Recycling Centers, Available near You!

 

 

We decided to put our “This is Public Health” sticker on a bottle return center at the local Wal-Mart. The sticker is located right where a person would insert the bottle to be recycled and reused. The placement of the sticker will allow people who are currently involved in recycling to know they are effecting public health in a positive way, and making this public health issue known to those who walk by. Wal-Mart is one of the largest retailers in the United States, so many customers frequent Wal-Mart on a daily basis. This serves as a prime location to advertise for public health and reach a wide range of demographics.

A failure to recycle amongst the majority of the population is an issue. When plastics are incinerated or buried in a landfill, they release harmful chemicals into our air and water.  Over time, if the majority of people in our society refuse to recycle, our environment is harmed.  As trash is burned, which is the norm, burned plastics release a dangerous toxin, which subsequently destroys the ozone layer.  If our ozone layer disintegrates, our environment would not be protected by UV rays from the Sun, which could increase instances of skin cancer amongst the population.  The increase of trash disposal from not recycling also possibly increases respiratory problems in the population.  Recycling plastic helps to reduce waste by reducing the amount of processing and manufacturing of new resources, and also reduces the need to extract resources from the earth.  Recycling one ton of plastic saves 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space; which has an impact on public health that can only grow with the knowledge that recycling and reusing plastic is good for the population.