Over the weekend my uncle, knowing I’m an environmental studies major, brought up an article he had recently read in the New York Times about recycling. The article had been talked about in my environmental studies capstone class, but being environmental studies majors most of us had the same opinion: Even if all of the trash generated by americans for the next 1000 years can fit on one-tenth of 1 percent of the land available for grazing, we should still recycle because the ability to hide this trash doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about how much we have created and work towards reducing that amount. Even if some recycling is not nearly as productive as other kinds, and even if you’d have to recycle roughly 40,000 plastic bottles to offset the greenhouse effect of flying round trip between New York and London, even those minimal gains make recycling worth the effort.

It was actually really refreshing to hear another perspective on the story. While I did not agree with my uncle, he felt this article spoke to him and articulated the ways he had felt about recycling for a long time. That only the economically beneficial products should be recycled because the rest was a waste of effort for very little gain.

I have posted the article below, let me know what you think.:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html?_r=0