KC3 Rough Draft

            Money is a precious and valuable resource to the world today. These green slivers of paper can determine when our next meal will be, if we’ll have a house next month, or to get an operation that could save a life. Money can also control the environment- whether to cut down a rainforest and make room for the company or preserve it for years to come. Today, our nation’s international debt has accumulated to 16 trillion dollars thanks to unwise decisions and even frivolous spending. More than ever, people are trying to look for new ways to reuse what they’ve got and save their money. Recycling is a popular method that saves energy as well as the environment. Hawaii, a small part of our nation, has found a way to motivate the community to recycle. Thanks to HI-5, every recyclable item received is exchanged for five cents. Recycling as well as reducing the amount of waste we make benefits Hawaii’s economy one way or another.

            HI-5 is a program that motivates the people of Hawaii to recycle and care for the environment. Starting in January 2005, consumers could get five cents back per recyclable item at redemption centers. Since then, more than 4.2 billion containers have been recycled annually, increasing the recycling community overall to approximately 45%. Ever since you could get money back for recycling, more people have been going to nearby redemption centers and exchange their recyclables weekly. Now that people have a reason to recycle, many of them are thinking “why not?” Recycling also has a good effect on the community, encouraging them to engage in activities that are offered. Recycling is only one way to help the environment, and there are many more ways to. Once someone learns about recycling, they may want to learn about more ways to help the environment. This can lead to beach cleanups, replanting vegetation, and trash pick-ups in the park.

            Although most people don’t know it, recycling also saves energy. According to the History Channel, recycling aluminum saves 96% of energy. Glass saves 21%, newspaper saves 45%, plastic bottles and such saves 76%, and plastic yogurt containers saves 88%. Energy is saved because these products have already been made. A majority of these recycled items are melted down and reformed, so there is no need to make a completely new product. Since we save energy and energy sources cost money, this means we save money altogether. Currently, oil is the main source of energy needed for everything we do. Oil is a precious resource that is quickly depleting. As we did deeper into the earth to get more oil, it costs both more energy as well as money. Recycling saves a small bit of it; by using less energy than it would have originally needed to form a new product.

            Creating less non-recyclable waste can benefit Hawaii’s economy as well. Currently, there’s no way to get rid of trash except for burning it or let it decompose for the next couple hundred years. We can’t just leave it in a huge heap to stink up the island, though. Landfills are dug to bury trash so they don’t rot out in the open. The Opala Company claims that it takes 6 million dollars to dig out a landfill, just to bury our trash. If we create less non-recyclable waste, this will eventually lead up to not having to dig unnecessary landfills and just have less waste altogether. However, if we do chose to reuse things that aren’t recyclable, it won’t be as easy to break down and mold. More energy is used reshaping a non-recyclable item than a recyclable one. 70-80% of America’s trash is recyclable, but is tossed into the garbage can. If people took the time to sort through their waste, there would be a lot less of it.

            Recycling and caring more for the environment can benefit Hawaii’s, or any state’s economy in many ways. Hawaii is just a small part of the nation that can encourage people to recycle and take better care of the environment. In fact, if the entire world were to recycle, we’d have about a fourth of the waste from before. Instead of digging up landfills, the money could go to other uses, such as education or building homeless shelters. Land that isn’t used wouldn’t be cleared just to dig a hole in the ground and stuff trash in it. The land could have indigenous plants and animals, alternatively being turned into a reservation. This could ultimately save a handful of species from extinction or being sent to a lab for testing and kept in captivity. If we keep digging up the earth, it will literally be full of trash.