Recycling can make the planet better

To the editor:

I went to a meeting recently of the people who volunteer at our area’s recycling center, Valley Community Recycling Solutions, and I heard some alarming facts.

Landfills around the world are now the largest man-made structures and they emit more methane than cars. I also learned that one of the most sought after recycled products is paper, but paper makes up approximately 30 percent of the waste stream in our area. Does anyone remember the three Rs? No, I don’t mean reading, ’riting, and ’rithmatic. I mean reduce, reuse, recycle, the slogan that became popular in the early 1980s.

According to researchers from National Geographic, the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we consume 25 percent of the world’s oil. They also said that with the many products we have that come from petroleum, U.S. citizens use three gallons of oil per person, per day, not including the gasoline that goes in our cars. In a recent special on the Discovery channel, Walter Cronkite called our use of natural resources profligate waste (a big word that means recklessly wasteful, wildly extravagant).

We can do better to protect and conserve our planet’s dwindling resources. A simple way to start is to take your own canvas bags to the market instead of consuming more plastic bags to carry your groceries home in. Yes, I know they are recyclable, but isn’t it better to not use them in the first place? I hope you will put a plan into place to reduce your use, reuse things instead of throwing them away, and recycle all those things that can be turned into other products.

Together, we can turn it around, and leave a cleaner, healthy planet for future generations.

Barb Bailey Brown

Palmer