The term "recycling" is a very broad and usually misunderstood word.  Recycling is a concept that most people seem to support but not fully participate in.  The most common statement people use in regards to recycling is "it's one piece of trash, it won't even make a difference" (The Good Stuff, Youtube).  This phrase directly epitomizes the laziness that surrounds people in todays society.  This phrase is used in other scenarios as well, such as, when people are voting, or when people choose to walk instead of drive.  Recycling is no different, all it takes is for people to try it and realize that they are making a difference, and this will keep them in the routine of actively participating in it.  The solution to this vicious cycle of laziness with regards to recycling, can be solved by implementing laws that require mandatory recycling.  The main reasons why mandatory recycling should be put into action, is because with the rate at which people are polluting the environment, the world as we know it could change juristically and it would all come down on the shoulders of humans and their inability to sustain a healthy Earth.  The advantages of recycling far outweigh any disadvantages, and that it should become mandatory, simply because it can help preserve and save the environment for the future.  More specifically, recycling builds a strong economy, recycling builds community, and recycling earth-friendly.

One of the main benefits of recycling is that it builds a strong economy.  When done on a nationwide scale, recycling has a huge impact in the economy in terms of jobs, energy cost reduction, and resources conservation. Lately people have become more aware of the huge impact of recycling, particularly in reducing plastic waste material coming from the bottled water and beverage industry (Stephens 1).  Financial income is a big way in which the economy is involved in recycling.  Stephens describes financial income by saying, "There is money in recycling. In the level of the individual, one of the benefits of recycling is financial income.  There are a lot of things lying around the house that we no longer want or need that might just end up in a dumpsite somewhere, that we can recycle and earn money from" (Stephens 1).  In Joyce Nelson's Metals Recycling Generates Green Jobs and Cuts CO2 Emissions, she talks about different materials that can be recycled. Some examples she gives that people normally do not know are batteries, cell phones, and ink cartridges (Nelson 1).  These different materials can be hazardous if not recycled because of all the different components that are in them, this makes them more important to recycle in the long run, because they can cause more damage to the environment then most other materials.

There is also the financial benefit for the communities who recycle in that there will be reduced costs of waste disposal or recycling.  Stephens says, "Consider these recycling facts: aluminum cans are the most valuable item in your bin.  Recycling aluminum cans help fund the entire curbside collection.  It's the only packaging material that more than covers the cost of collection and reprocessing for itself" (Stephens 1).  This shows evidence on how people and communities can easily make money from recycling, and gives examples of some of the more cost effective items to recycle when trying to make money.  Aluminum cans are also very energy efficient when it comes to recycling.  "It costs more energy to manufacture a brand new aluminum can than it does to recycle twenty aluminum cans.  Twenty cans can be made from recycled material using the same energy it takes to make one new can" (Stephens 1).  This aluminum can example is the ideal reason why people should recycle.  It both saves copious amounts of energy and also makes the people recycling it the most money.

The big idea regarding the economy's role in mandatory recycling and how it can benefit from it, is that the government wants to see funds coming back out of these programs which they are going to have to spend money on to get started.   A great example of how this works successfully, is in the newspaper article Exporting Leaves, Importing Compost, by Abby Gruen from The New York Times, who talks about a small town in Westchester county, New York, called Rye.  This town is a big producer of leaves, which they then ship all around the New England area.  Each fall, Westchester County sends more than 85,000 tons of leaves to rural areas in a handful of states as far away as New Hampshire, where they are turned into compost and topsoil that is used throughout the region (Gruen 1).  This creates a revenue of almost 1.27 Million dollars for the town each year (Gruen1).  These shipments of leaves also help the town save money, seeing as it cost $80 a ton to dispose of the leaves the county incinerator, whereas it's only $40 to have a ton of leaves hauled using the transfer trucking system (Gruen 1).  This article is useful because it has accurate numbers and figures to back up its statement on price efficient recycling, and it is also credible because it takes place in a small town which does not have much money but get a huge return from their recycling system.  This shows a first hand example of what mandatory recycling can become and also the types of goals in which the economy hopes to have from similar small towns like Rye.  

The second main reason why recycling should become mandatory, is because recycling helps build and strengthen communities.  "In almost all communities in the country today, there is a growing concern for recycling and the environment. People are working together in recycling programs, lobbies, and free recycle organizations to help promote recycling" (Stephens 1).  This goes hand-and-hand with the building of the economy, but community however is on a much smaller scale.  Mandatory recycling can take place in all sorts of places, whether it is big cities or small towns, recycling will without a doubt help the community.  One way in which recycling helps the community, is that it provides jobs for people.  This could be in a recycling plant, driving recycling trucks, or even just being involved in spreading the word.  An article which talks about mandatory recycling, and why it is beneficial, is Ben Keller's Businesses Face Mandatory Recycling Rule Next Year, in which he writes about how in 2012, a mandate took place in which California businesses had to subscribe to a recycling service who will then haul away all the company's recyclables.  This mandate was an effort to influence the employees of these companies to recycle seeing as the company is paying for it, they might as well use it.

Keller's article is a good example of how to get the ball rolling with mandatory recycling, and include interesting new ways such as the mandatory company recycling, which can jump start the recycling business.  In the article, Keller says "about 11% of California businesses already operate in municipalities with some kind of commercial recycling program, and another 19% will need similar services to comply with the measure" (Keller 1).  These programs not only help with the environment, but they also help with getting more people involved with recycling by generating new jobs within the recycling companies because of a higher demand for workers and truck drivers.  Keller's main claims in this article leaned towards the idea that recycling in general can lead to more efficient and better self-sustained communities when done correctly, which he showed evidence of with the recycling mandates that took place in California.  With the economy looking for ways to make up its massive debt total, recycling could be a great way for money to get pumped back into it, rather then always getting taken out. In addition, this will begin to expose and educate people on why we should recycle.  The goal of recycling legislation is to conserve scarce resources such as land, energy, labor, and so on, and to prevent waste from damaging people and the environment (Keller 1).  

Joe Schwartz, EA's RCRA specialist, has worked extensively with communities in the Midwest to promote responsible solid waste planning.  In his article Squeezed Out, he discusses some of his experiences from traveling and developing his waste planning missions.  The best example related to community success and development came in Philadelphia, when he began to put a recycling program in place for the city in order to help local recycling businesses raise funds to expands their programs (Schwartz 1).  The National Temple Recycling Center opened its doors a decade ago, when recycling was still an afterthought for solid waste officials (Schwartz 1).  A pioneer in developing affordable housing for low-income residents of North Philadelphia, National Temple had successfully financed multi-family rental and home-ownership projects and even invested in solar-equipped residential units (Schwartz 1).  In recycling, they saw an opportunity to promote community development and protect the environment, thus forging a vital link between economics and ecology for minority residents (Schwartz 1).  The company created 16 jobs in the plant and an additional 20 jobs elsewhere in the community (Schwartz 1).  National Temple actively encouraged recycling enterprises under the ownership and control of community and church groups throughout the city (Schwartz 1).  Some individual entrepreneurs established routes to collect recyclable materials, which they sold at National Temple's North Philadelphia buy-back center (Schwartz 1).  This opportunity in Philadelphia was a small success on the global scale, but in the community it made a major difference in allowing people to have the opportunities to learn about recycling and see just how a small program can make a big difference in the city.  This is a great example of how recycling programs can really benefit the community around them by getting people involved with new jobs and create awareness for the reasons why the program is there.

The biggest and most important reason for recycling, is the environment.  Recycling is the earth-friendly way off getting rid off waste, and it alone could be one of the most important factors to what Earth looks like over the next 100 years.  Stephens describes recycling as earth-friendly when he says:

It does not matter how safe and efficient our landfills are said to be, the possibility of the dangerous chemicals contaminating the underground water supply is always present with the solid waste deposited that are put in these landfills.  Combustion or incineration of our solid waste is effective in generating energy, but the environment pays the price with increased air pollution. On the other hand, recycling just 35 percent of our trash reduces toxic emissions equivalent to taking 36 million cars off the road. In 2006, according to the EPA, the national recycling rate was 32.5 percent, which is the equivalent of 82 million tons recycled. (Stephens 1)

This highlights the dangers of landfills and also provides specific statistics on the relationship between recycling and saving energy with regards to car fuel emissions.  Stephens says, "recycling prevented the release of approximately 49.7 million metric tons of carbon into the air roughly the amount emitted annually by 39 million cars, or 1,300 trillion BTUs, saving energy equivalent to 10 billion gallons of gasoline" (Stephens 1).  This information shows the statistical side of what recycling has done in the past, and what it can do in the future with regards to cutting pollution rates.  The other side of the spectrum comes down to how recycling effects not only humans but also the ecosystem itself.  Air pollution leads to climate change, global warming, and natural decay.  

An example of this natural destruction in the environment is currently happening in the South Pacific coast off of Australia.  Graham Readfearn, an oceanographer from Australia recently published an article about the fading in color of the Great Barrier Reef.  The reef has changed from elegant bright colors to now grey and white.  This is not the entire reef, but it has begun to spread more and more over the past years.  These corals are in the northern section of Australia's vast Great Barrier Reef, and the newest victims of the third global "mass bleaching" of corals since 1998 (Readfearn 1).  These corals get their striking colors thanks to the zooxanthellae algae that they live with (Readfearn 1).  When the corals and the algae are stressed, they separate, leaving a bare white skeleton behind (Readfearn 1).  In mass bleaching events, the stress comes when corals bathe for too long in unusually warm ocean waters (Readfearn 1).  This is the point at which the Great Barrier Reef and the world's fossil fuel industry come into direct conflict.  As of right now, the reef is taking the brunt of the blows.  The causes of this are all from human interaction with the environment, and their naive sense of entitlement to it.  This directly relates back to recycling efforts, because oil is something that can be recycled, and most people just don't know this.  The oil in the ocean mostly comes from off shore fracking companies along with on-shore runoff from landfills.  Overtime the continuation of these events will become more and more often if recycling is not more strictly enforced and monitored by the government.  To prevent destruction like this, mandatory recycling should be implemented.

Mandatory recycling incorporates a lot of figures and numbers in order to support the possible successes it can have.  These successes will only come to the surface if it can be set into action by government officials.  The U.S. population cannot sustain our consumerist lifestyle without expecting any ramifications. As Stephens says, "the products that we use are wrapped in several layers of packaging material that are perfectly recyclable plastic, aluminum, paper, tin, wood, etc." (Stephens 1).  Demonstrating that sometimes people don't think about the effects that can be causes by throwing a empty water bottle on the ground, or out the window of a car.  People do this everyday and don't even think twice about it, because once it is out of their sights, it is out of their minds.  Stephens describes this constant battle with garbage by saying, "Solid waste disposal experts engage in an uphill struggle to contain this virtual avalanche of garbage Americans produce everyday. It is apparent that digging a hole, a landfill, is clearly not the answer. Sooner or later, the waste becomes uncontainable and will spill into our farming areas, forests, and water sources" (Stephens 2).  This illustrates a picture of what Americans are doing with their garbage and how this needs to be changed, because eventually all the holes will be filled and we will run out of space to put all this waste, and when that happens it will already be too late. 

An example of what mandatory recycling can do comes from and article by Nicholas M. Vaz, is called, Are You Gonna Eat That?: A New Wave Of Mandatory Recycling Has Massachusetts And Other New England States Paving The Way Toward Feasible Food Waste Diversion And A New Player In Alternative Energy.  In this article, Vaz writes about the effects of pollution on the environment and how Americans are some of the top contributors.  The U.S. as a whole throw away more then  one-fourth  of all its food, producing more then 36 million tons of food waste per year (Vaz 2).  Only about 4% of the waste actually decomposes, the rest either remains in landfills or is burned in incineration cites (Vaz 2). Food has become a major contributor to the pollution in the U.S., which has lead to excess amounts of greenhouse gases like methane causing global warming.  This article specifically talks about the different recycling issues presented across the country within the a few states, and how they are trying to get laws for mandatory recycling passed.  An example of this can be seen in the New England region, where in this article Vaz discusses about how they are moving towards mandated diversion of food and waste landfills and incineration facilities (Vaz 3).  These are the steps that need to be taken in order to open peoples eyes to what is actually taking place around them.  The amount of waste that is occurring is enough to make environmentalists go insane, because they know that all of this excess waste is just taking years off the lives of Earth.  This needs to be taken care of and we are at the point where mandatory recycling is the only viable option left. 

The one major setback that has been holding mandatory recycling back from becoming a nation wide law is the cost.  While there is money to be made in recycling, the issue is that the cities and towns that want to implement it do not have the start-up funds to make it happen.  In todays economy, government officials are having to cut costs because of the massive debts that are compiling as a result of over spending.  Mandatory recycling makes money, but at the same time costs a lot more money then a landfill.  In the article, Is Recycling Worth the Trouble, Cost? Sealey writes about New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and his recent proposal of an 18-month moratorium on recycling glass, plastic and aluminum in cash-strapped Gotham.  Bloomberg faces the daunting task of balancing a massive budget deficit, which in New York's case, is $4.76 billion (Sealey).  This case has environmentalists concerned, because they feel like other cities may begin to follow in New York City's footstep in order to cut costs and save money.  While this will save the city an estimated $57 million, it could result in an unfortunate series of events including a permanent stop to their recycling program all together (Sealey).  New York faces special problems with recycling because of population density, high concentration of apartment dwellers and language diversity. But even though New York is the largest city to propose a recycling stoppage, officials in other large cities such as Baltimore and Charleston have attempted similar plans, also citing costs (Sealey).  

Unfortunately, these facts that Bloomberg and other officials are showing about costs are true, these recycling programs do take up a lot of city funding, and sometimes do not work very well in the highly populated places.  With that being said, instead of cutting these programs completely, they should at least look for a cheaper alternative.  In conclusion, this article from Sealey definitely is very accurate with the current happenings in the recycling world and makes good points as to why some places just may not be able to handle recycling right now, but hopefully in the future with technological advances in the recycling industry, it can be made possible for all cities to recycle.

The question of whether or not recycling should become mandatory, is one that has been in discussion for the past few decades.  Over time, the build up of trash and pollution on Earth has lead to dramatic effects which unfortunately may never be able to be fixed.  The concept of recycling is one that not many people seem to argue with, because they know that re-using materials makes less trash and waste, therefore resulting in less pollution.  One point in which people do argue, is whether or not the time and effort they have to put into it is worth their time.  A lot of people in the world would rather just throw all their garbage into one container and not think twice about what will happen to it and where it will end up.  People do not want to have to worry about separating all the materials into different bins and looking to see what type of plastic or glass it is their things are made of.  This is a big excuse being used by people in society, but what most don't realize is that there are actually singular recycling bins in which people can throw all their different recyclables into, and then the recycling companies take care of sorting it for them (The Good Stuff, Youtube).

In the article, Cost-Benefit Analysis of Recycling in the United States: Is Recycling Worth It?  The author, who in this case is not listed, writes about how the costs of recycling is one of the costliest ways of disposal, and that this is normally overlooked by most advocators of recycling.  The author pulls information from Harvey Black of the Environmental Health Journal in San Jose, California, who says, "it costs $28 per ton to landfill waste compared with $147 a ton to recycle" (Cost-Benefit Analysis of Recycling in the United States: Is Recycling Worth It? 1).  In Atlantic County, NJ, selling recyclable goods brings in $2.45 million.  However, the cost of collecting and sorting these recycled materials plus interest payments on the recycling facility costs the county over $3 million (Cost-Benefit Analysis of Recycling in the United States: Is Recycling Worth It? 1).  Even with this being said, most Americans would still argue that the benefits outweigh the costs simply because it would make the Earth a healthier and cleaner place.  With the time, money, and energy spent collecting and processing recycled goods, the price of recycling is much higher than discarding waste into landfills or incinerators.  According to the author, instead of spending a large sum of money on recycling programs, the U.S. should put money towards higher priority programs such as healthcare, education, and cost effective environmental initiatives.  In order to offset several of the environmental benefits of recycling, waste reduction techniques such as reducing and reusing must become a commonplace component of this country's waste management.  By saying this, the author is not advocating mandatory recycling, he is advocating Americans trying to control their wasteful habits and blatant disregard for the health of the planet.  This article makes a lot of great key points and arguments.  It both supports and goes against recycling in certain ways, but the overall message is that Americans do need to do something to stop the pollution, but maybe mandatory recycling is not the answer. 

Therefore, the concept of mandatory recycling is something that is widely debated in society today.  There are both pros and cons in this situation, but ultimately the benefits outweigh the costs when it comes to recycling.  This is why there is a need for recycling to become mandatory, not only because it will help the environment, but also because it will help stop the laziness that has taken over in society today.  Recycling needs to be made mandatory sooner rather than later, because if not, future generations may never be able to overcome the damage that has already been done. 

