RECYCLING

1. RECYCLING WE SHOULD ALL MAKE AN EFFORT FOR THE PLANET! AlessandraCinotti

2. What isrecycling? Recycling is an important process for the environment and even for us. According to the research now days at least 70% of everything we buy is packaged in plastic or paper and a massive 60% of that waste goes back into landfill and it takes 200 years for a bottle to disintegrate. The EU gave some directives to all the citizens to sensitize everyone to join into this fundamental activity and also promoted the PPP (polluter pays principle) to try to involve more people. Here we have got some answer given by different students about recycling and in particularly focusing on the following products: • Packaging • Vehicles • Electrical products • Batteries We should all understand the importance of recycling to save our planet from the rubbish.

3. Makea list of what you recycle on your household. In our home my family and I don’t recycle very much, but the things that we always recycle for the benefits of the environment are for example the magazines and plastic glasses or dishes. Instead in our seaside house we do lots of recycling; we’ve got three bins: one for the plastic, one for the glass and the third one for the paper, and we put all the other products in another different bin. So in my family we use to recycle more in our holiday house and not that much in Rome. Alice De Petris

4. What can the recycled products be used for and what positive impacts could they have on the environment? Many products that we use every day can be recycled with positive impact on the pollution. Between all the wasted items many can be recycled. For example from the newspapers, the books and the magazines can be obtained other paper, in this way many trees would be saved; the same process can be done with glass, plastic, woods, organic waste and aluminium cans. If more people and more cities followed a right approach with the handling of the waste we would live in a much better and cleaner world. Doriano Di Giacomo

5. Are there other products that you throw away at home that could be reused and recycled? Give examples. I think that there is a huge amount of things that we throw away but that could be recycled. For example batteries, expired drugs or electronic things broken like a mobile phone or a television. There are also some organic waste that could be reused as fertilizer after the process of recycling. Giulia Casale

6. To what extend does your household and your region follow the directives of the EU? In my own household we try to recycle as much as we can. We recycle glass, paper, plastic and wasted batteries. Although in my region we are not following the European directives at all; there are actually bins proper for recycling in all the cities but not all the people are sufficiently educated to use them and as there aren’t any fines for the ones who don’t respect the recycling rules nothing probably is going to change. Francesco Varaldo

7. Do you recycle/reuse more products that are required in the EU? I think that there shouldn’t be any limits about recycling and reusing products, because everything that you recycle is very important for the global community, because you are not polluting the earth and you are saving money, that’s an important thing to do right now. Anyway today a lot of things can be recycled, and we all should recycle as much as we can. Brando Lombardi

8. What responsibilities does the producer and the consumer have as far as recycling is concerned? Waste management is a great problem all over the world: both the producer and the consumer have a lot of responsibilities to reduce the effect of solid wastes produced by human activity on health and environment. Producer should encourage the use of bio-materials for the packaging or the reuse of old packaging. Producers should also sensitize the consumers about recycling. Consumers should be educated about recycle by schools and government (especially the children) and they should learn that recycling leads to economic and environmental benefits. So consumers should seriously improve themselves in waste management as much as the producers. Giovanni Paterni

9. Suggest what can be done to increase recycling. How can we make people want to recycle? It’s a very good question that needs to touch everybody because it’s absolutely fundamental that we start to recycle now. Most people don’t recycle because they don’t care, so I think that some incentive could help to turn the situation around. • To the children should be told the importance of recycling because everything we throw away today we will find it in the future 20 times worst. • We should have mini recycling areas in every building. • The buildings which recycle everything should get a big reduction, this makes less work for rubbish collectors. • Find out who isn’t recycling and make them pay more tax. • Make people want to recycle by paying them a small amount for each kilogram they recycle, for example in America people who need money go through the bins to find soft drink trips made of aluminium which they sell to get money. So I think that recycling is really important and everybody must make an effort. MargheritaGori Mori