Why we should be more like Germany
The German program at my high school is one of the largest in the state. For that reason, I take German as my foreign language. Last week during the German class, we were discussing the trash management system in Germany and I was shocked to hear how different and advanced their system is as compared to ours. Here in America, recycling is a choice that most people sadly don't partake in, whereas In Germany it is a necessity. Here we have trucks that come to pick up our trash paid for by taxes, in Germany, you have to pay to have your trash taken away into a landfill. All of this somehow seems to work.
German children, when in school, are taught how to properly recycle everything. In our school, there is hardly any focus on recycling, leading to almost all of it going to trash.
Often, when I am visiting someone's house I see that they have no bins for recyclable waste. Instead, all the plastic, paper, and cans are piled into their trash bin to be dumped onto a waste mountain. Not only that, sometimes when food gets served in recyclable disposables, those are also just thrown away. On trash day, when taking my dog on a walk, I notice that all trash bins in the neighborhood are overflowing with recyclable waste while ours are almost empty. What is full is our recycling bin. As people of an educated society, we should feel the need to recycle and protect our planet. We must teach the younger generation the importance of saving the planet one step at a time, even if that means composting a banana peel or recycling a soda can.
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimates that around 75% of all waste can be recycled yet only 32% actually gets recycled. This means that 43% of all trash plus the other 25% that can not be recycled is thrown away. In total 68% of trash both recyclable and non-recyclable is thrown away.
The global waste index of 2019 also states that Germany is ranked 87.32 and the United States is ranked 65.29 with 100 being the best country at waste management and 0 being the worst. The difference in the ranking is huge and Germany is 22.03 points higher than the United States.
Today, we must take these small steps to clean up our planet. There are floating patches of trash in the ocean larger than some islands and these will continue to grow. Not only are these patches continuously growing, but these patches of plastic often get mistaken as food by marine life. Fish, whales, and even turtles have been found to have ingested lethal amounts of plastic. Plastic never breaks down past microplastics so it will always be inside an organism's system. This not only affects the animal but it also affects us. Millions of people in the world eat fish which could be filled with toxic chemicals from the plastic that they ingested. This problem will continue to increase as the amount of plastic in the ocean increases.
So how do we stop this? Simple things like discovering what can be recycled in your community and actually recycling them and spreading awareness can make a huge difference. Local governments should place recycling bins across cities to promote recycling as well as give incentives to those who do recycle. Recycling can be made a fun game for kids and in the age of AI, new tools can be developed that help people identify recyclables easily. It is important to make it our mission to recycle more.