Cool Things Your Kids Do!

[Aliantha]

Who is Oliver Wood?

[Griff]

Harry Potter's team captain.

[monster]

Our 10yo 5th grader wrote this for an essay competition: How Can Recycling Help Stop Global Warming? (500-750 words)

I thought it was pretty cool, even when I read it as if it was written by someone else's offspring So I thought I'd share (Author asked for anonymity due to shyness, so no author name).

Essays become the property of Recycle Ann Arbor when submitted, but it hasn't been submitted yet, so I don't believe my posting it here breaks any rules or laws. Of course, I will ask for it to be removed if they object once it's theirs...

How Can Recycling Help Stop Global Warming?

Global warming is caused by excess heat getting trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. Usually, most of the sun’s rays are reflected off the Earth and back into space. However, in the past few decades, harmful gases have been building up in the atmosphere. These gases act as a shield, preventing the rays from leaving the atmosphere. The heat is bounced back to the surface of the Earth, and as more heat gets trapped, the Earth grows warmer. This is called the Greenhouse Effect, because the gases work like the glass roof in a greenhouse.

The gas that causes the most trouble in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. One of the main causes of the extra carbon dioxide is the emissions from vehicles. Also high on the list are factories, which produce a lot of carbon dioxide.

Another reason that we have extra carbon dioxide is that many trees are being cut down. Unlike humans, trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. (Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.) With less trees around to absorb it, there is more carbon dioxide than ever.

It’s obvious that if we don’t do something, global warming will get out of hand. It’s also apparent that we can’t stop cutting down trees altogether, because we need paper. We also can’t shut down factories, because we need food and clothes and everything else that factories make. So what do we do? The answer is simple: recycle. By recycling, we can reuse the same raw materials over and over again. Factories will not have to produce so many products, and fewer trees will have to be chopped down.

There are two main ways to recycle. You can reuse an item again for the same purpose, or you can break it up and use the material to make something else. For example, if you have a used piece of paper, you could do two things; you could turn it over and use the other side for something else, or you could put it in the paper-recycling tote to be made into a new piece of paper. By doing either of these options, the piece of paper is recycled, saving trees.

Reusing is better than remanufacturing because it doesn’t use any energy at all, but things aren’t always reusable. The best option of all is to reuse an item until it can’t be reused anymore, and then send it to be remanufactured. Remanufacturing does not contribute nearly as much to global warming as regular manufacturing does. For example, if you recycle aluminum, it will take energy to melt it into a different shape. However, to make something from scratch, the aluminum has to be mined (using energy), transported by trucks to the factory (producing emissions), and then melted down and turned into something new.

To conclude, recycling -reusing and remanufacturing- can help stop global warming by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases that we emit into the atmosphere. However, recycling only has a chance of working to stop global warming if more people do it.