Is Recycling Effective? Essay

Words: 1509
Pages: 7

Is recycling effective? A few months ago, when I was in Montreal, I was surprised to see that in some grocery stores plastics bags were sold. It is something new because two years ago when I lived in this city, they were free. Now, people need to bring their own reusable bags or buy a plastic bag for 20 cents. Banning grocery plastics bags in Montreal is the city plan as well as some cities in the United States already doing. The aim of this new recycling program is to protect the environment. I believe that recycling is not always effective in some aspects, but it is still the first step that people can do to fight earth’s contamination. Opponents of recycling said that it can affect the environment. Professor Benjamin …show more content…
Because the city had the program, it had not saved the money. This is what he concluded after having revised the projection of the sanitation department. Recycling costs more than what it would be (Tierney, 2000). On the other hand, others who support recycling say that it can be cost-effective. In fact, well-designed programs save money. According to George Dreckman, the recycling coordinator of Madison, Maryland, “using the same trucks to handle trash pickup as it does to handle recycling pickup, Madison has been able to eliminate six garbage trucks and the costs of owning and operating them” (Miller, 2007). This could be a well-designed program because he mentioned that communities which use different trucks to collect garbage and recycle are not able to save money. Miller believes that good programs are beneficial for municipalities (Miller, 2007). In “2002,” New York had stopped to collect glasses and plastics due to the higher cost of recycling and the city’s deficit. But, in 2004, a coalition of environmental groups redacted a report that came up with specific changes in the old recycling program. These recommendations were to help reduce the recycling costs. For example, it recommended collecting “glass, plastics, metal and paper all in a single truck. Collection accounts for 85 percent of costs, and it would be less expensive to separate the