Posted on 02/05/2008 12:53:26 AM PST by newbie2008
As a Swede I get to hear a lot of the myths of how wonderful a country Sweden supposedly is — the "prosperous socialism" it stands for, a role model for the rest of the world. For instance, quite a few friends from around the world have commended me on Swedish recycling polices and the Swedish government's take on coercive environmentalism.
The way it has been presented to me, Sweden has succeeded with what most other governments at best dream about: creating an efficient and profitable national system for saving the environment through large-scale recycling. And the people are all in on it! Everybody's recycling.
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
Try to look at the whole picture. How much time and gas do you use to recycle? Remember, every recycling system uses energy. The question is more energy used up in recycling system than in a no-recycling system. It might seem convenient to you, but remember all the energy that is consumed in "saving" energy.
I know of a church in FL that was build with the money from recycled Aluminum cans. There is also a school attached to the church now. When there’s something worthwhile attached to recycling, people will participate.
I recycle my paper, the white stuff is shredded then goes into soil composting, the colored papter is shredded, put in a 5 gallon bucked of water, whizzed around then dumped where I don’t want grass to grow. It Works.
Relax! When the muslims institute sharia, they’ll do away with this.
Oh, yes!
I even thought about sending a link to my sis, the liberal social worker.
Then, I realized a.) she wouldn't see the humor and b.) would believe that it was actually a good idea.
I feel for you. Washington is right next door and the government here uses Oregon and California as models. Yep, it truly is socialism.
You should see the Penn & Teller episode on recycling. They not only point out the huge financial loss, they also challenged the idea that landfills were a bad thing and that we have a shortage of landfill space.
Try to look at the whole picture. How much time and gas do you use to recycle? Remember, every recycling system uses energy.
Fair enough, but of course I have thought about this before:
Gas
I described two recycling systems I have participated in.
In my current system I use no gas because the recycling is picked up with my trash. Granted the recycling truck uses gas, but if people didn't recycle, more regular garbage trucks would be required which would also use gas.
In the prior system where I took recycling to a downtown center, I only went there when I had to go downtown anyway, so I used no extra gas. The center was 1 block from the post office, in a place I had to pass by frequently.
Time
Because I don't use many newspapers I only have to separate my recyclables into two containers, one for metal, glass, and plastic bottles, and one for cardboard. Most of these items are empty food containers that are set aside as we empty them in the kitchen. Once a week I transfer this to the recycling containers and add any larger cardboard that has accumulated. As I said earlier this only takes a few minutes, plus it saves me making more trips since the regular kitchen garbage fills up much more slowly.
Apparently the recyclers have a machine that separates the metal, glass, and plastic. They don't take every kind of plastic but they do take the vast majority and it is easy to identify.
At my prior location I was accumulating a large number of plastic bottles for reasons I won't get into. I could just store these in bags until it was convenient to go to the recycling center where it only took a few minutes to get rid of them. Again, I was greatly diminishing the volume of my regular trash.
Money
You forgot this. As I pointed out I save money with the current system. The recycling service costs about 1/4 the cost of adding another garbage can. Plus they seemingly take any amount. I have recycled multiple large bundles of cardboard that would not even fit in my trash can.
Since the recyclers are a private company and are charging me very little, I'm guessing that they are making a profit from the recycled materials.
With the system at my previous location, the recycling generated money for the local high school, so I was happy to help them out.
Environment
So, to summarize, this level of recycling does not cost me any gas or money or a significant amount of time. Plus I get to feel like I am doing my part for the environment to a reasonable degree. I do not consider this minimal civic duty to be onerous at all. It appears to me that the recycling system I participate in is probably a net saver of energy. It's a net plus.
On the other hand, the printing company I used to work for made good bucks recycling paper, ink solvent and used film.
On the other hand, the printing company I used to work for made good bucks recycling paper, ink solvent and used film.
I’m certainly not against recycling for certain things. The only thing I hope people understand is that for every effort taken to do something, energy is used. When people do extra cleaning of recyclables, naturally they use up more water and whatnot. The recycling companies must use energy to pick up and recycle. I guess on a very limited,personal level recycling can be beneficial. But the larger an operation is, the more energy and resources will be used up.
On the ‘new and improved’ garbage trucks with the giant arm? We had them in LA too. And they dumped garbage all over the streets and the drivers never left the cab to pick anything up so if it didn’t fit into the custom sized garbage can which the new trucks could pick up then it didn’t get picked up.
Curiously, in Las Vegas we have teamsters running the local garbage collection but it is only like $12 a month and they pick up twice a week (rain or shine, holiday or not) at the same time and they will take anything they can physically lift. Its wonderful by comparison and the price hasn’t gone up in years. I have no idea how it is so easy here when it is so insanely complicated in California.
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