Dear Future President,

Imagine the world with trash everywhere. Piles and piles of trash, the world would pretty much be the movie WALL E brought to life. We would not live in a pretty place. But we can prevent this from happening, by recycling. According to studies done by our own government (www.epa.gov), recycling conserves raw materials, and protects wildlife habitats for future generations. It also states that it is the best way to have an impact on the natural world. A Recycling Revolution states that recycling 1 aluminum can saves enough energy to power a TV for 3 hours. That’s equivalent to one gallon of gasoline. The website also says that aluminum not recycled can still be in a landfill 500 years from now. The University of Southern Indiana researchers say to produce each weeks Sunday newspapers in the US, 500,000 tress must be cut down. We could save 250,000 trees every year if it was all recycled. (www.usi.edu/recycle/paper-recycling-facts)

In New York alone, people throw away enough trash every day to fill the empire state building (www.earthfriends.com) Earth Friends also stated that if everyone recycled their copy of New York Times, they could save 75,000 trees. That would help reduce the insane amount of trash they are producing. By not recycling, people are destroying natural habitats for animals and putting wildlife at risk by destroying their forests, unnecessarily using valuable resources and polluting the environment through manufacturing processes. Not recycling is not only putting wildlife at risk, its putting humans at risk too. In many places people are not getting clean safe water because of water pollution. EPA estimates that 75% of waste stream is recyclable but we only recycle 30% of it! That's a lot of trash polluting our land and water. 

I do understand that some towns and cities don't have a recycling center. But I think that you will be able to help make recycling centers possible and enforce the idea of recycling and helping the world one step at a time. Here are some reasons why recycling is so important. 1) It saves energy 2) It conserves raw materials 3) It helps protect the environment (South London Waste Partnership).

The damage we are causing to the Earth is horrible. People are destroying the earth. Sometimes people don’t know, but sometimes they just don’t care. I have seen circumstances when there is a recycling bin and a trash bin next to each other and people throw away there disposable water bottles in the trash! I think we need to have laws and enforce protecting the planet and our resources and educate people. Some ways we could do that are using cloth shopping bags, recycling used paper and recycling plastic water bottles. I think that as President you will be able to help solve this problem and help protect the earth.

Sincerely,

Lauren B.