Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Does recycling work?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, recycling does work and improves the environment
Argument1 of 3›: Recycling cleans up the environment

Recycling helps keep trash off the street, making the world cleaner.

The argument

The whole point of recycling is to clean up waste. With recycling, paper, metal, and other things can be turned into something entirely different. Emma Watson wore a dress made from soda bottles to the Met Gala in 2016 and wasted food can be put in dirt to be used as fertilizer. Recycling avoids wasting expendable resources and diminishes landfills. Clearly, recycling works to benefit the environment.

Premises

[P1]Recycling turns waste like paper, metal, and even soda bottles into entirely new things, as with the dress Emma Watson wore to the 2016 Met Gala. [P2] It avoids wasting expendable resources and diminishes landfills. [C] Therefore, because recycling cleans up the environment, recycling does work and improves the environment.

Counter-arguments

Only certain things can be recycled. Plastic and styrofoam can’t be broken down or sorted by the machines used at recycling plants. In fact, they could break them.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Not every company and society does this. Some materials are not reused and are therefore left in landfills.