Posted on 06/17/2019 11:44:44 AM PDT by grundle
Ever since I read this 1996 New York Times article called “Recycling Is Garbage,” I’ve known that government recycling of plastic, paper, and glass wastes more resources than it saves, and that the environment would actually be better off if we put these things into landfills instead of recycling them.
Over the next 1,000 years, all of the garbage in the entire United States could fit into one landfill that was 100 yards deep, on a piece of square land which was just 35 miles on each side. Today’s modern landfills are well sealed, and when they are full, they get turned into parks. I live in Pennsylvania, which is the United State’s #1 garbage importing state. We keep approving new landfills, because we love the jobs and tax revenue that it gives us.
Well now we have this brand new article from the Guardian, which shows that our recycling hurts the environment even more than I had thought. It says that a lot of the plastic that we put into recycling bins gets sent to poor countries in Asia. Much of this plastic cannot actually be recycled, either because it’s contaminated with food debris, or it’s the wrong kind of plastic. These poor Asian countries mismanage much of their garbage, and much of this plastic ends up in the ocean. This other article, from the New York Post, says that 90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from 10 rivers, eight of which are in Asia, and two of which are in Africa. So much of the plastic that we recycle actually ends up in the ocean.
If the goal is to virtue signal, then by all means, we should continue to recycle our garbage. But if the goal is to protect the environment, we should put it into landfills.
And you just had to stick it on your blog and try to get money for it, that stuff you stole.
Awesome.
But thankfully, plastic shopping bags replace paper ones.
Welcome to the new age mr. author.
Statistics are fun. Did you know that you could stand the entire population of the world, nuts to butts if you will pardon the expression, within Duval County, Fl? I believe Duval still claims to be the largest county by area in the country.
I have never understood the environmental argument for recycling paper. Paper does not come from old growth forests. It comes from trees that farmers plant as a crop (just like wheat or corn, only slower growing) and which, through the magic of photosynthesis, remove carbon from the atmosphere.
If you recycle paper, people will plant fewer trees. If instead you bury used paper in a landfill, all that carbon is more or less permanently removed from the atmosphere.
The only item which is suitable for recycling is aluminum. It takes less energy to recycle aluminum (or just as much) as it does to create new items made of aluminum. Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! (name of the show) covered recycling and called it bullshit.
I also wonder why we don’t go back to using glass for our sodas and milks, sterilizing the bottles and using them over and over again. It just seems like a logical step, doesn’t it?
Duval County claims to be the largest city by area not the largest county because the county and the city of Jacksonville are the same.
Plenty of counties out west are larger than Duval.
My mistake. You are correct. Largest city so they could tax everyone in the county. I think its still claimed you can stand the worlds population shoulder to shoulder in that area.
Thanks for posting. Ignore Humblegunner. I hope we was being sarcastic because he normally attacks anyone who posts only a partial blog. But maybe he’s serious and now attacking anyone who posts any blogs.
back on topic though. I appreciate this info as I’ve always said recycling typically costs more (aka wastes more resources) than just using trash. This is another good reason to actually use trash though. Because our plastic is going to end up in the oceans (and eventually on our beaches) if we don’t.
Well it depends. How much waste does sterilizing bottles create? How much energy is wasted in that process? How many harmful side effects make it back into the local environment.
I'm glad you liked it.
At my local dump, there is a “Y” ... turn left and you dump the garbage, turn right, you play in the garbage at the recycle bins. the other day, someone stuck up a sign at the “Y” that said “Normal People <===== =====> Liberals”. (The sign didn’t last long! :-)
I love these articles. Gives me more ammunition to speak about the fallacy of recycling, especially curbside recycling.
I may have started a trend on my neighborhood. I refuse to recycle and parked the big blue bin somewhere beside my house. A few days ago, I noticed several neighbors didn’t dutifully have their bins out either.
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