There is an ongoing debate about whether the law should impose recycling on people or not, letting them free to choose. Both sides have their arguments to support: the former say that waste has become an environmental problem and recycling may help cope with it, whereas the latter’s main concern is about the time and the space this practice requires.
Managing several types of garbage requires a considerable amount of effort from people. Recycling means deciding in which category each piece of waste falls, and sometimes you have to separate objects made of mixed materials. All this process takes time: for instance, at home we have reserved a time slot in the day in order to recycle properly the garbage we have produced. Moreover, you need to buy more than one trash bin and thus you have to make room to store them properly. Although this pipeline may bother someone, it is a matter of getting used to it, and after some time it becomes effortless.
On the other hand, benefits for the planet are evident. Over the years, we have produced a huge amount of plastic, which is now very difficult to handle, and the trees we have used to produce paper affected the quantity of oxygen in the atmosphere. From this point, it seems obvious that we need a line to stop uncontrolled waste, and recycling has revealed to be a way to handle it. Unfortunately, not all people are aware of this fact, while others don’t care about it whatsoever. This is true especially for elders, who used to waste carelessly during the economic boom and now they don’t want to change their habits. Consequently, making everyone recycle would help fight uncontrolled waste and may help recover the planet from the damages it has undergone.
In conclusion, although recycling requires some effort, it must be made mandatory by law, since it is the only way to stop the uncontrolled waste that is now going on.