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Recycling Redux
by
Frank J.
Regan (December 2007)
Sometimes the greatest innovations have already
been done. Recycling, extracting our junk into resources is probably
one of the greatest hopes for curbing our environmental problems. No
more landfills, no more toxins leaching into our ground and water,
no more exporting toxic materials to the developing countries, no
more waste--period.
Imagine taking everything we potentially throw away—steel, iron,
paper, cardboard, computers, batteries, appliances, even house—and
reusing everything. I mean everything, so that nothing gets wasted.
Wouldn’t we be for the first time a responsible and thrifty society?
Not really. It’s not such a wild new idea.
If you lived through World War II, or watched
The War - A Film By Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (2007) you know
that massive recycling has been done before in the United States.
You know that everyone, especially kids, will pitch in and learn how
to extract and prepare everything not essential for the recycling
project. You already know that these extracted items can be put in a
place where the recyclers can get at them, where the recyclers can
take them to industry to reuse them. Everything gets reused, nothing
goes into the ground, less natural resources need to be ripped from
our environment—sounds like an impossible dream, except that it’s
already been done.
We can do it again if the public understands the importance and
critical need for this to happen. When not only government, but
industry remembers how to do this massive recycling, turning junk
into new resources and products, our economy can thrive. Once
galvanized recycling on the scale accomplished back in World War Two
can be accomplished.
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