Schools in Pittsburg Not Recycling Shopping Bags

Recycling Shopping BagDavid Hughes, an environmentalist, has been advocating recycling as a crucial measure to protect the environment from matters related to congested landfills and depletion of natural resources. However, he was rather disheartened that schools in Pittsburg weren’t recycling recyclable waste. Instead, recyclable items from these schools were making their way to landfills. 

Recyclables being dumped in landfills

Living near MinadeoSchool for years, David Hughes constantly noticed that Minadeo had not been recycling its waste.

In order to prove this, Hughes decided to look into the matter. He clicked a photograph of cardboard, which could be recycled, in the garbage dumpster. But this was just the beginning. A few days later, he was surprised to find, in the dumpster, many blue bags filled with things that could be recycled, such as plastic and glass bottles. What was more ironic was the fact that the school had actually taken the trouble to segregate its waste but had ended up throwing it away with the general waste. As a result of this, the recyclable items would be collected by a garbage truck and would make its way to a landfill along with the general garbage.

Andy Sheehan of KDKA checked the truck himself and confirmed the presence of cardboard in the general dumpster. Hughes stated that he could not find a policy related to recycling for the district and was sure that Minadeo wasn’t the only place that wasn’t recycling its waste. He voiced his opinion saying that the district had 56 schools and most of their trash would be recyclable items. If a major portion of it was going into landfills, it just wasn’t acceptable with recycling being the need of the hour.

When contacted by the KDKA, the district stated that it had a policy for recycling where schools were required to segregate paper, glass, plastic, and aluminum. The district also mentioned that they trusted the schools to obey the rules and did not carry out compliance checks. It wasn’t clear if the district was receiving any financial incentive for its recyclable waste. Hughes’ investigations left people wondering if the recycling policy was being followed by all the residents of the district or whether recyclable waste was ending up in landfills.

Recycle shopping bags

Our planet does not have a never-ending source of raw materials. Every time a fresh commodity has to be produced, raw material, energy, as well as time are utilized to do so. However, when things are recycled, the processes undertaken are few and quick since the basic procedures for converting raw material into a usable form are already completed. So, if we opt for recycling, we can help conserve our natural resources to a considerable extent.

Besides this, if recyclable items are not recycled, they end up in landfills. Here they take years to decompose and during the process, release harmful gases into the environment. So, recycling is a crucial step in minimizing this effect. Recycling also ensures that place is left in landfills for non-recyclable waste.

The easiest way to embark on a recycling journey is to recycle shopping bags. Single use bags are used in large numbers on a daily basis and you can start recycling with this indispensable product.

Source: http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/06/24/environmentalist-pittsburgh-schools-dont-recycle/

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