• Question: why do people say 'recycle to save the world' when it's really 'recycle to save human life on earth'?

    Asked by alpacasmurf to Alan, Deepak, Francesca, Lilly, Nick on 12 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Francesca Day

      Francesca Day answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      That’s a good point! You are right that the Earth itself (i.e. the lump of rock) is not really in danger from human activities at the moment. But it’s not just human life that our environmental damage is putting in danger, it’s animals and plants too! I think when people say “the world” here they might mean all the humans, animals and plants living on Earth.

      Also, just recycling isn’t enough to stop environmental damage! We really need to find a new source of energy that doesn’t damage the environment by releasing green house gases. This is a very hard problem, and scientists are working on it right now.

    • Photo: Deepak Kar

      Deepak Kar answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Recycling is just not saving the humans, but the whole ecosystem, which consists of the plants and animals too. And it is in fact very unselfish, as we are really trying to do it for future generations, we would probably be fine in any case 🙂

    • Photo: Alan Fitzsimmons

      Alan Fitzsimmons answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      That’s right. But its not just human life. For example, all the plastic that gets thrown into the sea can cause problems or even kill marine creatures. So it’s not just people we’re helping by recycling, its the entire system of life on Earth.

    • Photo: Lilian Hunt

      Lilian Hunt answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      I agree with everyone here, when people say ‘save the world’ they really mean ‘save everything living on the earth including humans, plants and animals’. Obviously keeping the Earth so that humans can live on it is good for all of us but we also need to take responsibility for looking after all life on Earth as a lot of the damage to it is caused by humans in the first place.

    • Photo: Nick Wright

      Nick Wright answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Its not just human life that recycling can save, but the lives of all the animal and plant species across the planet, both now and in the future. Throwing things away can have a lot of bad effects, from injuring animals to polluting the soil that animals use for food and water. Recycling is probably the most important thing that an individual can do to protect the world for the future.

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