“Affirmative speaker - 3 minutes

Have you ever seen the movie Wall-e? It’s about a robot in the future that was created to ‘clean

up the earth’ while humans lived in outer space. This was because humans trashed the earth and

because they didn’t recycle, the earth was literally packed with trash. Watching the movie felt

like it was a warning to me that that might happen if people never recycled. It made me think

about recycling for days, and thought about it for whenever someone took out the trash and when

someone threw something away. After watching the 10th person not recycle, I thought “Why

don’t people recycle?” I learned that their reasons are that it is time-costly, inconvenient and it’s

confusing. Then I learned the quote “If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished,

refinished, resold, recycled, or composted, then it should be restricted, designed or removed from

production.” by Pete Seeger, a popular American singer that sang from the 40s to early 50s. He

made a lot of motivational quotes, and this quote promotes recycling. Recycling is great for our

planet. Recycling can save a lot of energy, it takes less energy to reuse something than to make

something. Reusing steel and tin cans can save up to 74 percent of the energy used to make new

steel and tin cans, recycling paper saves about 60 percent, and recycling plastic and glass uses

about one-third of the energy that is used to make them first.

But the country that recycles the most recycles only 56%. That means that the best country that

recycles 56 out of a 100 of its waste. A lot of countries recycle about 40 or 30%.

Fortunately, the E.U. has set a goal for Europe to recycle at least 50% of their waste by 2020

while Canada has just recently decided to reduce their waste and recycle 50% by 2040. Recently

the E.U. did some math and realized that about half of the E.U.’s countries probably won’t reach
50% by the deadline. I think that if the E.U. starts fines on some countries then the countries

would probably start paying more attention to recycling. If many countries set a fine for not

recycling, then many people would probably start to recycle. So would you rather set fines for

recycling or destroy earth with garbage and leave it to robots for 700 years?

Affirmative Last Statement 1 min

Recycling is a thing that many people argue for, whether it is good or bad. But what I want is

that it is enforced, so many people will do it. Even though there are many different ways to

enforce it, fines are the best way. It will teach a lesson quick, and it can also support the city at

the same time. Although some of you may want no fines for not recycling, I suggest that you

change your mind. Recycling is good for our planet, and enforcing something good will result in

something better.

Rebuttal for affirmative speaker - 2 minutes

The city can monitor what you recycle without rooting through your trash bins, the garbage

collectors can see how much recyclables are in garbage bins while they bring it to the truck. A

city that started to fine people fined people that had 10% or more recyclables in their garbage

bins. This method is effective and doesn’t require extra city workers. Although there are other

ways to get people to recycle, fines are one the best options because even though school projects

can help kids learn, they might not be enough to convince parents. Fines affect parents, and they
can teach their kids to recycle, instead of the educated kids teaching the parents. Recycling isn’t

mandatory in most cities, but those cities that don’t enforce recycling rely on volunteers to

recycle. Recycling may one day be mandatory, and if it does, then what will happen to the people

that don’t recycle? They will need to learn quickly, and fines now could help them learn in

advance. People should learn to recycle in case they will be forced to one day.

Fines aren’t a last resort, the sooner the better, because the sooner people start to recycle the less

us humans need to worry about not recycling enough. We need to fine these people that refuse to

recycle, if we don’t then they might make other people stop recycling. Their reasons aren’t good

enough, if it’s time-costly, then find a time to sort your trash. If is is confusing, then go to

epa.gov and learn more about recycling. Then it will become a habit and you won’t have to

worry about saving yourself from fines and you can help others that are struggling to recycle.

Negative speaker - 3 minutes

Although recycling is good and all; it is impractical to fine people for not recycling. How would

the government be able to determine if you recycle or not, will they send people to root through

your trash and see if you recycle? How will they be able to monitor your actions, will they send

drone’s out when you take out your trash and record your actions? It is just not logical to fine

people for that. Recycling is voluntary, you shouldn’t have to do it. Many countries have laws

that declare freedom, and fines for not recycling is really going against freedom. Some countries

also already have taxes, and fines for not doing something that’s supposed to be that voluntary

doesn’t seem fair. Some people are just confused, they don’t know what goes where and they
shouldn’t be fined for it. People that are just in a hurry sometimes can’t stop and ponder where

that one questionable item goes, and they shouldn’t be punished for that. I know many people

that tell rumors and spread the word that recycling is not worth it. I myself know that most of the

rumors are not true, but the people that believe these rumors shouldn’t be punished because other

people started rumors. I mean, imagine believing something false and then getting fined for it.

How would you feel? What about if the homeless were fined? They would have to be in debt and

that obviously isn’t good for them. Sad as it is, some of them rely on the food in garbage bins

that haven’t been recycled. Imagine being cold and hungry, and all your food comes the trash bin

of a big family that doesn’t recycle. Then one cold, rainy day, you are going to get your dinner

when suddenly nothing’s there, because the family was forced to recycle and couldn’t put food in

the garbage any more. Fines also seem like a last resort, and I don’t think that we will need to

fine people for at least another couple more decades. One of the reasons that I think fines will not

work is that people won’t learn. Some people might, but most will never learn to recycle

voluntarily. People that won’t learn will just get fined over and over again and then they would

suddenly run out of money and then they can’t afford to buy to recycle. Is that what you want?

There are also many different alternatives to get people to recycle than just fine them. One way is

that every year kids in school are required to take a test on what to and not to recycle, and it

helps their grades. That way it won’t be one of those boring tests that nobody cares to study for.

Although it would get slightly harder each year, kids would learn about recycling and then they

can encourage their families to recycle if their family doesn’t recycle much. Another way is to

start recycling projects: in 5th grade, my entire school collected bottle caps to recycle, and every

500 caps saved a life. It increased the recycling percentage at my school more than 10%! These

are different ways to get people to recycle other than just fining people. Recycling can be hard,
confusing, and a waste of time, so people that chose to not recycle should not be forced to do it

by fines.

Rebuttal for negative speaker - 2 minutes

We shouldn’t fine people for not recycling. It doesn’t make sense. There are many other ways to

get people to recycle, cities can make online courses for adults, and then the adults can teach

them to kids. Even when adults get fined, this might not exactly teach them. I think that families

shouldn’t get blamed for not recycling, sometimes it’s the city’s fault. Some cities just want to

blame their residents without taking action. Some of these cities are the ones fining people,

instead of starting big recycling programs. It is cheaper, and the cities get more money when they

fine people. Is this not true? Some cities are greedy, cruel and lazy so they pin the blame on

someone else. This can’t happen. Although recycling is good and we need to recycle or we

would lose our only home blah blah, we can’t enforce it or else people might not like it as much.

It is kind of like brushing your teeth. You learn it when you are a child then as you get older you

think of it as a habit. There is no law saying you must brush your teeth, but if you don’t people

will look at you in a different way. Recycling is like that, you should learn it from your parents

and then think of it as a habit. If you don’t recycle people look at you in a different way, and

there shouldn’t be a law that says you must.