khall: Earth Day Smells Like Burnt Styrofoam

Khall (

khall) wrote,
@ 2008-04-22 11:28:00

Current mood:

cynical

Earth Day Smells Like Burnt Styrofoam
35 errors in "An Inconvenient Truth"

Similar article on Washington Post.com

Recycling Myths

It's not your fault that recycling is a for-profit industry and a liberal cause celebre. It just makes you annoying for nagging me about it and being "under-informed".

K.

(Post a new comment)

	donsgurl 2008-04-22 08:16 pm UTC (link)
	Have you seen this?: http://youtube.com/watch?v=orfX_nbYTSs (Reply to this)(Thread)

khall
2008-04-22 10:27 pm UTC (link)

       Fascinating. I am not sure which side I believe, but that was pretty compelling, thank you for sharing.

       For the record to everyone, I am not against efforts to "make things better". I am only against ill-informed and functionally incompetent efforts that don't do anything but stir up dust and make people feel better about themselves.

       I'm perfectly willing to recycle, just demonstrate to me that it doesn't cause me more trouble, while producing minimal, no or counter-efforts to the assumed goal of improving the global environment. In particular, I dated a woman in Athens, Georgia, who would very carefully put her newspaper in the recycling bin...after I got done reading an article in it that stated that Athen's (and Atlanta's) recycling systems were 113% more hazardous to the environment than simply throwing it all away. And how they'd take 100 homes' carefully recycled materials and throw them away if they became contaminated with food soil, if the recycling company wouldn't/couldn't take them or if they exceeded their recycling budget for that quarter/month.

       I'm all about giving love, I have spent a long time giving a lot of love to as many (cute subby) women as would have me. However, I have always required them to give love back, in exchange, to meet me halfway. As masturbation holds no appeal.

K.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

lumpyone
2008-04-22 09:45 pm UTC (link)

Although I don't agree with Al Gore's broad and poorly stated "facts", there are some issues in there that do contribute to many other issues, such as human health concerns that you can't ignore.

The other article on the Myths of Recycling was interesting, but again, its one sided. It's mostly opinion dosed with a few facts. Being with a company that hauls hazardous materials (mostly dirt with things like lead, voc's, etc) it's true that hauling of waste is a great source of profit for areas. Hell, it pays my bills! But that also points out that 1) there is nothing wrong with recycling products if people see fit to allow it and that is what the general public is allowing. Whether its good/right for our country, people living here believe it (have been programmed, yes, I will agree).

And 2) it also generates work for more people. Drivers for the collection trucks, the people to work the facilities to recycle the material, etc. The article almost contridicts itself at the end, when it talks about how "scavaging" is an old trade and we have been recycling for some time. No reason this next step shouldn't happen, other than the writers feel that a "mandatory" enforcement of recycling is wrong. Its not necessarily mandatory, even here in California, at least for the individual. Rather, its mandatory for the city/county/state to enforce it in their areas. Great thing is though, there are areas now that just picks up all the trash in one truck and then has ways to seperate it at the landfill. No extra pick-ups nor containers required, so at least they are finding more cost-effective means to deal with such expensive collections.

Some interesting information, but definitely needs to be read with a critical eye and a grain of salt. :)

(Reply to this)(Thread)

khall
2008-04-22 10:09 pm UTC (link)

       See now, I'd agree with your last sentence, but maybe not your point. I think the point they're trying to make is, running all those trucks that transport the recycled material, powering the recycling plant (it takes more energy to recycle a used can into a new one than it does to produce a new one, same with paper; except it also produces more toxic waste products too, etc), taking care of the recycling plant's waste products, producing the other products they use and all of these things produce a bigger 'carbon footprint' than not recycling.

       Whether or not it is 'good science', I can't pretend expertise enough to know. But I do know that a lot of the recycling efforts, particularly in consumer/home situations are inefficient, poorly implemented and fail most other tests of rationality. If we gave everybody those new Amazon.com e-readers, rather than them paying for a newspaper or magazine subscription every year, made cereal and mac-n-cheese and beer and coca-cola and tampon and whatever else producers distribute their products in bulk, rather than wasting all the extra packaging/paper you get from buying it in boxes, etc, etc, we'd make a much bigger impact on the environment than me having to sort my pink tissue paper from my white printer paper and "oh noe it's ruined because it got coffee grounds on it" and all of that nonsense.

       But that'll never happen, as marketing and advertising and lobbying will prevent it. So, instead, we get this 'feel-good' 'pro-earth' recycling nonsense. And I'm not talking about heavy metals or toxic waste, just cans and bottles and paper and all of that, that a home user is expected to recycle. The company-produced waste is exactly where you do see gains and actual productive results from recycling. It's like the airport security, it doesn't really do anything the help the "problem" other than create a flurry of pointless activity and make everybody feel better.

K.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

lumpyone
2008-04-22 11:07 pm UTC (link)

You're right in that the article's arguement is recycling uses more resources and it's saving. However, I see no evidence offered to support that claim. Sure, they say how companies have lessened their use of resources over the years, however, they don't tell us how many resources are actually being used to recycle products at the consumer level.

Therefore, I find the Myths on recycling article as bad as Al Gore's An Inconvinent Truth. No difference really and I can't accept many of the statements without some more hard evidence.

Lastly, I will say recycling is like anything. There will be pros and cons for anything, recycling no less and as many of the programs have only been effect for many places for a few years... perhaps 10 years max... I'm sure more improvement is necessary but that will only come with more time. Government agencies aren't very quick about making changes.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Hmmm

romanticantics
2008-04-23 08:19 am UTC (link)

We actually don't even have trash pick up. You have to go to the 'dump' and they have containers for 'trash', cardboard,paper of colors, bottles of each color, aluminum cans, and plastics. It's really hard because honestly I don't have the money to separate my trash into 12 different bags each week. So, normally I um *gasp* burn the burnables, recycle the bottles and cans, and the rest is 'trash'.

I did find out that all the cans that are recycled here go to pad the commissioners budget as they sell them. I should get a cut if I have to buy an extra bag to put them in, right ;)

And um... you are BAD!

(Reply to this)

	idgie310 2008-04-23 09:46 pm UTC (link)
	You ROCK out loud! :) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	khall 2008-04-23 10:08 pm UTC (link)
	Aww. Thank you honey, long time no see. Hope you're doing well. K. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	tigana 2008-04-24 05:02 pm UTC (link)
	In my area, we recycle because we don't have the room for all the landfill space we'd need to bury tons of trash every year. Recycling may not be cost-effective, but it saves us from having to resort to creating numerous Mt. Trashmores. (Reply to this)

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