RECYCLING AND THE ENVIRONMENT

 

 What is recycling?

It is the process of using old or waste products into new products. Recycling is the process of making or manufacturing new products from a product that has originally served its purpose. If these used products are disposed of in an appropriate, environmentally friendly way, the process of recycling has been set in motion.

What are the positive outcomes of recycling?

1. Protects Environment: The foremost benefit or recycling is that it helps in protecting the environment in the most balanced manner. While many trees are cut down continually, recycled paper made from certain trees is re-used repeatedly to minimize felling/ deforestation. With re-cycled paper as an outstanding example, a number of other natural resources can be reused this way.

2. Reduces Energy Consumption: A large amount of energy is consumed by processing raw materials at the time of manufacture.  Recycling helps to minimize energy consumption, which is crucial for massive production, such mining or refining. This also makes the production process very cost-effective and beneficial for manufacturers.

3. Reduces Pollution: Industrial waste today is the main source of all types of pollution. Recycling of industrial products such as cans, chemical, plastics helps to cut down pollution levels considerably, as these materials are re-used, instead of throwing them away irresponsibly.

4: Reduces Global Warming: Recycling helps to alleviate global warming and its ill effects. Massive waste is burned in heaps which produces large amount of greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2 and CFC’s. Recycling ensure that the burning process is minimized and any waste is re-generated as a useful product with no or  minimal harmful impact on the environment. Recycling produces less greenhouse gases as  industries burn fewer fossil fuels for eco-friendly products.

5. Judicious and Sustainable use of Resources: Recycling promotes judicial and sustainable use of resources. This process ensures that there is no discriminate use of any material when available in plenty in the present. Recycling is encouraged at all levels, starting from school to corporate offices and at international levels. This means we can preserve all precious resources for our future generation, without any compromise in the present.

6. Conserves Natural Resources: If old and used materials are not recycled, the new products are made from extracting fresh raw materials from beneath the earth through mining and extraction. Recycling helps in conserving important raw materials and protects natural habitats for the future. Conserving natural resources such as wood, water and minerals ensures its optimum use.

7. Reduces Amount of Waste to Landfills: Recycling old and waste products into new products reduces the amount of waste that go to landfills. This helps in reducing water and land pollution as landfills are a major source in contributing to destruction of natural environment. Recycling programs keep 70 tons of waste from being deposited into landfills every year.

8. Create Green Jobs: Recycling is good for the environment and apart from that it also creates green jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, green goods and services accounted for 3.1 million jobs in the United States by 2010.

 

What can be recycled?

Most kinds of paper can be recycled and the widely known materials that can be recycled are steel, glass, aluminum cans, and foil.

What impact does recycling have on the environment?

Reducing Landfill

The environmental problems of landfills is a difficult issue to fix. As more waste is put into landfills, the bigger the problem gets. Products that are not biodegradable or are slow to decompose can remain in landfill sites for centuries, often emitting gases that could be harmful to the environment. Keeping paper out of landfills is just one way that recycling helps the environment.

Reduce Energy Consumption

Recycling items often uses less energy than manufacturing products from virgin sources. Making paper that is using recycled pulp, for instance, is much less energy intensive than using new wood. While there are benefits to growing trees because of the carbon that they consume, this has to be offset against the damage that is done to the environment by putting paper in landfills and using energy to produce new items.

Decrease Pollution

Waste in landfills emit gases as it rots. This can pollute the environment. Anyone who has passed a landfill site during hot weather will be familiar with the smell and flies that can be found near a landfill site. Reducing the items in landfills will help to reduce the pollution that it causes. Recycling products also typically emits less carbon, thus reducing the carbon footprint of a product.

Veld fires

Veld Fires and the environment

What are veld fires? 

These are fire blazes that get out of control, become wild, and destroy extensive tracts of forests, grasslands, animals, people and their properties in the process .Fire, as part of natural process has a positive role in the vegetation structure and composition, and helps recycle nutrients contained in old and dead trees. There is, however, concern that the frequency, extent and pattern of burning are increasing due to human activities. It is a fact that the damage from these fires has grown to outweigh the benefits of fire on the ecosystem. Frequent burning has implication on carbon stocks and emissions, wildlife habitat, human health and life as well as livelihoods. Fire has caused destruction of property and loss of life around the world. It disturbs the natural balance of the ecosystem.Fire subjects the soil to high temperatures, causing loss of organic matter and drying out of the topsoil. Many classes of organisms are burned and the soil becomes barren. Fire ashes the above ground biomass and litter and may impair the reproductive potential of plants by reducing the seed bank in the soil. Damage may also be caused to below ground roots and tubers. Patterns of seed production, seed germination and seedling establishment of most annual plants is lowered. The woody vegetation resists fire, but the grass and herbaceous components can be eliminated. Veld carrying capacity resultantly becomes low because of 135 changes in vegetation species composition and long-term reduction in herbage production.

Deforestation in Zmibabwe

Deforestation and  its effects in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, home to more than 14 million people, is currently facing a severe economic crisis which is contributing to the continued environmental degradation. . This however has been rapidly leading to a high rate of environmental degradation in the form of a high rate of deforestation. During urbanization, large chunks of land are cleared to prepare space for human urban settlements. These acts are not usually met with the opposite, as the trees that are cut down and the nature is not replaced in the same rate, if not at all ignored. 

In newly established cities like Emganwini and Cow-dray Park in Bulawayo, where most households have not been electrified due to the economic recession in the country,people are surviving on the collection of firewood in the nearby plantations.

This is an environmental hazard that in years of practice exposes the land to erosion which then is one of the processes of desertification.

 At Emganwini in 2008 the locals used to collect firewood just after the Plumtree Road, but with the years having passed , firewood is now being collected at Matopo Research which is over 10 km in distance. this means that tall trees and vegetation between Emganwini and Matopo Research have been chopped down . Therefore the land is now subject to agents of erosion.

It is therefore important for environmental protection to make efforts to curb such environmental degradation actions. The first step that is necessary is to educate the public on the continued effects of such land degradation measures. It is also important to consider the origins of such on going deforestation activities, and it is notable that due to the economic recession in Zimbabwe, the government is unable to complete its urban electrification projects.

Enviromental Pollution and its Effects

 

 

SOME visitors to the Zambezi River urinated on the river bank and left toilet paper behind, the Zambezi Society said in its latest bulletin.
“Over the past couple of years, the wilderness experience in Mana Pools National Park has undergone a noticeable deterioration, with the increasing abuse of this unique park by unsanctioned, uncontrolled human activities,” the local conservation group’s bulletin reads, a Sapa correspondent reported on Tuesday.

At most, human actions disrupt the smooth running of such a relationship between living or non-living organisms and the environment(ecosystem). However, this is evidence of water pollution and the passing of urine in water has negative effects like the risk of transmission of waterborne diseases like bilharzia  . The random dumping of litter everywhere is dangerous to the environment and its biological components and living organisms.