Why Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling is Important

Although our project has focused on trying to get our school to recycle, we have also encouraged reducing and reusing during Waste Free Lunch Week. Reducing the amount of waste generated is just as important to reducing a carbon footprint as the other two. When you choose not to buy an item, or buy reusable items, you have reduced the amount of waste going to the landfill! Reusing items create less waste because you skip the buying process altogether! Recycling is important, because you are using fewer resources, choosing a more energy efficient process, and you are keeping items out of the landfill.


When Sophia Stephenson visited, she discussed what the landfill is and what goes on there. The landfill is a large space, often a series of holes, where our waste is dumped, driven over with a backhoe multiple times, and left until the hole is full and covered. There is not much, if any, room for air, so even food won’t decompose. An archeologist found a hot dog with a newspaper from the 1970s. Neither had decomposed. And that lovely smell? Organic materials (food and paper), so compost and recycle, if not for the environmental effects, the smell. Don’t believe it? Read these:


http://health.state.ga.us/pdfs/hazards/LandfillGas.bro.pdf


http://people.hws.edu/Halfman/Data/PublicInterestArticles/Landfills.pdf


And if you are local, this website gives you all the information about what Washington County offers:


http://www.co.washington.ar.us/EnvironmentalAffairs/


Please remember to buy recycled too! When consumers don’t create a demand for these products, manufacturers stop making them, and recycling does no good.