Eco Encore is all about recycling, but it’s important to remember just why this is so important.
Humans produce a prodigious amount of waste. According to the EPA, in 2007 Americans produced more than four pounds of trash per capita every day. Even with recycling and other recovery programs, 2.5 pounds of that went right into landfills. That’s like everybody in the country tossing 453 pennies, a Dell Latitude X1 or a 16-week old Chihuahua on a pile every day. At that rate it won’t be long until we really do need robots to dig us out.
The numbers, in a way, are encouraging and surely came with great effort. Overall, in 2007 Americans sent 137.2 million tons of waste to landfills. Thanks to the steady climb in recycling since the 1980s, this overall figure hasn’t changed much in the past two decades even with the 70 million people we’ve added to the population since then. In 2007 we recycled more than half of the 83 million tons of paper and cardboard thrown away. Unfortunately, 37.8 million tons, a ridiculous amount, was still sent to landfills. Imagine the number of trees cut down only to end up buried.We’re nowhere near a waste-free society but we’re clearly getting closer. It’s easy to credit our gains to governmental agencies or individual activists who’ve highlighted the social importance of recycling. It’s easy to forget it’s really all of us individually who do small things everyday that over time make the largest difference. Of course, we could all live like No Impact Man for six months out of the year and indulge our throwaway lifestyles the rest of the time. But imagine the difference if everybody cut their 2.5 pounds of daily waste, about 453 pennies-worth of trash, in half year-round. That kind of difference would add up very fast.
