Posted on 09/22/2010 10:15:22 AM PDT by reaganaut1
...
Most of the stuff we throw out — aluminum cans are an exception — is cheaper to replace from scratch than to recycle. “Cheaper’’ is another way of saying “requires fewer resources.’’ Green evangelists believe that recycling our trash is “good for the planet’’ — that it conserves resources and is more environmentally friendly. But recycling household waste consumes resources, too.
Extra trucks are required to pick up recyclables, and extra gas to fuel those trucks, and extra drivers to operate them. Collected recyclables have to be sorted, cleaned, and stored in facilities that consume still more fuel and manpower; then they have to be transported somewhere for post-consumer processing and manufacturing. Add up all the energy, time, emissions, supplies, water, space, and mental and physical labor involved, and mandatory recycling turns out to be largely unsustainable — an environmental burden, not a boon.
“Far from saving resources,’’ Benjamin writes, “curbside recycling typically wastes resources — resources that could be used productively elsewhere in society.’’
Popular impressions to the contrary notwithstanding, we are not running out of places to dispose of garbage. Not only is US landfill capacity at an all-time high, but all of the country’s rubbish for the next 100 years could comfortably fit into a landfill measuring 10 miles square. Benjamin puts that in perspective: “Ted Turner’s Flying D ranch outside Bozeman, Mont., could handle all of America’s trash for the next century — with 50,000 acres left over for his bison.’’
Nor do modern landfills — which are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency — pose a threat to human health or the environment. They must be sited far from wetlands and groundwater, thickly lined with clay and plastic, covered daily with fresh layers of soil, and equipped for drawing off the methane gas
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Union jobs. In right to work states those 3 man crews are replaced by a automated system on a truck.
Recycling is not about saving money or the environment. Never was.
Or just burn everything that will burn as power plant fuel.
I imagine on another note that if he Cap and Tax legislation gets through on any sort of relation to what is now concieved that all the heat generating recycling processes will have to be killed off due to carbon emmission standards.
I was talking to a fellow involved in cement making operations where they “clinker” the raw material to make cement. Where most of these operations have been concerned with fuel usage and certain pollutants in what they have built new in the last two decades the carbon standards are basically going to be unachievable for those idustries — no modifications will get them outside the limits they are confined to.
If you can’t clinker cement and you can’t fire brick, construction costs are going through the roof and these materials will be made in the third world for import only.
That's evidence that he's right.
It stunned me so much that I have saved the link. I can't wait for the day when we turn the corner and people start realizing what left wing symbolic cause recycling is.
As long as they charge me additional for recycling (in my part of Indiana we don’t have govt trash companies) I’ll let them take it in the regular trash.
I do donate alum cans and paper to the local church school.
Saving a thread from 2003? That must have really ticked you off! I’m off to read it now.
Other than scrapping metal and melting it down, I’ve never seen that much in recycling myself. I used to work (believing some midwestern liars/crooks) for an electonics and computer recycler/reseller. Most of it is so bogus and wasteful.
There are things that were recycled before recycling was “cool”; metals and paper/cardboard - it makes sense to continue recycling those.
Also glass bottles that were returned, cleaned and refilled.
Everything else - forget it.
Bookmark.
I read your thread from ‘03. Thank God. I thought I was the only one that felt this way. Garbage is garbage, trash is trash. I pay for collection. Collect it and STFU. You wanna dig around in it and tsk tsk about how irresponsible I am, be my guest. At the end of the day though, it’s $hit. Feel free to wallow in it...
Generally when you're on target, you catch flak.
He's right. Metals are recyclable - particularly aluminum, as its manufacture is such an energy-intensive process.
Glass is to a certain degree, but less than metal. Plastic and Paper.....well, they're recyclable in good times. When people and companies are willing to pay more money for a lesser product so that they can "feel good" about "being green". Otherwise, it just winds up in a landfill with everything else.
'Tis non-PC to point out that these things are more about FEEEEEEEEEEEELings, and less about reality, though.
In my old hometown, they sent out a specific list of what could and couldn't be recycled, and how to do it. Included were "tin cans, thoroughly rinsed". I draw the line at washing my garbage. Into the trash they went.
Guy I work with is an enviro-nut. His nose was seriously out of joint about his town...they discontinued recycling pickup because it wasn't cost effective. I naively told him, "Don't sweat it, there's a recycling pickup place up the road from where I live (would be 20 min or so from where we both work). I know the guy who runs it. I'll get you directions and ask when it's open."
Cow-orker's indignant response? "I'm not going to drive all the way out there to recycle!!!! They should come to ME." Thus proving that it's less about 'doing the right thing' and more about him. As I suspected all along. :-)
“Or just burn everything that will burn as power plant fuel.”
The greenies tried that one already. They found out they had to use natural gas to generate enough heat to run the generator and burn the trash. Seems waste paper (read newsprint) was unable to burn hot enough. Funny. Then mandated recycling of newsprint, killing a once stable but small market for used newsprint, then mandated buring it to generate electricity, only to find out that they built a gas fired generator that can also burn waste. Don’t know how this qualifies as “recycling”? Seems like my Grandmother burning the trash in backyard using kerosene. I guess we are modern now!!
Sadly glass bottles are one of those things that it does not make sense to reuse. The cost to haul them back and clean them wipes out any savings you might get from recycling.
Also sometimes the cleaning doesn't quite work. That can result in the end of your company.
Can it be? Have people started to realize that the emperor is wearing no clothes?
The rule of thumb is: if it doesn’t pay, it is not more efficient to recycle. It is not “greener,” unless there is actually a cost savings.
Economics actually makes it plain.
Penn and Teller have a great episode on recycling, if you can get over the torrents of profanity. Available on youtube.
And that makes even less sense, ensuring that it WILL be done. Third world industry is less efficient, more polluting, more inhumane. Transporting a load of bricks halfway around the world is also crazy.
In the neighborhood where I make homebase when I am in in Việt Nam garbage is purely a private enterprise thing. There is a lot of modern packaging plastic and such so it is not all burned or buried or put on the fields as in the past. At Thông's house once a week a lady comes on a bicycle with a big sack tied to the front of it. She and Kim Anh haggle a bit over the pile of refuse and the lady offers a price for that which is resalable and that price is reduced by the disvalue of the nonsalable stuff that will also be removed. The deal is made and the trash is loaded up and goes away to be "recycled." Of course there are not the great piles of refuse that Americans produce because there is much consumption going on and everything that can be used for something else in the family is used.
The five cent version goes something like this;
Earth is a living organism that is capable of producing a great many things. However, Earth cannot produce plastics. So, Earth decided to change things ever so slightly so that man could rise to be the dominant species and produce plastics. Now that we have done this, Earth has introduced pathogens and diseases to our environment that will eradicate us, much like a body rids itself of toxins.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.