recycling
Out of context: Reply #1
- Started
- Last post
- 12 Responses
- cuke4260
fyi i found this article that sums up the p&t episode linked above
".....Some points are very simple and should have always been apparent. In almost all cases, it costs more to recycle a product than to create a new one. The single exception is aluminum cans - it's cheaper to recycle aluminum than to mine bauxite. Why should that fact have been so readily apparent? Because it is why we see people digging in garbage cans to collect aluminum cans. They can be sold for cold, hard cash. Try that with plastic milk jugs.
All other products not only cost more to recycle than to manufacture new, they are *more* polluting to the environment. Recycling, after all, *is* a manufacturing process. Bleaching paper in order to recycle it, for
example, is more polluting than creating new paper. You'll also find that you pay more for recycled paper, as you do for most any other "natural" "environmentally friendly" product. It was also mentioned that most new paper is made from trees we planted specifically to make paper. Trees are renewable. And we have more trees now than we did in the 1920's.
There is also the point that in most all cases recycling programs lose money. It's very simple to point out that if recycling saved money, we should be paid for doing it. But the fact is that community recycling programs are just another expense with no return. About eight billion dollars per year in the U.S.They also put the landfill situation into perspective. At the rate
Americans create garbage, you could handle all of it for the next 1000 years with a single landfill 35 square miles in size and 200 feet high. Seems large, but compared to the land mass of the continental U.S. it's a drop in the bucket. And this is in comparison to horror stories of the U.S. running out of landfill space. It was never true. There is more landfill space now than ever. They are also cleaner and safer than ever.
There was also a mention of methane. Called a toxic, noxious gas by the greenies interviewed, it was shown that California's largest landfill uses the methane - a clean burning fuel - to create electricity. Enough to power 160,000 homes for the next 100 years. That is a *real* benefit. "- what's up with all these long responses lately?ceiling_cat
- haha apologies, i posted something that can't be processed in 3 seconds.cuke426