Thesis Statement: Items discarded by humans that are unwanted or are no longer able to function are considered as waste. The problems that arise as a result of waste include environmental pollution and reduction of land (due to increase landfills). Recycling is indeed one of the answer to solving the problem of waste, but there are also other ways to tackle the problem of waste.
In order to solve the problem of waste, there is a need to first solve the root cause. Many of the problems that are linked to pollution is usually due to the selfishness of humans. Humans produce waste but are lazy to discard them off properly. In United States itself, the amount of litter produced is about 250 million per year. Despite government campaigns such as the ‘Keep America beautiful’ campaign, littering still remains a prominent issue even in ‘clean and green’ cities like Singapore. The main cause is the mindsets of people. People often have this selfish mindset, that throwing a small piece of litter will not result in any major impacts on the environment. However, they do not realize that if everyone haves the same mindset, the amount of litter that will build up will be humongous. Pollution of the lands and oceans thus arises. Thus, to tackle this issue, government can raise public awareness about the disposal of waste to change the people’s mindset. Problems of waste cannot be solve just by the act of the government but includes the corporation of the people to do their part to keep the environment clean.
In order to have waste to throw, the waste must first come from somewhere. According to waste statistics, about 30% of waste thrown are packaging waste. In order to make their product more aesthetically pleasing, companies may choose to package their products in fancy and colorful package instead of just plain simple ones. Government can motivate firms to go for lighter but yet equally appealing packaging to reduce the amount of packaging waste. Using packaging waste as an example, the main point that is brought across is that in order to solve the problems of waste, people first need to reduce the amount of waste produced.
Using the example of packaging waste, packaging waste can be categorized into the different materials; paper and cardboard, glass, plastic, metal and wood. Even though the amount of packaging waste is expected to rise every year, according to the statistic by EU, the amount of packaging waste disposed off as solid waste has remained constant. This is because the increase in packaging waste has been countered by the increase in recycling rates of packaging material. Recycling plays a very important role in reducing the amount of waste being disposed off at landfills or incinerated. Recycling allows for raw materials to be reuse. Recycling reduces pollution because the waste is now collected and sorted at recycling centres for further processing instead of being left around as litter. Recycling is sort of a way to reduce the problems of waste by lowering the negative effects. However, it not a very efficient method to solve the problem of waste. In order to solve the problem of waste, the mentality of people has to first change, followed by the reduction of waste that leads to h
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