Recylcing_Speech

Speech What is the deal with recycling' It seems like it should be a very important environmental issue but most communities don’t value this very highly. Most people agree that this is helpful to the environment, but they still don’t recycle. Most people only know that recycling saves natural resources and takes away space in a landfill. Only some people know of all the other benefits. These include: saving water, energy and air & water pollution. With a couple of extra minutes a day, you can do so much for the environment. So why doesn’t everyone' Most people say they don’t want to “waste” their time. I know that not everyone is perfect. I do believe that everyone can recycle. Even the smallest bit of recycling can play a role in saving the environment. Did you know that recycling the $1 pop bottle that you enjoy so much, can save up to four hours’ worth of watching television' See, with such little effort you help save the environment so much! Currently every year in the U.S, there is over 400 million tons of trash that ends up in the landfill. And yet less than 25% of people recycle. If Americans as a nation made an effort to raise this percentage, think of all of the good that would come out of this. I know that getting it so every single American recycles is highly unlikely, but I believe that every person helps and can make a big difference. I believe that recycling paper is one of the areas that should be valued the highest. Every minute, 100 acres of forests are being cut down. Every year around 4 billion trees are cut down. Yes, 4 BILLION. We only plant 1.5 billion back. This poses a huge problem. The area with the most trees happens to be rainforests. Experts estimate that we are losing 137 plant, animal, and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation. Experts also say that if the rainforest wasn’t cut down, it would have a higher economic value than what we are doing now, which is cutting it down to create farmland. And yet we continue to cut down the rainforests, even after logging companies are encouraged not to. I do see why they go for these particular areas though. So logging companies that set out to chop these areas down have the business mind set; they go where they can get the most profit. The rainforests account for producing more than 20% of the oxygen we breathe. I would like logging companies to stop deforestation in areas that are important to the survival of endangered species. But both you and I know that this is a “very close to impossible” task. There is another way to stop this though. If more people started recycling, the demand for trees would be a lot lower. Then the demand for logging companies to cut down as many trees as they can possible, would also decrease. This would then slow, or even stop, the deforestation in rainforests. Now do you see how every single one of us can make a difference' Now, I know in my speech so far I have made a lot of “what if” statements. Every day, people are making changes to recycle more often and throw away less trash. These changes aren’t just happening with everyday people though. The government is even striving to make more people aware of the benefits of recycling. We all know that the Empire State Building is known to be one of the tallest buildings in all of America. With this you would think that the energy consumption would also be very high. It normally is, but the building is currently going though renovations to make it more environmentally friendly. Workers are currently replacing all of the 26,056 panes of glass, with windows that have 2.5 time better insulation. You might think that this would be a waste of 26,056 panes of glass, but those are being recycled. Also all new panes are made of recycled glass. The project is going to cost around $13 million. Granted this is a lot of money but every year it is going to save around $4.4 million. This is a cut of around 38% of the current energy consumption. Now do you see all of the great things you can do' With the smallest effort every one of you can help the environment. If every single person in the room recycles their drink at lunch tomorrow, we can save over 100 TV hours of electricity. So I don’t see why any one of you shouldn’t do it. It is right next to the trash can, just waiting to take your empty milk and Gatorade bottles. I want everyone to go home and try some of even the simplest forms of recycling.