Persausive Speech

Persuasive Speech Outline “So Why Should We Recycle?”

Slide 1 INTRODUCTION Slide 2 I. Attention Device: Joke “We need to save the Earth… Mother Earth is billions of years old and getting pretty fragile.” All of this plastic we throw away is just to much for the old lady to digest and we don’t have enough Metamusil to flush her out. So we need to stop making so much garbage and give the old lady a break. Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone has a God given right to generate garbage, it might even be in the Constitution along with life, liberty and all that stuff. I mean, if it wasn’t for garbage, a lot of my relatives would be gainfully unemployed. II. State Qualifications: “Seriously, I am just a critical thinking student like all of you and would like to share a little research I did on recycling with you today. Perhaps we need additional information prior to taking action.” III. Relate Topic to Audience: I believe all of you out there are civic minded and are mindful of conservation. However I don’t think all of you want to be duped by a huge propaganda machine? I know I don’t. IV. State Proposition ( Thesis) & Preview Points: I don’t believe we need to recycle plastic and the arguments for it are bogus. I am going to cover the following three point of my argument. Slide 3 A. The beginnings of recycling and it’s self propagation B. Recycling does not solve environmental problems. C. Recycling Programs are expensive and Landfills are not problematic. 1:30 BODY I. First Main Point: Beginnings of Recycling A. Overview of recycling Slide 4 1. “Waste and Want” by Susan Strasser addresses the topic of Mainstreaming recycling. Like garage sales, the beginnings of recycling lie partly in the counterculture of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In the beginning it was not the province of municipalities and big waste companies but an activity of counterculture environmentalists. Hippie

activists organized voluntary recycling centers to which individuals brought their glass and paper. These centers were not small businesses so much as offshoots of social and cultural movements. About 3,000 voluntary recycling centers were organized during the months before and after Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Slide 5 2. Everyone who recycled was and activist since it involved commitment to sort and haul the materials to recycling centers. By the late 1980’s. municipal solid waste businesses once done by 10 to 12,000 was now dominated by 4 big firms. B. And now recycling’s self propagation 1. The Environmental activists prodded, and in some cases went to work for the sanitary engineers and politicians who oversaw municipal trash collection, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and businesses whose managers were sensitive to environmental issues. In 1970 two cities operated municipal recycling programs, by 1982 more than two hundred were recycling. Slide 6 2. So we know that counterculture environmentalists can take a hot movement of the late 60’s and evolve into mainstream governmental policy over a 12 year period. All they need to do was cut their hair, trade in their VW bugs for minivans and get a corporate job or work for the right lobbyists. (Transition: Now that we know recycling began in the counter-culture of the 60’s and evolved into nice jobs for the environmentalist, where are we today? ) II. Second Main Point: We are out of focus. In an article called “Recycling Does Not Solve Environmental Problems” the authors Robert Lilienfeld and William Rathje claim that … A. It’s a matter of priority. 1. The Authors states: ”A handful of major issues have been singled out by scientists, environmentalists, policy planners, and the general public as the most serious environmental problems we currently face. These are the problems that seem most likely to lead to a significant degradation, or even collapse, of our late twentieth- century lifestyles of comfort and convenience, thanks to

unwelcome and possibly unforeseen changes in global ecosystems. They are as Follows: Slide 7 Overpopulation Global warming Ozone depletion Habitat destruction Loss of biodiversity Depletion of nonrenewable natural resources Increased pollution and waste generation 2. These are huge problems compared to those faced in past societies. What’s more, these problems are global, rather than regional or local. “ Further on they write, “Ironically, there is little or no debate over the solution to environmental woes. Virtually everyone’s first action of choice is ---- recycling. Is the recycling response aimed at the target’s bull’s-eye? Unfortunately, the answer is no.” B. Does recycling impact these issues? Slide 8 1. Overpopulation – NO. Unless you possibly want to count recycling latex gloves into condoms. Global Warming –NO Ozone Depletion – NO. Slide 9 Habitat destruction, Loss of biodiversity and Depletion of nonrenewable natural resources – Recycling only delays the impact of consumption it does not decrease it. And eventually all that is recycled is degraded or carelessly thrown away. 2. The real problem is consumption. We need to consume less and be logical about our consumption decisions. Don’t drive 5 miles in your SUV that eats $1.85 gas to the recycling center to turn in a few cents of newspapers. Buy in bulk and fill reusable storage containers, save money and reduce packaging wastes. Get your favorite college to print on both sides of class handouts instead of one, 50% paper savings. Get the idea, conserving is a bigger payback than recycling.

(Transition: So what is the cost of recycling? ) III. Third Main Point: Recycling Programs are expensive and wastes resources. A. Recycling costs more, a little for some a lot for others, but always more. Slide 10 1. In Clark Wiseman’s article “Current Recycling Programs Are Too Expensive” He talks about how the State of Washington did a study and found that the per-ton recycling costs were less than disposal costs for four major cities. The author then states “Even if one accepts the study’s cost figures at face value, the study made a fundamental and common mistake. It assumed that recycling does not avoid disposal collection costs. It adds to them. Trucks must still make the same number of stops and cover the same routes but this time it is additional trucks. 2. In a notorious, (with pro-recyclers) article in the New York Times Magazine article called “Recycling is Garbage”, John Tierney he gives an example of how New York City’s mandatory program spends $200 more per ton to collect recyclables than it would caost to bury them, and another $40 per ton to pay a company to process them. Tierney figures the value of the private labor wasted complying with the rules ( Rising, taking of labels, sorting) to be literally hundreds of dollars more per ton. B. Landfills are not problematic. Slide 11 1. Wiseman states that a great majority of landfills are small and designed for only abut ten years of operation, so that about half of them close in every 5 year period. Most new landfill are now large to reduce the number of landfill required. 2. Doug Bandow in his article “Mandatory Recycling Wastes Resources” wrote about Clark Wiseman of Spokane’s Gonzaga University study that states “ at the current rate, Americans could put all of the trash generated over the next 1,000 years into a landfill 100 yards high and 35 miles square. Or dig a similar-size hole and plant grass on top after it was filled.”

CONCLUSION I. Review of Main Points: I hope that the next time someone starts rambling on with the typical, “we must recycle to save the earth” you will be able to lead into the argument with some ammunition from the side of reality. Today I have discussed: A. The beginnings of recycling and it’s self propagation B. Recycling does not solve environmental problems. C. Recycling Programs are expensive and Landfills are not problematic. II. Call To Action:

A. As a taxpayer I plan on visiting City Hall to find out what my City is wasting on recycling, I encourage you to do the same.

B. Read the article, in the New York Times Magazine article called “Recycling is Garbage”, by John Tierney.

C. Reduce your consumption of goods, it will help reduce waste. D. Contact your City representatives, and work to educate others.

Slide 12 III. Closing Thought: And don’t worry, we don’t need to save the Earth. We only need to save ourselves, Mother Earth has been here for millenniums, will be here for millenniums more, and we are just a little biological parasite that she can wash away with some major earthquakes and some volcano. Hey; It worked for those pesky dinosaurs.