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Staff Ediotorial: Recycling leads to more money, benefits for Charleston
Issue date: 5/28/09 Section: Opinions
Recently, the City of Charleston decided not to participate in the county-wide Residential Recycling Program.
This may sound detrimental to the environment at first, but after hearing that doing away with the program will save the city nearly $20,000, the decision seems a little more justified.
Does this justification equal the impact it will have on the environment as a whole?
Justified as it may be, by deleting this one site it may just be pushing the cost to the citizen.
Some trash pick-up agencies, such as Morgan Disposal Service, offer recycling pick-up as well, but usually there is an added cost to this luxury.
By now we all understand that recycling is a great tool we use to save the environment one piece of trash at a time.
But did you know that recycling saves enough energy each year to give heat and lighting to nearly 400,000 homes?
Each time someone recycles something it frees up depleting space in a landfill.
In 1999, the Illinois EPA reported that 33 landfills were full and could no longer be used.
According to Recycling-Revolution.com, by recycling one aluminum can it can save enough energy to run a TV for three hours.
This saved energy is also equal to a half-gallon of gas.
The site also states that if all the nation's newspapers were recycled, we would save about 250 million trees each year.
It continues by saying that approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper is thrown away each year in the U.S.
We hardly want to believe that Charleston is trying to keep people from recycling.
So why don't they make recycling an easier and more affordable task?
Many cities throughout Illinois offer recycling pick-ups that run separate to trash pick-ups.
These recycling services are often paid for by the city at no extra cost to the citizen.
In fact, some cities don't just offer these services to the people that wish to use them.
Instead, they require citizens to separate their trash from the recyclables.
We understand that the city can't always please everyone, but was terminating one of the city's last remaining recycling spots the best way to save a few bucks?
After realizing some of the effects that global warming and other polluting factors have had on the environment, it seems as though a healthy environment should be something that the nation as a whole should be striving for.
It is all of our responsibilities to keep this world livable for all the generations to come.
The editorial is the majority opinion of The DEN editorial board. Reach the opinions editor at: DENopinions@gmail.com.
This may sound detrimental to the environment at first, but after hearing that doing away with the program will save the city nearly $20,000, the decision seems a little more justified.
Does this justification equal the impact it will have on the environment as a whole?
Justified as it may be, by deleting this one site it may just be pushing the cost to the citizen.
Some trash pick-up agencies, such as Morgan Disposal Service, offer recycling pick-up as well, but usually there is an added cost to this luxury.
By now we all understand that recycling is a great tool we use to save the environment one piece of trash at a time.
But did you know that recycling saves enough energy each year to give heat and lighting to nearly 400,000 homes?
Each time someone recycles something it frees up depleting space in a landfill.
In 1999, the Illinois EPA reported that 33 landfills were full and could no longer be used.
According to Recycling-Revolution.com, by recycling one aluminum can it can save enough energy to run a TV for three hours.
This saved energy is also equal to a half-gallon of gas.
The site also states that if all the nation's newspapers were recycled, we would save about 250 million trees each year.
It continues by saying that approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper is thrown away each year in the U.S.
We hardly want to believe that Charleston is trying to keep people from recycling.
So why don't they make recycling an easier and more affordable task?
Many cities throughout Illinois offer recycling pick-ups that run separate to trash pick-ups.
These recycling services are often paid for by the city at no extra cost to the citizen.
In fact, some cities don't just offer these services to the people that wish to use them.
Instead, they require citizens to separate their trash from the recyclables.
We understand that the city can't always please everyone, but was terminating one of the city's last remaining recycling spots the best way to save a few bucks?
After realizing some of the effects that global warming and other polluting factors have had on the environment, it seems as though a healthy environment should be something that the nation as a whole should be striving for.
It is all of our responsibilities to keep this world livable for all the generations to come.
The editorial is the majority opinion of The DEN editorial board. Reach the opinions editor at: DENopinions@gmail.com.
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