Recycling does more bad than good...

I've heard this point argued many times before.

However, isn't it true that, unless we continue to recycle -despite current inefficiencies- we will not be able to ultimately develop processes that are more efficient and overall beneficial to the planet?

 

I dunno but which is more earth friendly, paper towels or them hand dryers in public restrooms?

 

I think in some cases, recycling processes can harm the environment with the use of chemicals, energy, ect. However some of these materials we recycle are not renewable. Aluminum is a NON-renewable resource that we better get the most out of because there is only so much available on the planet. If we don't recycle it , its gone.

Also, plastics are non-renewable. Plastics are all derived from fossil fuels, so the more plastic we consume the more fossil fuels we use and are no longer available to us.
Finally, recycling reduces what goes into the landfill! If we don't recycle, landfills will continue to balloon in size. I know I don't want a dump in the back yard.
I will agree that it does contribute to some environmental harm, but overall it is a better option than throwing stuff away. HOWEVER, THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO is instead of recycling, or throwing away, REUSE!!! You can re-use butter tubs as tupperware, plastic bags as lunch and storage bags, print on both sides of the paper, ect. ect. Purchase things you need second-hand instead of at Best Buy and most importantly - REDUCE. Just generally reducing our consumption of products will do wonders to help the environment.

 

haha, you guys should talk to superNova about this, she'll tell you aaall about it.

 

Paper towells. By FAR! The Earth herself recyles those. Even IF they go to a landfill. It takes Energy to run those machines. (That don't get recycled at all.)

 

Most would like to think that hand dryers are more efficient and a better alternative to paper towels. But they both have their downsides...
Paper towels have to be produced, which takes energy and produces toxins and they have to be made from trees, which leads to further deforestation. Hand dryers though, still have to be maufactured and they need energy to run, which the production of further pollutes the earth. So there is the dillemma eh?

My solution: Live in a self-sustaining environment, along the lines of a commune. Things are simple: you don't buy many outside items (or none), you make compost of the natural garbage, and you use TOWELS! Just regular freakin' cloth towels that are re-used. And when they are threadbare, keep on using them. And when you can't anymore, add them to the compost!

How I would love to join a commune and leave behind all this shit about society and corruption and goddamn politics. DIE CAPITALISM, DIE!!

 

Well the problem with recycling isn't a problem of no place to put junk... in fact we could store the next thousand years worth of trash from the US in a 35 by 35 mile pit in the middle of the desert. Nobodys saying we do that, its just an illustration.

The problem with recycling is it all uses outdated means which are much more costly and more hazardous to the enviorment then making the materials from scrap. This is true with paper and plastics, but not with aluminum... it is worth it to recycle aluminum... and thats why they will give you a nickel per can... its worth the cost benifit ratio. When recycling paper and plastics you have to ship it, employ make work job people to sort it out, and it leaves a large amount of sludge that is bad for the enviorment.

Listen, we're not 'running out' of fossil fuels... thats not the reason we should be looking into other means of energy... the reson is that some of the larger traditional tapped wells are running low, the negative ecological concequences of using fosil fuels, and the fact that our main source now is in such a troubled reigon.

So your thesis kinda makes sense... but unforunatly there is almost no reasearch going on at recycling firms, and no federal money alloacated to improve the science of recycling. We don't need to recycle paper and plastics with the traditional unbenifical ways of doing things, but instead focusing on more advanced ways of recycling.

So my advice is not to recycle papers and plastics, and instead try to find some research firms investing in more advanced ways of recycling papers and plastics that may be financially and ecologically benificial. I'm sure if you do find one, they could use some help.

 

Thank you Lodui, that was the kind of reply I was hoping to get.

This is probably an ignorant question; but does not 'environmental science' in some form entail the science of recycling? I would think that with growing organizations and institutions dedicated to environmental science, there would be quite a large amount of research into 'advanced recycling'- as you put it. It just seems so plausible.

 

Just on a factual basis - I believe there are other sources of plastics - urea for example, that are non-oil based.

IMO Politics plays a big part in all this - many influential groups through-out Europe pressed for paper and glass re-cycling, and so EC countries have targets for landfill reduction\re-cycling. In the UK most local councils provide boxes to separate the stuff out. Only trouble was that when this started, there was such a glut of re-cycled paper\glass hitting the market, the price collapsed to a level where it was no longer covered the cost of re-cycling. The plants either have to receive government subsidy, or the collected stuff sits in warehouses - sort of above ground landfill! However, no political party here wants to grasp the nettle and say lets be realistic about this.

Meanwhile, as the price of petrol rises, it becomes more economic to re-visit some of those old "played-out" oil fields and use new technology to squeeze out a little bit more. The big users of oil become more efficient - lean-burn car engines for example. The date that the oil "runs" out gets pushed further into the future. Again, no incentive for most politicians to risk upsetting the electorate by signing up to anything drastic - indeed as hurricanes rampage through the West Indies and the US, they might trot out a few pet scientists who can conclusively prove that its nothing to do with global warming.

 

.....in landfills the conditions for organic material to decompose is not there, they still pull out newspapers from the 1900s.

 

Do you really believe that the amount of solid waste we produce is not a serious environmental concern?

To my knowledge, the main problem with processing recycled paper is the extra bleaching required. If businesses would stop demanding lily-white office paper, this wouldn't be an issue. Ditto for consumers and household paper products.

As for plastics, I remember my solid waste professor (longer ago than I care to admit!) saying that most of them could be recycled economically, though he didn't think that recycling glass made much sense. Where did you get your information?

 

Lodui derives his information from the typical right-wing sources, or just states what he thinks is right, without any evidence to support him. If you ever care to get into a protracted discussion with him about anything, you'll notice that he doesn't really know all that much.