I'm sure you've seen memes and informational pictures on Instagram and Twitter about the plastic that's building up in our oceans. Maybe you've seen the picture of the seahorse holding a Q-tip or the turtle with the plastic rings from soda bottles around its neck. Whatever you may have seen, it's all a problem.

Whether it be a plastic bag, milk jugs, glass bottles, or plastic straws, all of these will eventually find their way to the ocean or to landfills. When you recycle, these things that could end up in the stomachs of sea creatures are remade into things we can use again. Bags, cups, napkins… these recycled products can be made into TONS of things.

The benefits of recycling are endless. You aren't only keeping products that don't belong in our oceans out of them, but you are also helping to address a global problem, reducing your carbon footprint, saving energy and resources, and saving yourself money. Global warming is becoming an incredibly important issue that not enough people are aware of or focusing on.

Recycling paper will help save trees from being cut down, which will in turn reduce the carbon dioxide levels being released into the air. High levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are what causes global warming. By recycling, you are also reducing your carbon footprint. Your carbon footprint is the amount of carbon compounds that a person releases due to their consumption of fossil fuels.

A large percent of greenhouse gas emissions are a direct result of making and disposing of all of the things we use and then throw away. If everyone recycled, we would drastically reduce our carbon footprint as humans. When you start recycling, you see those memes and other photos and you think to yourself, how could someone not recycle?