Recylcing: An Idiot's Quest (beliefs, hell, America, service, organizations)

[yossarian22]

Recycling can be considered one of the most wasteful actions of the entire modern environmentalist movement. The mis-information about recycling has led many to believe that recycling saves resources and recycling saves the environment. Both of these beliefs are wrong.
How did this movement start? An EPA report showed that the landfill capacity of America was declining, on the basis that there were fewer landfills, conveniently ignoring that landfills were growing bigger and becoming more centralized and landfill capacity was actually rising. The result was a panic and the EPA used this to push household recycling funded by 8 billion dollars of government subsidies. This isn't actually that bad compared to paying farmers 300 BILLION on their crappy products.
Another major part of recycling is how dangerous landfills are. If the trash leaks into the water table, yes it would be dangerous, but the majority of landfills are on dry land with yards of impermeable clay beneath them. The only landfills which pose threats are those built on marshes, which is never done now. Marshes provide an extremely useful buffer for floods and help purify water. The EPA says landfills will cause 5.7 deaths from cancer in the next 50 years, which is negligible. Eating fruit is more dangerous than being near a landfill.
Next is the idea that we are going to run out of natural resources. Trees are renewable, and forest growth greatly exceeds forest loss from lumber and paper in North America. Demand for lumber and paper ENSURES forest growth. This may seem illogical, but if people wanted less paper and lumber, forest land would be converted into something that people do want, say a golf course. Now onto non renewable resources.
You can often hear the claims that reserves of a resource are dropping. In the 20th century, the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Mines have predicted that we would run out of oil in 15 years THREE times. And yet oddly, we still drive cars around. The reason for this is that when the price of a resource increases, the market responds. It either finds a substitute for that resource, or people look harder for the resource. The result of this is the cost of raw materials has decreased drastically over time.
The biggest lie of recycling is that it protects the environment. More trucks have to be put into service to collect the recyclables, using metal and plastic. These trucks then drive to a plant where the paper, which spews massive amount of pollutants into the air, is processed, using more gas. A new set of trucks then moves the processed paper to another plant, using more gas, and the plant turns it into newspaper, suing more gas yet again and spewing more pollutants into the air. This compared to the alternative of: A truck collects garbage, including the paper, consuming gas, then transports the garbage and dumps it into a landfill. Which process seems less wasteful, especially considering that paper is renewable.
We need to stop wasting tax payers money on recycling. Some people argue that without the government forcing us to recycle, the private industry would just continue to dump wherever they want. Before recycling, people shifted through trash to find things that were useful. Steel and aluminum mills reused scraps long before government thought of it.
Voluntary recycling is an extremely efficient and useful industry. Recycled wool was prevalent throughout the 30s until government effectively ran them out of business by forcing companies to label recycled clothes as such. It is mandatory recycling that is wasteful. It wastes taxpayer's money and it wastes resources most of all.

http://www.perc.org/pdf/ps28.pdf

edit: could a mod please fix the typo in the thread title?

[Guitar's Cry]

We could--perhaps should-- find a better way to recycle, rather then just tossing the idea out the window like a Burger King wrapper. We exist in a finite world with an economy built on infinite growth. Thinking about how we can reuse, reduce, and recycle is highly important in such a state.

But you are perhaps right, the way we recycle may be using more resources than it saves. That could be remedied, though, couldn't it?

[Runt]

Resources are not infinitely renewable. Even if they run out later than we expect them to, they WILL still run out.

[yossarian22]

Originally Posted by Runt

Resources are not infinitely renewable. Even if they run out later than we expect them to, they WILL still run out.

There is still a hell of a lot of land that is yet to be processed. The poles in particular are rich with resources, as they have remained untapped. Even when we do run out of iron, we can replace them with ceramics. Oil substitutes can be made organically. There is NOTHING that we cannot replace or make more of. I am not against recycling itself, I am against its current form and government subsidies in it. The ONLY recyclable that turns a profit is bauxite recycling.

[yossarian22]

Originally Posted by Guitar's Cry

We could--perhaps should-- find a better way to recycle, rather then just tossing the idea out the window like a Burger King wrapper. We exist in a finite world with an economy built on infinite growth. Thinking about how we can reuse, reduce, and recycle is highly important in such a state.

But you are perhaps right, the way we recycle may be using more resources than it saves. That could be remedied, though, couldn't it?

Yes. You got my points completely. Every recyclable except bauxite (aluminum) does not turn a profit. The only way for recycling to get efficient is to remove government subsidies and let private industry take over. If resources become very scarce, the market will respond very very rapidly and efficiently.

[MidnightBlue]

You know what bugs me about it? The way the county has become so proprietary about owning trash. Thirty years ago, I could go down to the dump and look around, maybe pick up a table or box of magazines or even a serviceable television. Now, you're not allowed to take anything, because the "recyclables" are "resources" "owned" by the county. Not that I need anything else; if anything, we're trying to get rid of things. We have too much stuff. But there are younger people starting out who might like to have an old bicycle, or a set of barstools that somebody got tired of, and I think they ought to be able to take what they want.

[GeneCosta]

If resources become very scarce, the market will respond very very rapidly and efficiently.

Mhm, like oil, right? The market will respond when it sees that the inflation on their goods has reached a maximum and people are unable to pay for it anymore at the profit margins they want. The poor and middle class will be left out until our pockets are dry. The only organizations that will be able to make other resources cheap are the 1.) government and 2.) big business, and capitalists will whine if the government intervenes on the customers' and workers' behalf.

I'm skeptical about recycling not working. It's not the most efficient system, but it certainly has benefits over just throwing away your stuff.

[FatMan]

The argument posed here isn't the one that should be reviewed. Recycling isn't wasteful, it CAN be inefficient. It is still a better alternative than making a big hole in the ground and dropping things into it. It is better than simply raiding natural resources and then raiding other resources when the first supply becomes low.

Are the benefits of recycling over-exaggerated?? Possibly, but when development takes away forests (you know, where the trees reside), and puts up strip malls, there is no denying that the area for a natural resource has been removed. The goal of recycling is what should have the eye on it, and should have our attempts to meet it.

[Runt]

Originally Posted by yossarian22

There is still a hell of a lot of land that is yet to be processed. The poles in particular are rich with resources, as they have remained untapped. Even when we do run out of iron, we can replace them with ceramics. Oil substitutes can be made organically. There is NOTHING that we cannot replace or make more of. I am not against recycling itself, I am against its current form and government subsidies in it. The ONLY recyclable that turns a profit is bauxite recycling.

Great, let's "process" all the land, destroy all of the natural beauty of the planet in our attempt to seek finite resources, pave and drill and deforest the entire thing, milk the poles for all they're worth... all because there's "room" to do so and we're overconfident about our ability to find substitutes for ANYTHING. I'm sure by the time we figure out how wrong we are, we can just stripmine Mars or something instead.

Screw that. I don't want to have to explain to my grandchildren what a "tree" was... and before you go off arguing that "we need paper, so we'll preserve the trees", might I remind you of your "the market produces substitutes for everything, therefore it's okay to use up finite resources" arguement?

I'm not buying it. Sorry.