The Importance Of Plastic Recycling

Abdullah Ibrahim (editing)

Written and Oral Communication, Cohort A

RECYCLING OF PLASTICS SHOULD BE MADE MANDATORY

According to the New Encyclopaedia Britannica, recycling is the recovery or re-use of materials from spent products (2007).That is, the re-use of old, abandoned or waste materials or their transformation into new product. It generally involves the concentration of used materials, their reprocessing and re-use as a substitute for new materials produced from raw materials. Recycling has become extremely important due to the increasing scarcity and cost of natural resources such as oil, gas, coal, mineral ores and trees, and the pollution of air, water and land by waste materials (The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007). The plastic

Plastics are very useful and versatile material with a wide range of applications. Its uses are likely to increase with ongoing development in the plastic industry but unfortunately, the properties that makes it so valuable also makes its disposal problematic. This coupled with the design of some plastic product and the throw away attitude of people serve as the major cause to the plastic waste menace the world is facing. The design reduces the product life span. Meaning that we are using durable products for a time shorter than its real life span. ‘’Approximately, 50 percent of plastics are used for single use disposal applications, such as packaging, agricultural films and disposal consumer items’’ (Hopewell et al., 2009). With most plastics not biodegradable and are extremely durable, they are therefore expected to persist in the environment for a very long time probably decades or centuries. ‘’Even degradable plastics may persist for a considerable time as rate of degradation depend on physical factors such as the levels of u the ultraviolent exposure, oxygen and temperature’’ (Hopewell et al., 2009). They therefore stay in soils and water polluting since they are not recognized by the biodegradable enzymes. An example is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a layer of floating rubbish mainly plastics found in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii estimated to span about 3.43 square million kilometres

According to 15th edition of The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume 16, conservation of natural resources is the optimization of the of the human use of the biosphere to yield the greatest sustainable benefit without compromising its potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations (2007). Basically, life depends on the proper functioning of the biosphere- a relatively narrow zone of air, water, soil and rock in which all life on earth exists and therefore should be careful in our exploitation these resources. The consumption of natural resources has otherwise increased over the years with growth in civilisation and the concentration of people into cities. This makes the future access to fossil fuel unclear. This because fossil fuel are the least renewable resources because they are efficiently exhausted by use and their formation rate is exceedingly slow (The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007). On the basis of existing knowledge of the amount of fossil fuel in the earth crust, it has been predicted that, the availability of petroleum and natural gas could be greatly exhausted if used at the rate predicted (The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007). Recycling of plastics is one of the methods for reducing environmental impacts and depletion. Fundamentally, high levels of recycling as with reduction in use, re-use and repair or re-manufacturing can allow for a given level of products service with lower