by Gabe Nelson

There is one planet Earth. There is no “Planet B.” Today humanity is facing a crisis like nothing else it has ever seen before in the collectively shared human history, or in the history of the Earth. The climate is changing so rapidly that the ecosystems of this Earth cannot keep up. Simple sustainable changes make a big difference. The animal kingdom is not keeping up and soon humanity itself and its very own civilizations will not be able to keep up. 

While humans are not the only cause of climate change, they have accelerated it greatly and it is humanity's duty and responsibility to this planet to do its best to reverse the damage they have done. 

As of the writing of this article, the Earth is experiencing record temperatures across the globe, record storms, and record wildfires. Australia is facing the most apocalyptic bush fires of its history. Why? Because of humanity's meddling in the natural system. 

But it's not all doom and gloom; there is hope and there are things that you can do to help improve the situation. One great way of doing this is via recycling. Yes, that simple act can literally change the course of this Earth and all of life's futures upon it. 

Recycling is a simple task but it’s one that can truly make a huge difference when it’s done well and taken seriously. When it comes to recycling everyone should be doing their part. Here are five reasons why everyone should take recycling more seriously.

1. The Top Reason:

Making changes to help support a more sustainable human environment is a great way to help the planet, and by helping the planet you help yourself. Believe it or not, by simply living on this planet, you are a part of a massive and interconnected system of living organisms. They can't live without you, and you can't live without them. 

By destroying this Earth humans are destroying not only themselves, but every other being on this planet, and for what? Next time you go to throw something away, make sure it's not something that should be recycled, or you are contributing to the problem. 

2. It’s Good for Humanity: 

The next reason, and one that might appeal more to our selfishness as a species: helping the environment by recycling is good for the species, and for oh-so many reasons. It creates job growth and economic stimulation; it helps keep resources, simple things like our drinking water, clean and fresh; it keeps acid out of the rain and puts healthy food in kid's stomachs. 

The amount of jobs recycling and renewable energy that can be created is astonishing, The economic growth alone is reason enough to start recycling. Instead of just dropping our trash off at a dump, humans could recycle, creating centers for the purpose of recycling creating thousands if not hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

3. Renewable and Reusable:

Recycling leads to cheaper materials, if a non-renewable resource is taken and turned into something that can be used again, or repurposed, new items do not need to be created in order to fill that gap. Reusing makes things worth something, and having multiple uses is never a bad thing. 

Things like glass, plastic, and paper can all be recycled with ease and turned into new products for consumption. Take for example a ream of paper, say you buy a ream of recycled paper from Staples, that paper is not cut straight from a log from a lumber mill but rather from a recycling center where old papers were combined to create new paper, saving dozens of trees per box of paper. 

Saving trees directly relates to saving the environment and the myriad of wildlife that lives within these distinct and massive forests that are currently being decimated. But we will leave that for the next section. 

4. The Animals 

And now it’s time to come to it, the part that should really be tearing at your heartstrings. The poor animals. We could spend pages and pages going over the travesties that humans have occurred upon the animal kingdom in just the last one hundred years.

There is almost nowhere you can go on this planet where you will not find some sign of humanity, be it just a piece of trash on a beach on an island in the middle of nowhere. Whole species, many in fact, are endangered by the encroachment of human civilization and human settlements. Such farms and settlements would not exist if recycling was a thing. 

Massive swathes of forest and all its inhabitants need not be wiped out for paper when they can use what we already have and recycle it. Habitat loss is the number one threat to endangered species, and recycling directly combats that. 

5. The Ocean: 

One of, if not the most important ecosystems this planet has, the ocean, is also deeply under threat by human activities. Islands of trash and un-recycled plastics floating around in the seas, with no current hope of being cleaned up. 

The seas provide the Earth with everything, oxygen, food, water via rain and so much more. Should the oceans not be pristine? Stop polluting the oceans with trash, and garbage when you should be recycling and properly throwing your trash away.