I began working at TSS Accounting in the beginning of May 2020. As I was working, I began to realize that every day we threw out several sheets of paper as a whole and as shredded paper. Working at an accounting firm company has shown me how much paper we print per day as well as how much paper goes into the trash that ends up directly filling up our landfills. In a typical day we print up around 50 pages of paper. In the long run this equals out to 250 pages per week or 13,000 pages per year that go directly into the trash. Looking at these numbers we can see that there is something that needs to be changed. As a millennial, it is incredibly important to bring about a more sustainable world especially because that is the direction that everyone is heading to. Of course, this is just taking into consideration the paper that we consume in the office and does not take into consideration the plastic or cardboard or anything else.

In my research, the main question I would like to answer is how can we implement a recycling system successfully within our accounting firm, TSS Accounting, right now?  More Americans are expecting to use environmentally friendly companies in all aspects of their lives. Therefore, most people have transitions to electronic ways such as email or virtual statements on their bank accounts or other transaction accounts versus a regular paper statement in the mail.  I want TSS Accounting to stop filling our landfills and to reuse all the paper that they are filling up the landfill with. There are many great ways we can reuse paper such as pet cage liners, doodle pad, papier-mache, origami, or even lighting a fire with (Cheung).  Paper and paper board products make up the largest percentage of all materials and trash landfill which equals to about 25% with plastic following at 13.2% (EPA). This is a huge number and much too large that we could easily minimize with a little work.  I would like TSS Accounting to get on board on the recycling train to save our planet and minimize our landfills. So, I repeat, going back to the question of how can we implement a great recycling system within TSS Accounting?

Without a great recycling system in place it could be a danger to society.  “Exposure to H2S, a tracer of airborne contamination from landfills, was associated with lung cancer mortality as well as with mortality and morbidity for respiratory diseases” (Mataloni).  By continuing to fill our landfills we are not only harming the environment but also harming the other humans that live within a few miles’ radius of the landfills. Living around landfills is extremely dangerous because as we read in our statistics, it can cause lung cancer and other respiratory diseases. Living around landfills is extremely dangerous because as we read in our statistics it can cause lung cancer and other respiratory disease.  Without recycling garbage piles up, landfills increase, fossil fuels disappear sooner, and natural resources die out. Without recycling and combustion about 258,000,000 tons of garbage and recyclables would have filled landfills and begun to pile up even higher according to statistics in 2014 (Brenner).  If we do not recycle, then our resources will run out.  We are starting now to realize that the human population is increasing immensely and therefore it is very likely we will run out of resources sooner than we think.   About 50 years ago, the world population was almost four billion and now it is up past seven billion people.  The population has doubled in the past 50 years.  We need to start worrying about the resources we have and start taking steps to preserve them to be able to make new resources.