00:00Environmental experts and advocates agree that humans are generating waste worldwide
00:04at levels that are unsustainable. The concept of recycling has been pushed on people throughout
00:10the world, but Science Alert notes that reducing the waste and preventing the creation of the waste
00:15is more important than recycling. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reportedly
00:20uses a framework called the Waste Management Hierarchy that ranks strategies for most to
00:26least environmentally preferred. The agency urges people to quote, reduce, reuse, recycle in that
00:33order. Science Alert reports that creating items that can be recycled is better from a sustainability
00:38perspective than burning them in an incinerator or burying them in a landfill, but it still consumes
00:44energy and resources. Many studies found that a majority of people think the most effective way
00:49to reduce landfill waste is recycling. Science Alert notes that many people are not placing the right
00:55items in recycling bins. The site explains that this is known as quote, wish cycling,
01:00which simply means placing items that you hope will be recycled in the bin,
01:04but in actuality, this just creates additional costs and problems for recyclers.
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