Posted on 04/15/2012 1:45:30 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Here in the Bay Area (CA), we have a MONSTER recycling bin, a MONSTER yard waste bin, and an ITTY BITTY garbage can. The garbage can mostly gets the cat and dog poops, meat scraps, fireplace and BBQ ashes, burned out light bulbs and not much else. They take so much mixed stuff in the recycle bin that it is now our defacto garbage can. It’s actually pretty funny how it’s turned out.
There are three separate trucks that pick up the three different bins. In the good old days, there was one truck to pick up everything. All that extra diesel burned can’t be very good for the environment.
Here in the Bay Area (CA), we have a MONSTER recycling bin, a MONSTER yard waste bin, and an ITTY BITTY garbage can. The garbage can mostly gets the cat and dog poops, meat scraps, fireplace and BBQ ashes, burned out light bulbs and not much else. They take so much mixed stuff in the recycle bin that it is now our defacto garbage can. It’s actually pretty funny how it’s turned out.
There are three separate trucks that pick up the three different bins. In the good old days, there was one truck to pick up everything. All that extra diesel burned can’t be very good for the environment.
Half of the stuff I put in my recycling bin is pulled back out and left in my yard by the jackasses that are paid to pick it up.
Cost more. For every kilowatt of power from wind energy you need backup sources of production when the wind ceases. You cannot reduce the capacity of normal power plants.
Bloomberg came to NYC as its Mayor, 2002 Promptly Stated that Bloomberg did a study where Recyling with its energy and cost is a waste of time... then the Green Mafia gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse..
I’ve refused to recycle from the beginning. The dirty little secret is that most recyclables end up in the dump anyway has been known by anyone who wanted to dig since they started it, not to mention the tons of greenhouse gases created picking it up. Recycling was from the beginning mere pandering to the greenies for political capital.
A great friend of mine is a retired heavyweight from the environmental department of a major utility. He told me from day one of the recycling craze: “When they start paying you for your trash, then you will know that recycling is a worthwhile enterprise; otherwise, it is nothing but a feel good endeavour designed to appease the greenies.”
The company I work for did the same thing, and then gave us these little bitty green cans for the “trash I make.” So I stuck a Command hook on the side of the desk, hang plastic bags, and throw it all in the regular trash.
The Swedes are late. Al Gore has always been full of crap.
I think that if you believe all the CO2/GHG stuff, you would want to bury as much paper as possible. Paper is mostly carbon, and all that carbon was extracted from the atmosphere by the mostly farmed trees that it was made from. Same with plastic - putting the oil it was made from back in the ground.
In WWII, scrap metal drives were a net loss in economic terms, but it allowed the people to become personally involved in the war effort, and for that reason it was encouraged. I think modern recycling is mostly about the same thing - giving people a stake in green politics by forcing them to perform this daily ritual. A masterful example of brainwashing.
That said, I save ALL of my aluminium and when I have enough, I take it in a sell it. That’s called “beer money”.
It all was based on the fact that recycling aluminum cans was actually a good idea, but the model doesn't fit any other commodity very well, most of them not at all. Tons and tons of "recycled" newspaper end up in landfills every year because there is minimal market for the substance.
There are dozens of stories about how recyling has failed or does not work, but right now recyled paper - for newsprint is 126.00 a ton higher (167 vs 41.00)than in the summer of 2009. So if you kept all the newsprint and cardborad boxes for your neighbors, or your city during 2009 you would have made more money than any stock tip. Aluminim cans still fetch 50 cents a pound that aluminum goes into some very important products made in America...like cars.
I doubt it. At least we know that the old-fashioned windmills were worth producing, or it wouldn’t have been done. There wasn’t a surplus of energy to waste . . .IMHO windmills might cost more money per installed kw than fossil fuel-ed or nuclear power plants. But I don’t know that the energy budget for a windmill would be negative. Unless you don’t have a good use for the power when and as it becomes available - as would be the case if you tried to use it for air conditioning, for example.
Very good point. In my neck of the woods (Kansas), the utilities are required to have a ‘baseline’ of reliable power available, which equals or exceeds their peak demand.
And, as you might suspect, the Kansas wind has been eyed by the wind warriors.
So we are getting lots of wind farms, and higher power bills.
Last year our local government revealed the fact that they only recycle about 40% of the mass they collect with the recycling trucks.
The other 60% they load back into trucks and haul back across the county to the landfill.
So, not only do they collect more than twice as much as they actually recycle, they more than double the cost of collecting and disposing of the 60% that ends up in the landfill.
Six months after the truth of their flawed recycling program became known they applied for an increase in fees to cover the increased costs of running the program.
To this day they are still collecting tons and tons of recyclables they haul over to the county landfill.
Exactly! That was a great show they did on the subject. But the facts don’t matter to true believers. We had an article in our newspaper recently bemoaning the fact that our city isn’t recycling like other cities. Morons.
bfl
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