Recycling is sort of like exercising; we all know we should do it, but not all of us do it as often as we should--and the FRIGHTENING fact is some of us don't do it al all. If you have not been deligent aout recycling your garage, there are lots of reasons why you should make an effort to recycle and keep landfills from destroying our planet!

1) It cuts back on global warming. Our planet is starting to feel the effects of gloal warming already--and we need to do whatever we can to lessen the impact. Productions of certain materials from scratch can release significant amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

2) It makes us more energy-efficient. It takes a great deal more energy to create something from scratch than to recycle.

3) It improves the quality of our groundwater. The garage in landfills is usually not treated in any way, it's simply thrown into a big hole and uried. Much of this garbage is not environmentallly friendly or readily biodegradable--and eventuallly contaminants get into our water.

4) It reduces air pollution. Plastics are made with oil,when burned that oil is released into the atmosphere--creating serios greenhouse gas emissions.

5) Keeps our landfills from overflowing.We're fast running out of space, especially in the cities. It's difficult to find land in suburan and rural areas whose residents will allow landfills to come into their areas without a fight. The squeeze for landfill land is only going to get worse in the future.

6) Landfills in America receive up to 6,000 tons of material every day. There are over 3,000 active landfills today, and 10,000 old municipal landfills.

7) America's largest landfill lies just an hour north of Las Vegas, Nevada.Storing nearly 50 million tons of rotting trash.

8) Taking in third of Los Angeles County's trash. Puente Hills is a big player when it comes to waste. Talking about trash doesn't have the same effect as seeing it. Culver City-ased think tank sponsored a tour in an effort to raise awareness about waste. Tickets sold out immediately. Puente Hills is the largest recycling location in the United States--taking more than 1,000,000 tons per year of recyclale materials.

9) Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site. Colorado's largest landfill accepts around 12,000 tons of waste per day. However some of that trash is going to good use. In 2008 DADS launched its waste-to-energy system to convert methane into electricity. It generates enough power to fuel about 3,000 homes.

We have a crisis on our hands as we see mountains of old tires, old hazardous dumps with plastic liners which are decomposing due to oils and acids and melting holes in the bottom. This is causing leaching, often into underground aquifers and ground water which maybe picked up in wells for homes and farming.

We have stacked up automobiles and rusty equipment leaching iron oxides, asbestos from brakes and other heavy metals and petroleum distillates into our waterways. All this coming from normal run off from streams, creeks and ditches into rivers, lakes and even the ocean.

Newspapers alone take up aout 14% of landfill space, and paper decomposition is the prime contriutor to the methane gas produced .Instead of filling our landfills, harming our environment, and wasting our resources, we could e recycling a great deal of the material that ends up in landfills.

THE BOTTOM LINE ................................one person at a time and if enough people pitch in, recycling should pay off for everybody. Since none of us live near landfills, its easy to forget! Out of sight, out of mind! We are all so busy with our lives, that most of us don't stop to think about what and how much we're throwing away that is recyable. We all need visuals to remind us to be mindful in our ways.