Recycling is an essential part of keeping our environment clean and healthy, and it's also an important part of Keep Manatee Beautiful's mission. With the help of local citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders, Keep Manatee Beautiful works to educate people about the importance of recycling, and why it matters for the health of our community. In this blog post, we'll explore why recycling is so important for Manatee County, and how everyone can do their part to help Keep Manatee Beautiful.
What is Recycling?
Recycling is the process of taking used materials and products and turning them into new items. Keep Manatee Beautiful (KMB) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting community awareness and involvement in litter prevention, recycling, and beautification efforts in Manatee County, Florida. KMB works to preserve and protect Manatee’s beautiful beaches, parks, lakes, rivers, and waterways. More than 10,000 volunteers have helped KMB accomplish their mission, contributing over 33,000 hours of their time.
Volunteers play a key role in helping KMB achieve their mission. Volunteers are encouraged to get involved in programs such as Adopt-A-Shoreline, Operation Clean Sweep, Recycle Rally, and others. Through these programs, volunteers help keep Manatee beautiful by helping to reduce litter, encourage recycling and educate the public about the benefits of a clean and healthy environment.
What Can Be recycled?
Recycling helps keep our environment clean, and can even have a positive impact on our local economy. Keep Manatee Beautiful is the local affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, and they are dedicated to promoting community awareness and involvement in litter prevention, recycling, and beautification.
There are many things that can be recycled and reused. Examples include: paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, aluminum cans, steel cans, and food and beverage containers. Some of these items can even be reused in other ways, such as repurposing plastic bottles into planters or turning old newspapers into crafts.
Keep Manatee Beautiful has many programs and events designed to help increase recycling and reduce waste. Volunteering with the organization is a great way to make a positive impact on the environment and your community.
Where Does It Go?
With over seven billion people living on Earth, scientific advances have been made to modernize agriculture to feed the population. But what about all the plastic, paper, and metal that is collected for recycling? Where does it go?
Recycling centers sort through recyclables to determine what can be repurposed and what must be discarded. This helps reduce landfill waste and conserve resources. Items like plastic and glass can be melted down and molded into new products, while metals can be reused in cars and appliances.
Recycled materials are also used in construction projects. For example, many businesses are using recycled rubber in their flooring or recycled wood in their structures. In addition, recycled items can be used as energy sources. Scrap paper, cardboard, and certain plastics can be burned as fuel to generate electricity.
The benefits of recycling are vast and reach far beyond our local community. Repurposing materials helps conserve resources, create jobs, reduce pollution, and protect our environment. By making the effort to recycle more, we can make a positive difference in the world around us.
The Benefits of Recycling
Recycling is an important part of keeping Manatee County beautiful and healthy. Not only does it help reduce the amount of waste sent to landfills and the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, but it also provides a host of other benefits.
By recycling, we are able to conserve our natural resources, such as water, energy, and raw materials. This is especially important for preserving the environment for future generations. Recycling also helps create jobs and stimulates the economy. By increasing the demand for recycled materials, recycling creates new job opportunities in the processing and manufacturing industries.
Finally, recycling helps keep our streets, neighborhoods, and parks clean by reducing litter. Additionally, it reduces the need for costly waste disposal systems, allowing more money to be allocated towards other services.
Ultimately, recycling has a positive impact on our community and environment. By doing our part and responsibly recycling, we can help ensure that Manatee County stays beautiful and vibrant for years to come.
What Happens When We Don't Recycle?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 258 million short tons of municipal solid waste were reported in 2014. Without recycling and combustion with energy recovery, all 258 million tons would have filled landfills. Humans are the main contributors to the planet's warming, mostly because of the greenhouse gases released from industries, electricity consumption, and exhaust from cars. But, recycling and composting have reduced how much greenhouse gas was released.
Recycling helps preserve Earth's natural resources as it takes less energy to make products from recycled materials rather than from raw materials. Fossil fuels are used to make nylon and plastics, and if humans don't continue to recycle, this energy source may disappear. It is essential to recycle paper, metals and electronics as they take up a lot of space in landfills and contribute to global warming.
Recycling efforts prevented 87.2 million tons of waste from going into landfills and 186 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from polluting the atmosphere in 2014 alone. If we want to keep Manatee beautiful, we must all work together to reduce our carbon footprint and conserve natural resources. Composting food and yard waste, recycling paper, metals and electronics can help us preserve the environment and slow climate warming. We all need to do our part and contribute to the planet’s sustainability.
How You Can Help
Keep Manatee Beautiful has over 10,000 volunteers and they are always looking for more help. They offer a variety of volunteer programs and events. You can help clean up neighborhoods and parks, participate in coastal cleanups, and remove invasive plants and animals. Additionally, Keep Manatee Beautiful offers educational opportunities such as workshops, lectures, and webinars on recycling and other topics.
To stay informed about volunteer opportunities and events, sign up for their newsletter. The newsletter will keep you informed about upcoming programs, initiatives, and ways to get involved. With the help of volunteers like you, Keep Manatee Beautiful can continue its mission to make the community beautiful and sustainable.
