Posted on 11/06/2018 4:28:15 PM PST by rktman
Last Earth Day, I published a column in the Washington Post on common recycling myths. I received so many comments and emails in response, often asking additional questions, that I wanted to follow up with a new list here at National Geographic.
The recycling industry is changing rapidly, as are advancements in materials science and product design. The field has an increasingly global footprint and is affected by complex forces, from oil prices to national policies and consumer preferences.
As investor Rob Kaplan of Circulate Capital recently told National Geographic, “There's no silver bullet to stop plastic pollution. We're not going to be able to recycle our way out of the problem, and we're not going to be able to reduce our way out of the problem.” We have to pursue both those tracks while seeking new solutions at the same time, Kaplan noted, which is why his firm is raising tens of millions of dollars to invest in new litter cleanup efforts in the developing world.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalgeographic.com ...
2. ERF day?
3. NatGeo?
Well at the very least, they're making me ask for a friggin' straw most place now.
Scam where I live. Blue Barrel coast me 100 bucks a year and you only put the promo stuff in it which they harvest and re-sell.
So I dont do it any longer
Scam where I live. Blue Barrel coast me 100 bucks a year and you only put the promo stuff in it which they harvest and re-sell.
So I dont do it any longer
Some of my neighbors still sort out all the different kinds of glass, cans, paper, etc. I watched the truck years ago and saw they dump it all into one bin. Most of the recyclables aren’t worth the labor to pick up and sort them.
The all to the same place lol.
Truth. The only thing worth recycling is aluminum
Nothing happens to it. I refuse to play their silly game. The city just issued us a large trash bin and large blue bin.
The blue one is stored behind the house. I might use it for leaves this fall
Since plastic is the new environmental evil can we get paper bags back at the grocery store now?
Exactly. Curbside recycling is just a soccer mom feel good scheme. It costs more to process than trash and has zero value. Except aluminum.
I sold my old aluminum siding for $160
I once read a thermodynamics study that showed that recycling was very energy use intensive. Whatever savings one thought one was getting from recycling was being burned by energy use to recycle.
A lot of true believers in recycling.
I ignore it as much as possible.
My brother, who lives 1/4 mile away on same street has 3 bins (paper, cans, and plastics) and is expected to be a slave of the state forced to separate garbage. I refuse to go down that path.
“Formal recycling programs take jobs away from poor trash sorters, so it’s better to just let waste lie where it falls; those in need will pick it up for reuse.” Wow. Just... wow. THIS is what some people worry about with recycling?! Not cost or energy consumption but that? If there was any doubt, now you know: a flamin’ liberal wrote this garbage which, apparently, was recycled from their feelings of eco-guilt.
we visited our local ‘dump’ (a very high tech place with many kinds of equipment ... how times have changed in the dump business, ha!)
and they do separate and apparently recycle tons of stuff
including metals (mostly sent to Communist China or Japan for re-manufacturing into consumer products that those countries then sell back to USA), plastics, paper products, and much more.
it appears that just about the only thing left over after they recycle is the cat’s meow
I refuse to be an unpaid trash sorter.
My brothers construction company spent six months on a job at the City of Tucson landfill. My brother told me that the “recycling “ trucks dumped their loads in with the rest of the trash and it was buried.
In the Coeur d’Alene, ID area, the garbage company was PAID $40 per ton for recycled material up until two or three years ago. Now they are having to PAY $10 per ton to get the stuff hauled away. The Asian markets for recycled materials have collapsed.
I also refuse to empty my cart at the grocery store checkout counter. And I refuse to have to swipe my own credit card through the reader. And I refuse to do self-checkout. All those things are THEIR job.
It’s funny, though. When I refuse to do THEIR job for them, they don’t care. They say “take your business elsewhere.”
For a “service economy,” there sure isn’t much service provided.
If recycling made economic sense, there would be companies bidding for my garbage.
Yes!
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