest, Web. 10 Jan 2014
Quinn, Barbara. “A smarter, greener way to keep cutting tools cool” Pollution Engineering 30.3 (1998): 27-28 ProQuest, Web. 10 Jan 2014
Denison, Richard A; Ruston, John F. “Recycling is not garbage” MIT's Technology Review 100.7 (1997): 55-60 ProQuest, Web. 10 Jan 2014

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