Pay It Forward – This Earth Day, Every Day

In the movie Pay It Forward (2000), a young boy gets caught up in a classroom assignment that asks students to “think of something to change the world and put it into action.” The young boy decides if he can do good deeds for others, and if they can “pay it forward,” positive changes can occur. His efforts to make good on his idea bring a transformation not only to the lives of himself, mother and teacher, but those in an ever-widening circle of people totally unknown to him.

Each and every one of us can do something to change the world and transform others around us with one simple action. What could be so simple and create such a revelation not only in your life, but also in the lives of others? It’s easy: Recycle all that you can.

Here are selected facts to show you how:

• Recycling produces less air pollution and uses considerably less energy and water than creating products from raw materials.
• 7,000 jobs could be created if Georgians diverted just 2.6 million tons of the recyclable materials sent to the landfills.
• There are 5 items that make up the content of over 35 items that can be recycled (think of them as “The Big 5”):
  • Paper
    • $239 million in paper products sent to live in landfills each year.
    • Nine of Georgia’s 16 paper mills operate exclusively on recycled fiber conserving 7,000 gallons of water per ton of new paper made.
  • Plastic
    • Over 90,000 tons of plastic beverage containers with an estimated value of $30 million sent to live in landfills each year.
    • Georgia’s plastic industry is almost 2 percent of the state’s workforce with 75,000 employees.
  • Glass
    • A glass bottle takes approximately a million years to breakdown in a landfill environment. (Landfills are not constructed to biodegrade/compost materials. They are burial grounds for our trash.)
    • Glass can be recycled over and over again. It never wears out.
  • Metal
    • Georgia’s projected per capita municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal rate and reduction goal for metal in 2012 is 13 percent of 0.198 per person.
    • As Americans, we use 100 million tin and steel cans every day, and throw out enough of these materials to supply all of our nation’s automakers on a continuous basis.
  • Aluminum
    • Commonly referred to as a “manufactured natural resource,” it holds the greatest commodity value, both financially and environmentally.
    • Yet, Georgians throw away 48,000 cans with a value of $89 million annually.

Your assignment this Earth Day is to empower yourself and others to believe that one simple action can really make a big difference. There are rewards to be reaped beyond protecting our environment by recycling all that you can this Earth Day and every day.

I guarantee you that once you starting walking this path of action you will be transformed by the positive reaction that occurs.

How do I know this? It happened to me.

If you plant honesty, you will reap trust. If you plant goodness, you will reap friends. If you plant humility, you will reap greatness. If you plant perseverance, you will reap victory. If you plant consideration, you will reap harmony. If you plant hard work, you will reap success. If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation. If you plant faith, you will reap miracles. So be careful what you plant, now; it will determine what you will reap tomorrow. The seeds you now scatter will make life worse or better for you or for the ones who will come after you. Someday you will enjoy the fruits or you will pay for the choices you make.

Two thousand years ago someone else told the same story with fewer words, "What you sow, so shall you reap." If you know who said this, nothing else needs to be said.

--Author Unknown