Hardly a week goes by without another report of some new recycling technology appearing in the media.   Although most people would generally agree that recycling is essential to the survival of humanity, few would deny that, and claim that it's just squandering of taxpayers' money. This raises the issue of whether or not we should recycle our products in order to save the planet from becoming an  uninhabitable  dumpsite. How has the public’s opinion on this issue shifted over the last few years? The trend nowadays is towards increasing recycling rates. Both  extracts  discuss the nature of these notions, but from different  viewpoints.

The first text argues that while people produce copious amount of garbage some of it could be recycled. However  not all the rubbish is recycled as some people might not be aware of the ecological consequences of polluting our habitat by the products which are resistant to the forces of nature and can stay intact for centuries before they start to degrade.  Not only do some people choose not to recycle, but they also make  a huge impact   on the environment by leaving their rubbish wherever they want.  It's worth noting that whether we recycle enough is a highly contentious topic and it tends to stir up a debate.  Arguably we don't recycle sufficiently since we all can behold those enormous floating islands of garbage  in the ocean. Moreover, the amount of garbage keeps increasing taking up precious space which we could make a good use of to grow crops in order to sustain the burgeoning population on our planet. I'm inclined to believe that the only way to combat pollution is to raise awareness of the problem and encourage people to recycle as much as possible.   

The second extract puts forward the idea that consumerism makes us buy new electronic gadgets as soon as they get released and abandon our old ones which work perfectly fine.  Highly persuasive advertising campaigns cause this shopping frenzy by persuading us that we really need this new phone  when in fact you would've been every bit as content as you're now  if you hadn't bought the product. Furthermore, you're made to believe that without a new phone you won't be able to keep up with the progress and just lag behind. The situation has been exacerbated by peer pressure if everybody around you has a new phone and you don't that might prompt you to follow  their example and upgrade your gadget.
Even though It's hard to tell where our readiness to embrace new electronic devices stems from  , it's undeniable that the majority of people fall victims to this trend. 

The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the world would surely be a better place to live in if everybody cherished the Earth by being conscious of recycling and doing it more , the oceans would be cleaner, people wouldn't suffocate under the weight of all the garbage they produce.  The prospects for the future will be bleak unless we change our ways and  come up with solutions to this issue. While constant pursuit of new gadgets might not seem like a significant matter, it also contributes to polluting our planet as manufacturing a new phone both requires a great deal of effort and creates pollution. On top of that it's virtually impossible to recycle electronic devices because of their complexity and more often than not small size. I believe it's a wise idea to resist the temptation to buy a new phone. I reckon we need to revolutionize the industry to make it more eco-friendly.