Contrary to popular belief, recycling practices have been around for centuries. In fact, some of the earliest forms of recycling date back to 1031 in Japan with the reuse of waste paper. It wasn't until the industrial age that people abandoned recycling; the mass production of goods sold at low prices made it easier for people to get rid of old things and buy new ones. Recently, the concept of recycling has resurfaced due to growing concern over the climate crisis. For example, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a floating accumulation of human waste in the Pacific Ocean – is estimated to be twice the size of Texas today. Would all these materials end up in the ocean if we had recycled? Nowadays we have the opportunity to do this thanks to the wide availability of recycling bins for different materials. Personally, I recycle items when I get the chance, but I've never thought about the process behind them. Like most people, I was taught that recycling is an environmentally friendly practice and that by doing so I would be “saving the planet.” By questioning my practices, I chose to delve deeper into this subject, hence the question: could recycling really be a harmful practice in response to the environmental crisis? Although the answer may seem obvious, this topic has sparked debate among different groups of people: from young teenagers to environmental scientists, politicians and big businesses. In fact, attempts have been made to end landfill bans in two states in the United States. However, these attempts failed due to the intervention of recycling organizations. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an original essayThe first article I came across was a New York Times cover story titled “Recycling is Trash” in which John Tierny (1996) states that recycling is “America's most wasteful activity” (Tierny, 1996, p.1). The main reason I chose this piece is the number of different myths about recycling that the author chose to address. He creatively begins his article with an anecdote in which he describes a lesson third graders have about recycling. These children were asked to collect trash around their school and separate recyclables from the rest. As a result, they found that only two items in the pile could be recycled. Tierney (1996) points out that with this act of collecting and sorting, children added more waste by using plastic bags and gloves to gather the materials. He later claims that the journalists are responsible for creating a false alarm that there would be no more room in landfills and thus contributing to the increase in recycling practices. According to the New York Times author, the cheapest and easiest way to dispose of waste is to bury it in environmentally friendly landfills. However, what still caught my attention was that he held the public responsible for the spread of recycling, with the practice seen as a form of “moral redemption” (Tierny, 1996, p. 2). This meant that people felt emotionally better and less guilty, knowing that the excess amount of products they bought would simply be recycled. Additionally, Tierney (1996) controversially claims that plastic packaging actually reduces waste and saves resources. It reveals that foodsPackaged in plastic are less likely to spoil and are therefore less likely to be thrown away than foods purchased in bulk. He also adds that because of their lightweight packaging, little energy goes into their production and transportation. Finally, he states that paper is an agricultural product and that although many trees have been cut down, more trees will likely be planted in their place. After reviewing the author's claims, I noticed that he failed to mention a number of things in his observations. First, it compares the benefits of buying plastic-packaged foods versus buying in bulk, but it doesn't include any remarks about the possibility of using reusable bags, d buy food in reduced quantities or even compost which is a form of food recycling. Additionally, it evaluates the best waste management solution based on cost and simplicity – reliance on landfills – and not based on what is best for the environment. Furthermore, when he talks about paper, he does not support his facts with numerical values. It simply assumes that more trees will be planted, but completely ignores the fact of recycling used paper. However, the reporter's findings about how people feel after recycling lead me to conduct more research on recycling-related behaviors. For this next step in my exploration, I chose to focus on a research report written by Jesse R. Catlin and Yitong. Wang (2012) published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. I chose this particular article because of the simplicity of their experiment and the striking results they found. In “Recycling Gone Wrong: When the Option to Recycle Increases Consumption,” the authors conduct two experiments in which they test whether or not the option to recycle affects people's consumption. To do this, they informed 44 students that they had to test a new brand of scissors by cutting regular shapes out of paper. Students were randomly assigned to one of two rooms. While the first room contained a recycling bin as well as a regular trash can, the second room contained only one trash can and no recycling bins. In addition, no details were given on the number of papers to be used or on the size of the shapes voluntarily used. To my surprise, they found that those who had a recycling bin used more paper than those who were not offered this option. Therefore, this meant that recycling actually led to overconsumption of resources and contributed to people feeling less guilty about consuming more when they could simply recycle whatever they used. To further their understanding, the authors conducted a second, similar experiment in the men's restroom. This time, they collected data on the quantity of paper towels used daily for a fortnight in the absence of a recycling bin, then did the same for another fortnight in the presence of a bin nearby sinks. Again, Catlin and Wang (2012) found similar results to the previous experiment: people used 0.5 more paper towels per person when given the option to recycle. In agreement with Tierny (1996), the authors of this study found that people recycled “as a way to assuage negative emotions such as guilt that may be associated with wasting resources” (Catlin and Wang, 2012, p .7). Catlin and Wang (2012) noted that people were only informed about the benefits of recycling and not its costs in terms of.