Online Custom «Recycling in the United Arab Emirates» Essay Sample

Introduction

Recycling is a processing of the already used material into something else that can be used for another purpose. The most regular material that is likely to require recycling in the region is plastic. Of the variety of materials, which are often used in many parts of the industry, it is plastic that is the hardest to get rid of, thus it is better for it to be recycled (Zafar, 2014). One major characteristic about plastic that serves as both an advantage and a disadvantage is the fact that it is elastic and quite durable. This helps in the sense that material that is made with plastic lasts for a very long time. Unfortunately, when this use lapses, plastic stays for longer than any other material in the landfills and therefore takes up a lot of space. One single beverage bottle made of plastic can take up to four centuries to decompose (Cavanaugh, Tocci & Wilkes, 2010).

Recycling helps a lot in saving the resources.  Whenever a certain material is recycled and used again, there are fewer resources that are needed the second time that it is used. The process of recycling plastic refers to recovering of scarp or plastic that had been discarded as waste and turning it into material that can be used for productivity (Zafar, 2010). There are various methods through which plastic that was discarded can be repossessed, for example, plastic that came from soft drinks is often melted and then used in the making of plastic tables and chairs. It is often important that people understand the importance of participating in recycling so that more and more of them can join in the venture. The paper will discuss the advantages of recycling plastic, its benefits for economics as well as for the environment.

Benefits of Recycling Plastics

The benefit of recycling plastic, first of all, is that this material is found virtually everywhere. Plastic is present in almost all the things that human beings use on a daily basis, such as food and beverage containers, grocery bags, plastic utensils, toys for children, trash bags, bottles, diapers, et cetera. Apart from these, there are other larger uses of plastic such as making of chairs and tables, computers, other home appliances, automobiles and so on. A lot of benefits have been attached to the process of recycling. One of them is that the environment is kept safe and secure for humans and other life objects to exist in peacefully. Through recycling various types of environmental pollution, such as water pollution, and air pollution that are mostly caused by the emission of dangerous gases to the environment during processes such as the burning of waste, are reduced.

The need recycling is always growing, especially in the current world. Plastic has been recorded to be a much larger part of the municipal solid waste than it was a few years ago. For instance, in the 1960s it took 1% but in the forty years that followed it grew to 12% (Cavanaugh, Tocci & Wilkes, 2010). The report by the Beverage Marketing Corporation revealed that an average American often consumed approximately 28 gallons of bottled water in the years 2006, which was a great increase from the 1.6 that they consumed thirty years before. On the average, Americans purchase more than 25 billion bottles of water every year, and most of these will often end up in the waste.     

In 2009, America produced approximately 30 million tons of waste that was in the form of plastic. Out of these, only about 12% made it to the recycle process (Zafar, 2010). The rest was left to fill land space in areas where such garbage is dumped.

Another main benefit of recycling plastic is that it helps in the reduction of oil consumption. When manufacturers are making various products out of original plastic, they use crude oil derivatives or sometimes natural gas. This demonstrates that this course of action will be undertaken every time, however, the end product is utilized only for a short while and is later disposed off. The resources utilized in the manufacturing of plastic are in most cases not renewable (Cavanaugh, Tocci & Wilkes, 2010). In evaluation, the quantity of oil that is used in producing one plastic bottle is approximately equivalent to half of the oil of that bottle. This means that when a single ton of plastic is recycled, an estimated 16 barrels of oil are saved. It, therefore, indicates that the recycling of plastic assists in the fossil and oil fuel conservation in order to be used for other purposes that are essential.

Impacts of Recycled Materials

Recycling of plastic is vital in the saving of energy. As stated earlier, production of plastic needs the utilization of crude oil derivatives. The most widespread method that is employed in the process is radical polymerization. This method will in most cases involve compression of the reactants to almost a thousand times the atmospheric pressure, and at the same time, heating it  up to more than 100 degrees Celsius. When plastic is recycled, despite the fact that the process will still require the use of energy, for a wide range of activities, it will in need quite less energy that is needed for the manufacturing of fresh plastic. When one ton of plastic is recycled, more than five thousand kilowatts of energy are saved in the process (Zafar, 2010).

Conclusion

Residents of the United Arab Emirates are the first ones who should embrace the process of recycling of not only plastic, but any other material that is able to go through this process. The reason for this is that the region has a lot of industries most of which are revolved around the use of oils and strong gases. This in itself is posing risk to their environment and therefore adding things like plastic to the equation just makes it more dangerous.