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Teach me how to recycle

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by three_bags_full, Jul 25, 2009.

  1. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    It doesn't take a lot of digging around to find that PERC has received over $150,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.

    And cigarettes aren't harmful to your health....a scientific study told me so.

    And people didn't buy milk fifty years ago from their milkman in reusabl glass containers because it was "rational". There was no other choice.
     
  2. Cadet

    Cadet Guest

    Not to threadjack the recycling thread, but this is sort of related:

    We do have curbside recycling in my town, but we also have people who dig through garbage that has been placed out for pickup. Several mornings I've gone out before the trash collectors come and the recyclables are gone, the garbage bags ripped open and stuff tossed about along the street.

    It really freaks me out that people go through my garbage, so I've thought about not placing it curbside and going through the hassle of taking it straight to the center myself (which I already do with mixed paper recycling, since I'm paranoid about identity theft).

    But then, those people taking my empty bottles and cardboard boxes need those nickles and dimes far more than I do. Is it the kind thing to do to keep putting them out for them?
     
  3. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    The kind thing to do is call the police, I think.
     
  4. three_bags_full

    three_bags_full Well-Known Member

    *** fade in as car drives by *** "GAME ON." **players walk back into the street as cars pass**

    Got three recycling bins ... well, 12-gallon totes that will substitute until we get the extra cash to buy proper bins ... set up in the garage.

    Plastic bottles on the bottom. Glass bottles in the middle (Lots of beer bottles. Hmm, do I have to take the label off?). Paper on top.
     
  5. Pete Incaviglia

    Pete Incaviglia Active Member

    I agree with this. The town I live in now is pretty progressive and green. But we lived in an apartment for the first two years here and didn't have curbside pickup, so our options we limited.

    Now, it seems like everything we use and discard is recyclable. But it all needs to be sorted in a detailed fashion. At first, I was like "screw it. I'm taking it all to the dump in black bags so no one sees what I have."

    Now, it's like you said, second nature, and I have practically zero trash heading to the landfill. It's being recycled or composted. It's a good feeling.
     
  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member


    What specifically do you disagree with in what you quoted? Everything in that what you quoted is factual and a matter of record. If I am wrong about that, please tell me what isn't factual, and support it.

    And can you quantify anything you said? How will garbage be our most serious problem, and a disaster for our children? What empirical evidence do you have to believe that? What is the evidence that should make anyone else believe that? Not an unsupported assertion or what you were fed about recycling in elementary school. But specifically, what is the evidence for it (for example, we have evidence of global warming and the fact that our emissions are a cause).

    Our landfill technology has kept garbage contained--we don't just dig holes in the ground and dump, the way you seem to believe. Typically there is a liner of clay or composite that is several feet thick. It's like a giant swimming pool. Give me an example of a landfill environmental hazard problem -- I am talking modern landfills. And either way, landfills take up so little land mass. We are NOT being overrun by our garbage the way we have been led to believe.

    Also, garbage is not some new phenomenon. It has always existed. Archaeologists have discovered that whole cities were build over layers and layers of the refuse of previous generations. Also, economically recycling does make sense -- in some cases. Until the time between WWI and WWII, there was a whole class of rag pickers or garbage pickers who recycled for profit -- to the point that it required a permit to do it and it was policed, because for the underclass it was an economic opportunity relative to other types of poverty. They knew what had value and what didn't and would go through the refuse to recycle what it made sense to. It's like the people ripping through Cadet's garbage. If there is an economic reason to do it, people will on their own.

    Then there are the issues of what we do recycle and how much money we waste doing it. Most of the plastic put in recycling bins ends up in the garbage--this from that Popular Mechanics article I mentioned. It's just fact. Not opinion. Unlike aluminum, plastic can't be separated out with a magnet and small pieces like coffee cup lids screw up the sorting equipment and force frequent shut downs (which are costly). As a result, most of the plastic we use ends up in landfill sites anyhow. We just waste a lot of money getting it there. Even though we have municipalities employing two fleets to collect garbage and recycling (producing twice the greenhouse emissions in doing so). Less than 1 percent of polystyrene containers (e.g. yogurt cups) are recycled. And even well-established recyclables like PET (soft drink bottles) end up in landfills more than 2/3 of the time. Its inefficient and costly. And it defies reason. Explain to me the benefit of doing so, when there is no environmental reason (we have plenty of landfill capacity and there is no environmental hazard to plastic sitting in a landfill) and there is no economic reason (we spend billions more than we need to). If I am wrong about those characterizations, give empirical evidence that I am wrong. I'm not an expert on this and I will listen to anything backed by real evidence. But a lot of recycling myths that are accepted as fact aren't.

    The only material it makes sense to recycle is aluminum. And it is so cost efficient that it doesn't need to be mandated (why people dig through the garbage and pilfer all the aluminum before the recycling trucks come around). People can actually make money collecting aluminum cans in bulk -- like the rag pickers of the last century. Even without deposits, it would still be economically advantageous (and environmentally advantageous too, because far less energy is used working with a used aluminum can than to create a new one for packaging).

    Forced recycling costs between $8 and $10 billion a year and is of dubious benefit. Either way, what I said is true. We have plenty of landfill capacity--this is inarguable--and could handle our waste for the next century with a minuscule amount of land. And it has not proven to be any sort of environmental hazard. So what are you basing your fears on?
     
  7. Buck

    Buck Well-Known Member

    We live in the country, so there's no recycling service available.
    I've got a can crusher and several large RubberMaid bins with sealable lids. I fill them up with aluminum and plastics, and I truck them into the recyclable place as needed. I get $30-$40 a trip, which covers our NetFlix and the nonstipend balance on my cell bill every month.
     
  8. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    Ragu, you should try recycling your words. We could cut your posts in half.
     
  9. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Ragu, I would add cell phones and ink cartridges to your list. People pay good money for those as well.

    You make good points about the garbage, I just do not believe that all land fills are water tight.
     
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