Posted on 12/08/2008 9:55:59 AM PST by icwhatudo
Yay!
What? Recycling is in trouble because it’s not profitable? I thought profit was a nasty capitalistic concept. What about the earth? All those “non profit” entities don’t care about profit or cost - they’re NON-PROFIT!
We are achieving the environmentalist’s dream and we’re now concerned?
Costs the same to recycle Aluminum as it does to make it from ore. It takes the same amount of energy to reclaim all the aluminum cans, scrap and zap it into aluminum again. (only liquid aluminum is actually aluminum. when hardened it is actually aluminum oxide- it oxidizes as soon as it is exposed to air.) It's also an excellent storage cell for electricity. Aluminum can be recycled into electricity leaving aluminum oxide, which requires the same electricity (theoretically) to make it into aluminum again. Of course in the real world there are losses due to resistance, etc.
The metallic element aluminum is the third most plentiful element(8%) in the earth's crust.(oxygen and silicon make up 47% and 28%, respectively) Pure, metallic aluminum can be economically produced only from aluminum oxide ore.
It's almost as great as iron. But Obama wants to stop all the mining of the grade of coal needed to turn iron into steel, which of course isn't going to make cars any cheaper, thus help the troubled auto industry.
Big weekend at YOUR house, I guess!
That's pretty much how it works in the small towns around here. Everyone takes the time to separate their garbage, wash out jars and cans, separate cardboard and put it all in nice blue bins, then the garbage truck comes along and they chuck it all in the back and cart it off to the landfill. The only difference now is people have to pay for those blue bins and every garbage bag over 2. Garbage compactors sold good for a while though. A garbage bag went from weighing 5-10 lbs to 50 lbs.
Recycling ping!
Should have already, we gotta eat thru the expensive stock first.
Ya you pretty much nailed it. Once I found out what they were doing I cancelled the little blue bins and it all goes in the plastic bag. When I was a kid we had a burn barrel. Then we had to get civilized. DANG!
When I was a kid, you ALWAYS brought back the soda bottles to the store. It was just part of the deal, I thought.
The glass bottles were sent back to the plant, washed out, and re-filled.
Don't really know why we got away from that. Aluminum cans aren't any more convenient (except for the opening of them maybe). And you can't recycle them without a WHOLE lot of effort.
I know. The scrap business is pretty bad right now. One of my sons buys wrecks, strips them and hauls the scrap to a local recycling smelter as a side business. Now it's not worth the time and gas hauling that stuff around.
It was making him good money for a while there. Now it' s just piling up and he's really choosy at the auction yards, buying cars that he can actually fix instead of wreck.
. The used car business has really picked up now. There's a silver lining in every cloud.
LoL! Living way out in the sticks, I still operate the burn barrel. Everything too risky to burn in the wood stove goes in the burn barrel. I usually only have one or two bags a month to haul to the pit.
Lucky you! I miss burning leaves in the fall. Can’t do that any more either.
9mm. Remington at Dicks Sporting Goods just went UP $2.00 box this weekend !! What gives ?
I'm reviewing Atlas Shrugged.
How eerie.
Where is Hank Reardon when we need him?
Really? On Black Friday, Dick’s had a 50% off sale on ALL ammunition. Went there with a friend of mine, loaded up across the board, 9mm, shotgun, various rifle calibers.
It is highly economical to recycle aluminum. Steel is economical if collected in large batches.
Steel and glass collected in small amounts at curbside are borderline economical. I’m not sure about plastic.
Recylcing these items helps to offset the cost of weekly trash collection. However...
It is neither economical or environmentally friendly to recycle paper. Since most paper trees are farmed, few wild trees are saved by recycling. Most recycled paper is simply burned in trash to energy plants...but this is not efficient energy production.
Recycling paper (and buying recycled paper goods) is more about forced involvement.
As far as I know, until at least recently, aluminum recycling was the only form of recycling that made economic sense. Every other form of recycling was subsidized in some way.
I recently met a guy who used to do forestry management for a paper company in Maine. I asked him if he ever got any green protesters. "Oh yeah, but they never lasted more than a day. Once the black flies came out, they went running."
Gotta love it.
I tried to convince my wife to buy a compactor. No luck so far. I'm also still trying to convince her that employees pay both halves of social security taxes.
Hey, we all have our crosses to bear...
***Sounds like demand is so low that it’s not economical to run the mill at all.***
You can still get Mexican and Chinese steel!
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