The Avid Reader (and enjoyer of all subjects)

Every day, you use plastic drink bottles without thinking about it, whether you’re pounding in Gatorade right after a big sports event, or if you’re just thirsty after you come back from school.  But believe it or not, in 2006 we recycled just 23% of the bottles of water we drank. 

Plastic is a very popular item to use for bottled drinks.  It’s light but strong, and break-resistant.  However, this material is often wasted, and it sometimes can be deadly.  The average American family disposes 88 pounds of plastic per year, and the 45,000 tons of plastic thrown into the ocean is responsible for the deaths of 1,000,000 birds and 100,000 marine mammals.  It takes 1.5 million oil barrels to produce a year’s worth of bottled water.  We could be using those barrels to power 100,000 cars.  Also, plastic takes a long time to break down–400 years in a landfill and up to 1,000 years before they even begin.  Though you might think it’s cheap, plastic makes up the majority of the cost of a bottled water. 

So what are the pros of recycling bottled water, you ask?  56% of all recycled PET bottles wind up as textiles/carpet, and 29% of all high-density polyethelyne (HDPE) bottles.  You can save 88% energy by recycling plastic.  You could recycle a plastic bottle and a month later, it could be for sale again.  Believe it or not, recycling 10,000 tons of plastic waste creates 36 jobs, six times the amount if the plastic was landfilled and 36 times the amount if the plastic was burned.  By recycling one bottle, you can power the computer you are using now for 25 minutes. 

Though plastic water bottles may be convenient for everybody, it certainly isn’t convenient for the environment, especially in the future, and un-recycled bottles can pulverize landfills.  And even though you think that one recycled bottle doesn’t make much of a difference, it can determine what Earth’s fate is–a contaminated, filthy wasteland or a clean and sanitary, beautiful landscape.  Which scene would you wish to picture Earth as a few years from now?

Works Cited:  (This is just practice for the social studies project due in a few days.)

Arnold, Emily and Larsen, Janet.  “BOTTLED WATER:  Pouring Resources Down the Drain”.  February 2, 2006.  (©2006 Earth Policy Institute) April 22, 2009.

Miller, Chaz.  “HDPE Bottles” February 1, 2004 12:00 PM. April 22, 2009.

Unknown, Unknown.  “Interesting Facts that Make You Think:  Why Doesn’t Everyone Recycle?”  Date published:  unknown.   

Unknown, Unknown.  “Plastic Recycling Facts“  ©2009 by Earth911.com. 

Unknown, Unknown.  “Benefits of Recycling Plastic Bottles” ©2009 by Earth911.com.

I would really recommend the sources cited above.  They contain many facts and statistics you would find interesting.  I found them by Google search.

Because of everything I did in March (for curious readers, I participated in 6 local math and piano competitions), you would expect me to just say, “Participate in all of the local competitions and try to win”.  However, that is NOT the case.  I am thinking about my future, instead of the rest of my time in middle school, which is so limited for such a one-in-a-lifetime-chance wish.  My wish would need to affect me–and the world, perhaps–so that it wouldn’t be squandered.  So, my answer to this is, “Find a cure for major diseases such as heart disease and cancer”.  This wish instantly fits my personality and talents.

Ever since I was taught what “career” meant and some examples, I have been longing to be involved in medicine.  First of all, I would love to prosper easily, just like anybody, and I would definitely desire fame.  By curing a disease like cancer, people who request an operation would pay me (but I would make the cost around $500 for convenience).  I would also earn the Nobel Prize for medicine and/or science, which would haul in $100,000.  Since curing a complicated disease would be almost impossible for grown-ups, let alone adolescents in middle school, I would receive many autograph requests and be popular (but not too popular with people who stick around with Paris Hilton), which suits me. 

I am quite benevolent and sympathetic to the indigent, and I want to cure their diseases–and, of course, first- and middle-class citizens’ diseases–to make their lifestyles less a burden.  I would donate the useless amounts of money to poor people.  In this way, I could solve another problem–that there would be less suffering on Earth.  Because the number 1 killer for all people in the United States is heart disease, if I cure heart disease I can lower the major death rate in the United States, and if I cure a disease like AIDS I can help stop deaths from all around the world.

Finding a cure for such major diseases can not only help my family and me, but it can also help people from the United States and even the very needy around the world, in developing countries.  So if, by chance, God gave me an opportunity to do something that I wouldn’t fail at, I would definitely choose to get rid of those viruses and diseases.