One way to really cut down energy costs is just to implement a more widespread recycling system with public cans for recycling and industrial recycling. Somebody in politics should be pushing this, maybe they are. Why don't we do it. Is it just that it costs too much? I think it's a good idea. Any thoughts?
you can recycle quite a few things yourself without outside infra-structure. Many of the "disposable" items (plastic bags, bottles etc) can have relatively benign second and third uses around the house. Example: I use the "walmart grocery sacks" as lunch sacks etc. Might look tacky to an outsider but i don't have to buy lunch bags. Shredded newspaper can be composted and turned into garden soil...just a lot of little things can add up.
reduce is more important at this juncture than recycle. Recycle is dependent upon a secondary market (and prices are still premium)
Indeed. Reduction is the key, not recycling. It takes more energy (and thus pollution even more in many many ways) to aquire, transport, break down, and then remake recycled materials then to pick it up from the curb and bury it.
Why isn't recycling mandatory in the US like other countries! Americans have too many choices in this area, such as "paper or plastic". Make it so that no bags are available at the stores unless you buy them, so more people will bring their own bags. Corporate recycling should be the norm, not the exception.
Yep. Recycling requires more energy, more pollution, and more cost to implement than landfill-use. And a responsibly managed landfill will not effect groundwater, be "over-filled", and will actually help to give electric to family homes through the methane collected in the decomposition process. The key would be reduction. Stop buying products with assinine amounts of packaging, use everything you can out of what you do acquire, and reuse what you can. The only profitable, feasible, and sensical recycling program is that of aluminum cans.
I was surpised when I went down to the USA (I am from canada) this summer and found out that you can not return your pop cans for a deposit. Up here I can throw my pop can out a car window and by the next day someone will pick it up to return it for 5cents. yes reduction is the key, so many things use way to much packaging.
