Recycling Can Save the World
Attempting to save the environment plays a vital role in my life. Tasks from recycling to turning off lights make simple differences in my ultimate goal: making our planet a healthier place. These efforts not only save money, but make my household an environmentally efficient place. In the effort taken to litter, the same effort can go towards recycling instead. As I attempted to make my difference, I found myself sitting amongst bags with ants spewing out, and horrendous stench filling the air.
People take what they have for granted each day, especially in Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States. My neighborhoods, Jersey Village, teamed up with a manufacturing company that makes hydro mulch mats out of paper. Instead of purchasing paper as a raw material, they gather the paper they acquire, from the neighborhood, for free. Both the citizens and company benefit from the free collection and reuse of the paper. Although the program initially required fifty percent participation, the neighborhood fell far short of this goal. I found this discovery that a person could not simply place a can in a trash bag, and carry it to the street for recycling pick up astounding.
Determined to keep the program going, I desired to first begin spreading the word about recycling. In order to do this, I talked to my neighborhood swim team that I swam for, and I inquired about starting a recycling program for plastics and metals discarded during swim meets. With approval, I then contacted Waste Management Company. They offered six, free containers to collect recycling. My next task involved informing people about recycling in their homes as well. To catch people's attention when striding past bins, I created bright posters with recycling details pertaining to acceptable recycling products.
In the beginning, I set up bins, and hoped for the best result possible, huge mounds of recycling. At the end of the meet, I collected the bins, and pure shock overwhelmed me. The bins overflowed with bottles, aluminum cans, and gross trash. I never expected such an outcome to occur. After the shock wore off, I faced sorting through mounds of not only recycling, but ants, bugs, filthy trash, and a horrendous stench. Sorting the collection I obtained could have been less messy, but the process proved worth it. The amount of recycling collected, originally destined for the land fill, equaled six trash bags worth. This result amounted to approximately 156 gallons worth of aluminum cans and plastics.
Whether or not my recycling effort helped, the neighborhood announced that they received enough participation to continue the program. Even though I succeeded in my goal, I still felt as if I could do more to help. Little efforts by each person add up to make a big difference, and my next task involved helping others to recycle without requiring a lot of work. My project involves getting other neighborhoods into recycling. A near by neighborhood, Winchester Country, lacks a recycling program and I wanted to help. The first step involved making flyers to pass out, and see if the people would place out recycling for me to collect. My plan involves setting a specific time period in which I would pick up the aluminum cans each Saturday from areas of the neighborhood. The only work the people would do pertains to placing cans in regular trash bags, and setting them out for pick up. If this plan succeeds, I will then contact the recycling program that goes through my neighborhood, and see if they would like to tackle one more neighborhood.
In the global scheme of things, recycling may not seem like a significant issue. However, in the United States, seventy-five percent of recyclables go into land fills, and sit there like the rest of dirty trash collected. If every family household recycled everyday items such as: shampoo and conditioner bottles, water bottles, soda cans, and microwaveable dinner trays, that effort would make a difference by cutting down on plastic made to make these containers. My ultimate goal contains influencing others to do their little part to make the earth a healthier place. A simple feat such as; turning off lights when not in the room will save energy, and cut down on electricity costs. I aspire to pursue a life style where I constantly help the environment whether it involves accumulating recycling, or planning to start more programs in the future wherever I may settle. These efforts will not only make our immediate community a better place to live, but our world as well. Also, inspiring younger generations to make a difference in our new green society would achieve great pride within me. Eventually, we can only hold ourselves accountable for our actions, by solving our environmental issue of recycling; it becomes one less issue to deal with in the world.
your intro is not supposed to be a story, it is supposed to be a preview not your actual story.
You're the expert. Oh, no, wait -- that's me.
Take my advice or not. Your essay as it stands is passable. As somebody who whole-heartedly shares your environmental commitments, I'd like to see it be the strong essay it could be. Starting with tepid statements about "attempting to save the environment" by turning off lights is (a) dull, and (b) does
not in fact adequately introduce what's to come. You've done something exciting and worthwhile but you introduce yourself dully as someone who's satisfied with turning off the lights.
The last sentence in your new introduction is promising. Start there, that's my advice. Take it or leave it.
I think what Simone's trying to say is that this isn't your ordinary, structured essay where your teacher makes you write a broad, "preview" of an introduction.
The difference here is that you're sending this off to someone who has to read a crapton of these things. If you've ever tried reading just several of these in one sitting, you'll know how tedious it is. A staunch, boring introduction harms not only the introduction itself, but the chance that the admissions reader won't just glaze through the rest of the essay because the intro was so disengaging. You gotta start out with a bang!
