ENVIRO DEBATE TOURNEY: Recycling helps the enviroment!

Con offered us an argument about recycling being just a manufacturing process and its benefits are based on myths. I have shown in my opening argument the many benefits of recycling and I will add a few more in this round but I will mainly focus on my opponents argument. CONS SOURCES We should start with my opponents sources. He sourced two articles, one from the Nytimes. com and the other from Heartland Institute. In the first source, Heartland, we find they have lost major support from all over the world because of leaked documents. The documents that were leaked from Heartland give money flows, showing exact amounts being paid to Heartland employees, and more importantly, the scientists involved. [1] The scientist linked in these documents have been labeled as conspiracy theorists. [2] Heartland has been linked in plans to dupe children and ruin their future by campaigning to discredit mainstream climate science in the classroom. [3] As we can see, my opponents first source is not creditable. Let's move on to his second source, the Nytimes article. Now, the Nytimes is a media outlet and post many articles it could or could not agree with. So, I will show a article from the same site that says recycling helps. [4] In the article called, "Recycling Helps, but It is Not All You Can Do for the Environment", Samantha MacBride said, "Recycling is good civic behavior. " The article my opponent used only discusses our society not being prepared for recycling. Con then post two Youtube videos that I will address. In the first video right off the bat the speaker says that, "not all recycling is good. " This comment shows that there is good recycling. The video goes on about telling us misconceptions in recycling but did not offer us the idea that recycling itself is does not help the environment. On the contrary it gives us a hint that recycling does offer help but we are not using it properly. The second video offers us from the jump, if someone recycles it is beneficial to the person and the public. That if recycling makes someone feel good then that is helpful. This whole video like the first one deals with lies about recycling. I admit that there is fiction about recycling but that does not change that it is helpful, it just means it does not do everything it claims to do. All of Cons sources fail to show that recycling is not helpful to the environment. CONS ARGUMENT Landfill Space In this argument my opponent simply shows us misconceptions of recycling but this does not show us that recycling does not help the environment. He then tells us that landfills can be a continued solution but that is incorrect. In the country of Wales there is no more room for landfills, it simply is not a option. [5] They must recycle and that leaves us to look for more improvement then just landfills. In fact the entire world will soon have to resort to some kind of recycling. There are many dangers of landfills such as: Rotting food in the landfill releases methane, a green house gas which contributes to global warming. "Methane traps 23 times as much heat in the atmosphere as the same amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and the release of methane from landfills accounts for 34 percent of all methane emissions in the U. S. , according to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. According to the U. S. Department of Agriculture, just over a quarter of the food in the U. S. —about 25.9 million tons—gets thrown away and taken to the landfill every year and the U. S. spends more than $1 billion every year just to dispose of all its food waste. "[6] Raw Materials My opponent offers us here the same argument from the videos which is simply misconceptions and not focusing on, if recycling helps the environment. Lying is not helpful in most circumstances and is not good for recycling advocates to do for recycling. But, this does not change the evidence that recycling does offer helpful measures for our environment. So, naturally if we reuse materials, we can save raw materials. The Recycling Process This argument may be true in some circumstances but not in all. By this argument though we may need to close down every industry that could cause harm in the production process. Most recycling manufactures use machinery and containment in the process which creates more safety for the employees and communities. [7] CONCLUSION My opponent has not shown that recycling causes more harm than it helps in our environment. My opponent shows us that there are risks in recycling and there are misconceptions but this ignores the help that recycling gives even if small. My opponent has not shown why saving natural resources for the future is a bad thing. Cons landfill contention fails because anyone can see how making less trash in the earth is always beneficial. SOURCES [1] . http://deepclimate.org... [2] . http://thinkprogress.org... [3] . http://thinkprogress.org... [4] . http://www.nytimes.com... [5] . http://www.wasteawarenesswales.org.uk... [6] . http://ecowatch.com... [7] . http://www.toxco.com...