In 2009, Americans produced enough trash to circle the Earth 24 times. We generate 21.5 million tons of food waste each year. If we composted that food, it would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to listen to a full album on your iPod. Recycling 100 cans could light your bedroom for two whole weeks. These facts are contributed by studies by DoSomething.org.

Every time I’m in a classroom and must throw away a piece of paper into a trash bin, a piece of me dies, right along with the it. Now, I’m pretty chill, but when it comes to unnecessary waste, I get rightfully heated. Only select teachers have a recycling bin, and most students don’t even use it.  Over 75 percent of waste is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30 percent of it. That’s incredibly and utterly horrifying. Do we not think of how our world will be overrun by trash?

I am racking my brain to pose a counter-argument, but there is literally no excuse to not have recycling bins besides pure laziness. It can not be because of money, and you can actually gain money by recycling aluminum cans. When it comes to energy, it takes just as much as normal trash, and even saves energy for our planet.

So, please, for the love of all that is well in the world, place a recycling bin in the classrooms. I tip my hat off to all the educators at Texas High who currently have a recycling bin, and shake my head ever so slightly at all that do not. Please hear my cry.