As I walk down a beautiful forest during September, I see these amazing trees with all different colors. I stare at them wondering how lonely the forest would look without them. Trees are important to the forest they give shelter to many animals and make the forest look complete. But what are we doing to save these trees? I think that recycling helps a lot doesn’t it? I think that recycling should be mandatory because it helps minimize pollution, helps preserve our natural resources, and recycling saves expenses and resources.

Recycling helps minimize pollution
Go outside can you see the stars? If not it’s because of pollution. Air pollution kills about 7 million people worldwide every year according to World Health Organization. One way we can minimize pollution is through recycling and reusing garbage. When people burn garbage, this can harm the ozone layer and produce harmful gases which can lead to respiratory diseases like cough and asthma, among others. When garbage is thrown in the ocean, it could kill and affect our marine resources and coral reefs. That’s why every time we reduce waste, reuse, and recycle our garbage- from used plastic bottles, disposable cups and utensils, paper, and other plastic products, we get to save the earth and even millions of lives from the harmful effects of pollution. We all have to breathe, which makes pollution very hard to avoid," said Frank Kelly, director of the environmental research group at King's College London. So it’s important for us to recycle because like Frank Kelly said “We all have to breathe”. But it’s our choice if we want to help reduce pollution and be able to breathe clean air.

Recycling helps preserve our natural resource
When you think of a forest what is the main thing that comes into your main? Trees right! Now imagine a forest with no trees. It’s impossible, but can you imagine how many trees are cut down each year to provide us with all our paper and wood? Well according to Ecology Global Network nearly 4 billion trees worldwide are cut down each year for paper products and wood. If we recycle paper products like newspapers and books, we can save more trees on earth. As such, recycling products is extremely important so that we can help preserve our natural resources- from trees to minerals to marine resources. If we continue to waste our resources, the time might come that they will all be used up and we will end up with nothing. Natural resources are being depleted rapidly, particularly with the increasing use of disposable products and packaging. In 2005, Americans generated 246 million tons of municipal solid waste while recycling only 58 million tons of materials. This rate of use and disposal takes a heavy toll on the natural resources, especially the finite resources from mines. Reprocessing used materials to make new products and packaging reduces the consumption of natural resources. By recycling five million tons of steel in 2005, Americans saved over six million tons of iron ore, 2.5 million tons of coal, and 62,500 tons of limestone. By recycling 42 million tons of newsprint, office paper and paperboard, Americans saved 714 million trees and 292,026 million gallons of water. Recycling often produces better products than those made of virgin materials; for instance, the tin in "tin" cans is more refined (thus more valuable) after being processed for recycling.

Recycling helps save expenses and resources
Finally, recycling can help save on our expenses and resources. It helps reduce the amount of materials that are wasted or thrown in landfills such as paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum. This also enables companies to rely less on raw materials, which requires more energy for manufacturing a new product. While landfill space may seem plentiful, how would you feel if a new landfill was proposed for your community? You might answer, “Not in MY backyard!” Placing a landfill is very difficult, especially in the southeastern states with heavy population growth. Besides, does burying otherwise valuable resources and making several hundred acres of landfill space unusable for future generations sound like a best-case scenario? Some people think that by burying trash, it all just decomposes into dirt. While some breakdown does occur, decomposition isn’t a reality, because sanitary landfills are covered daily and sealed at the end of their use; thus, they lack the air, water, and light needed for materials to decompose. Highly combustible methane gas is also produced from the decomposition of trash, especially yard waste. That gas has to be tapped and burned off to prevent explosions but poses a larger problem too. Methane is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. In fact, methane is more than 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.

xxxxxWe use brand new products every day, but what we do not realize is all we have to do is put them in a pin and out them to our road. In doing this, we could make many products be used again. This would save money and help our environment out a bunch. Many people know how to recycle paper, plastic, and pretty much any kind of recyclable material that people do not want to use any more. After people are done with their materials they think it has no value to them. If people would simply just throw their unused materials in a basket and put them by the road it would make a difference to our world. If you do not recycle you do not want to save energy or our world. We all need to recycle just to keep the world round. The earth will; not be here for long if we do not keep it up. We only have one world, once we lose it we cannot get it back. It supplies our food, oxygen, and everything it takes to survive. I am thankful for God letting us live on this beautiful world so should you be grateful too? He created this beautiful world and we are destroying it little by little. We can make a change by recycling. So why not recycle the next paper that you don’t want anymore. I sure will! I think that recycling should be mandatory because it helps minimize pollution, helps preserve our natural resources, and recycling saves expenses and resources. It also makes our world a better and cleaner place.