Did you know that humans produce over 460 million metric tons of plastic every year? After…read morelearning this, the first thought that came to my mind was 'This is a huge number! How much actually is this?' Consider this: This is more weight than the weight of the Eiffel Tower (Paris), Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco), Brooklyn Bridge (New York), Empire State Building (New York), Statue of Liberty (New York), Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italy), Great Pyramid of Giza (Egypt), Burj Khalifa (Dubai), Space Needle (Seattle), Tokyo Skytree (Japan), The Pentagon (Virginia), and the Great Wall of China, COMBINED, TIMES SEVEN!
That's A LOT of plastic! Worse yet, we produce this amount of plastic EVERY year, and studies predict that it takes approximately 450 years for a plastic bottle to decompose in a landfill. That means that the plastic bottle that you throw in the trash will still be there for approximately 18 generations of your descendants after you. If you don't recycle, you are literally trashing our planet for your own offspring! And, Earth is the only planet that we know of that is capable of supporting life. OK, I'll get off my soapbox now.
Aside from trying to be a good citizen of planet Earth, I also recycle because I could always use some extra cash. Whenever I recycle, I can usually pocket somewhere between $20 and $40. It's nice to get a little extra cash, right?
This particular location is a great option for recycling, here at the "A.V. Recycling Center" (Lancaster, California). I've been to this location several times. It's usually a pretty busy place, usually with a few other folks recycling here as well. Even though it can be a little busy, three of the things I like about this location are: (1) they typically do not require you to show your I.D. like they do at some other locations, (2) they are careful to weigh your items and then tare the weight of the bins for an accurate measurement, and (3) the weight and calculation are visible to the customer, to give the customer confidence in the honesty of the men who work here.
As I mentioned earlier, it's a little busy here, but there are a few good reasons to recycle here instead of recycling at another location. I'll definitely return to this location in the future.
If you don't recycle here, please recycle somewhere.