What I've noticed: people in my (downtown) neighborhood do not recycle in large numbers. Estimating, I'd say that one in 5 houses has a bin out on recycling day.
What is up with that? Are people trying to make a philosophical statement about the inefficiency of reuse (and its markets), when reduction of waste ought to be the main solution? Or are they just not convinced that a quick separation of wastes will be worthwhile for our community? Or what?
I am, as always, interested in your thoughts...
5 comments:
Is a reduction of waste the real goal of recycling? Do we really save money and energy by recycling? Are we really sparing trees? Is there really a lack of space for landfills? No, no, no and NO! Recycling actually - with the exception of aluminum products - costs MORE MONEY and is less energy efficient than it is to put it into a landfill or burn it. The recycling industry is subsidized with taxpayers dollars to the tune of over 8 BILLION dollars a year. That's right, over 8 billion dollars each year to support an industry that isn't effective and whose only positive is that it makes us feel better about ourselves. The recycling industry has had a net loss every single year it has been in oeration.
"Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America. A waste of time and money and a waste of human and natural resources." - The New York Times.
If recycling really saved money and resources, then we would get paid to do it. Throwing trash in a landfill costs about 60 dollars a ton. Recycling costs about 150 dollars a ton. Who are we fooling here? Us, that's who! Instead of recycling, maybe we should be investing in incinerators that will burn more completely and produce little to no emissions that are harmful to the atmosphere. The money we save could cut the national deficit considerably each year. There would be fewer trucks running around burning up diesel fuel, no energy wasted trying to recapture products that cost less to produce anew, and we could maybe use the trash as a fuel source to run such things as power plants. Worried about the methane gas produced by decaying garbage in a landfill? Take a lesson from the largest landfill in America located in California. They capture the methane and use it to supply fuel to an energy station which produces enough electricity to handle 50,000 homes per year. Much better use of garbage in my opinion. Face it, recycling is a joke and just another way of our government ruling our lives.
You really want to reduce waste? Stop using so much shit.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz
Hi, Anon 8:21, you get some sense of what we are all up against with the flippant "zzzz" of the commenter following your thoughtful response: basically, "I am too bored to care about your concerns about the environment." I am sure that he is 1) old and 2) old-school and will be dust long before it "matters" but the fact is it DOES matter, to us young folks and our children and their children.
If you look at every item you throw in the trash or the recycling bin, and you think about what resources and what energy it cost this planet to produce that material stuff that you hold in your hand, you will begin to shift your understanding of ecological economics: the flows of energy/mass around the planet.
So zzzz, why don't you bury your head in the sand a bit more? Ignorance is bliss, so they say.
NC,
As I stated in the first post, recycling is NOT the answer with exception to aluminum products. Everything else is not cost effective, wastes more energy and resources to recycle, and is therefore worse for us and the planet. Now obviously, just throwing our trash into a landfill isn't the right way to go either when you consider the fact that plastic products do not break down over the years like other items do. So the real solution is to find a way to dispose of plastic materials in a way that will not harm the earth or the atmosphere. A method of incinerating these goods needs to be developed that will produce little to no pollutants. It's the only real solution to this problem short of discontinuing the use of plastic in our society altogether, which is never going to happen. Separate the aluminum, it's worth recycling, and separate the plastic and find a way to dispose of it. The rest of the rubbish can and should go into a landfill.
Or, we could be more serious about using LESS stuff. No?
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