ARE YOU GREEN? Silvia V. (1r batx B)

Are you conscious of your actions?

Since years ago many green associations have been worried about recycling. They said that the developed countries consumed and wasted too much glass, too much paper and too much plastic.

I have to say that many people recycle because they know it’s better for the environment and because they can do it. But the problem is that these products which have been recycled go to different places: to large dumping sites for stay years there, to incinerators or they could bury underground.

I really don’t know what method is better. If we think in the large dumping of rubbish, we have to make ourselves the questions: and who wants this rubbish? Where did we find an open country? It’s really difficult to find this large place.

Probably, we think that incinerating the rubbish is a good idea because it disappears. But, in fact is the worst, because the incinerator plants produce exhaust fumes such as toxic gases which first are very bad to breath and second, they produce more greenhouse gases which are bad for the planet.

Finally, we have the option of burying the rubbish. But this is also a terrible idea, because the garbage can pollutes the ground and the groundwater.

So, what’s the best way to recycle? And the experts said: reduce and reuse. Then we have another problem we can reuse the glass to do other products, and we can reuse the paper, but and the plastic?

The plastics are elements derivative of the petrol that were born in the nineteenth century and which were discovered thanks to a bet who made a rich factory owner. Plastics have been created because they have good properties to make many products. But, with this discovery, the factories owners began to replace many elements that were made of glass to do them with plastic, because it was more economic.

Now, we find that we live in a world of plastic: packaging, bottles, bags, many parts of a car and even the clothes are made of plastic.

We have reached a point where we wasted many plastics and there's no space to put them in the dumps, so the residues go to the sea. This way, in the Pacific Ocean there has been formed a big island of plastic that has affected many birds and fishes, which have died poisoned; and those who hadn't died poisoned, have eaten the plastic, and we eat them. It's a big chain which sometimes it's better not to think about.

When we saw these appalling images, we ask ourselves: How can we reduce it? The answer is that alone we can’t reduce or make nothing, because now the people who are in the green associations are the ones who one day wanted to discover plastic and had no worrying about the future environment, because they are more interested in the money that they will win. This people have the hypocritical theory of money not the environment.

For this reason, personally I think that I can reduce, recycle and reuse but I can’t do many things to improve the environment. The best way to do it is returning to the past. I mean, in the past there weren’t many elements of plastic, because the packaging and the bottles were made of glass and the clothes were made of wool. 

This way, when a person went to buy something at the supermarket, she bought for example a glass bottle of milk, and when she returned to the supermarket she gave the bottle to the cashier. Then, the cahier paid back the money of the glass bottle or she gave to the client another bottle full of milk.

This is a very good way to reuse, but why didn’t we do it? The answer is the same, because the society imposes the fashion, and the fashion is the consumerism.

SILVIA VEGA GONZÁLEZ

1r batx B