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The Utter Waste Of Recycling
Toogood Reports ^ | January 19, 2003 | Alan Caruba

Posted on 01/21/2003 3:55:14 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe

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1 posted on 01/21/2003 3:55:14 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe
I promote Civil Disobedience on this topic.
2 posted on 01/21/2003 3:58:10 PM PST by ScholarWarrior
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To: All
Interesting.
3 posted on 01/21/2003 3:58:58 PM PST by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: *Enviralists; farmfriend
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list
4 posted on 01/21/2003 3:59:15 PM PST by Libertarianize the GOP (Ideas have consequences)
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5 posted on 01/21/2003 3:59:31 PM PST by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
You may feel you are doing something noble for the environment, but you are paying more for that privilege and the odds are the stuff is being buried and burned just the same.

A garbage man friend of mine told me that the whole program is government subsidized, and that a large portion ends up in land fills anyway. It doesn't save anything.

6 posted on 01/21/2003 4:01:18 PM PST by antaresequity
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To: Tailgunner Joe
I am, fortunatly, not in the city limits.

I do not have trash pickup.

If it burns, I burn it, if not, it goes in a bag to be dumped in a convienient gas station trash can.

I would recycle my glass beer bottles, but the county recycling trailer wont take them, because it cost way more than it is worth.

7 posted on 01/21/2003 4:01:46 PM PST by Ford Fairlane
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To: Tailgunner Joe
My recycle contribution consists of letting the state keep my 5 cents per bottle and can.
8 posted on 01/21/2003 4:03:52 PM PST by Semper Paratus
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To: Tailgunner Joe
My Boy Scout Troop recycles aluminum cans. Given that I can sell empty cans to numerous outlets for $0.31/pound, I'm figuring that there's a real savings in recycling this stuff. I'm told that reusing aluminum cans to make more cans, instead of processing new bauxite for this purpose, saves lots of electricity. Also, aluminum cans aren't going to degrade in landfills.
9 posted on 01/21/2003 4:04:48 PM PST by RonF
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To: Tailgunner Joe
The concept of recycling glass isn't to save sand; it's to save the energy used in digging up, transporting, and processing that sand into glass. What the cost of that is vs. recycling glass is unknown to me, but to just reference "running out of sand" is misleading.
10 posted on 01/21/2003 4:06:50 PM PST by RonF
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To: Tailgunner Joe
It wasn´t always the law. There was a time when landfills were understood to be a perfectly sensible way to get rid of the garbage. Incinerators, too.

Proposing endless landfills is not conservative thought. It's wasteful and utilitarian.

In LA, smog reached a peak in the 1950s. Incinerators were part of the problem. The smog is still terrible, but the evil restrictions on car emissions and rubbish burning have improved the situation.

I really don't understand how trashing your children's environment can be interpreted as "conservative".
11 posted on 01/21/2003 4:07:04 PM PST by Belial
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To: Tailgunner Joe
The enviro-whackos are guilty of extremism on a wide variety of issues,
but one only needs to view the mountain of garbage in Mexico City
to be reminded that there is validity to some of their concerns.
12 posted on 01/21/2003 4:07:49 PM PST by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Ford Fairlane
it goes in a bag to be dumped in a convienient gas station trash can.

Ha! Having just downscaled from two homes to one, I became a "Midnight Dumpster Devil" with alacrity...motivation breeds ingenuity.

Love the screen name, BTW - are you Andrew Dice Clay?

13 posted on 01/21/2003 4:08:18 PM PST by ErnBatavia ((Bumperootus!))
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Here in the Minneapolis area, all of our trash goes to the "garbage burner".

So we not only have less going to landfills, its generates electricity AND is a Steam Plant that pumps steam into the downtown area buildings.

14 posted on 01/21/2003 4:08:26 PM PST by Johnny Gage (God Bless America, God Bless President George Bush, and God Bless our Military!)
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To: RonF
Aluminum cans are the ONLY thing that is economically viable for recycling; as you note, refining bauxite ore requires ridiculous amounts of electricity, so that the total cost of collecting used cans, melting them down, and making new cans is less than the cost of making new cans from bauxite ore.

That's it. And since it makes money in a free market, people would do it on their own without local ordinances requiring it.

ALL other recycling is a waste of money and doesn't do anything to help the environment.
15 posted on 01/21/2003 4:08:56 PM PST by John H K
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Finally, recycled plastic is made into fleece, which is a fabric that is highly valued out here in Chicago and points north for keeping you very warm without needing the maintenance that wool, etc., need. It's also made into durable materials to make park and bus benches out of, as well as planking materials for the new deck you're putting in off the back of your house next summer. This means that we don't have buy barrels of oil from our good friends in the Middle East to make this stuff. The value of this latter cannot be totally accounted for economically.
16 posted on 01/21/2003 4:11:12 PM PST by RonF
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To: Belial
In LA, smog reached a peak in the 1950s. Incinerators were part of the problem.

I grew up there, and can confirm your observation....however, the U.S. doesn't seem quite ready to accept the new technology available for incineration. Japan has stuff that would boggle our Americanese minds.

17 posted on 01/21/2003 4:11:21 PM PST by ErnBatavia ((Bumperootus!))
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To: Willie Green
That's a breakdown in the local services of Mexico City or a reflection of cultural norms, not evidence that Mexico City doesn't have room for its garbage.

I'm sure whatever recycling program they attempted to institute would fail as miserably as their programs for picking up garbage and transporting it to landfills.

The myth that there isn't ROOM for garbage has been pounded so relentlessly into people's heads (and children even more) that even though the article notes it's a myth, and we're on FR, people can't quite let go of it.
18 posted on 01/21/2003 4:11:47 PM PST by John H K
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Well maybe for some materials, recycling is a waste. But not for paper. My uncle, a former VP at International paper says they profitably recycle paper up to 4 times - each time losing a quality grade in the finished product. So heavy parchment paper becomes newsprint which later recycled becomes paper cups, which ends up as paperboard for consumer items.

If recycling paper was such a complete waste, then I can assure you IP would not be doing it.

19 posted on 01/21/2003 4:12:18 PM PST by fogarty
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To: John H K
Incorrect. Paper is a material which can be profitably recycled. See my post above.
20 posted on 01/21/2003 4:13:09 PM PST by fogarty
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