Posted on 03/04/2003 7:16:56 AM PST by ZGuy
A group of Swedish environmentalists -- convinced that recycling is a colossal waste of time and money -- is urging people to toss their blue boxes in the garbage.
To the chagrin of fellow environmentalists in Canada and across the globe, the group said burning cardboard, plastics and other household trash is actually much better for the planet than any recycling program has turned out to be.
In fact, the group contends the so-called benefits of recycling are all but nullified by the environmental damage associated with hauling the waste to and from the recycling facilities.
Coupled with the overwhelming cost of collecting, sorting and reprocessing the material, the group is convinced that decades-old recycling initiatives are nothing short of a complete failure.
"Protection of the environment can mean economic sacrifices, but to maintain the credibility of environmental politics, the environmental gains must be worth the sacrifice," the consortium wrote in a recent newspaper article.
At the controls of this latest anti-recycling crusade are five residents of Sweden, a country well-known for its trailblazing initiatives aimed at protecting the environment. Made up of environmentalists and waste-collection companies, the team is lead by Valfrid Paulsson, a former director of Sweden's environmental protection agency, and Soren Norrby, the former campaign manager for Keep Sweden Tidy.
Based in a country already full of incinerators, the campaigners say technology has improved so much in recent years that the process is completely clean and safe. It also allows communities to generate significant amounts of electricity, reducing their dependency on oil.
Environmentalists in Canada, however, dismissed any suggestions that recycling is a foundering experiment that should be immediately scrapped.
"I think they're flying a kite," said Guy Dauncey, a Victoria-based author and environmental consultant. "It's nonsense."
For decades, Canada has built very few new garbage incinerators, largely over concerns that they emit harmful substances. Changing that philosophy is definitely not the way to solve any glitches associated with recycling, said Veronica Sherwood, who co-ordinates the Nova Scotia Environment Network, an umbrella organization for the environmental groups in the province.
"Recycling may not be the best choice," she said yesterday. "It burns considerable precious energy and does in fact add to fossil fuel emissions. However, incineration is not an ecologically sound alternative."
Burning recyclables, said Mr. Dauncey, would still entail the same amount of effort as traditional recycling. Simply ensuring that certain toxins do not filter into the air would involve the same level of methodical sorting that occurs now.
And, he said, transportation costs -- both financial and environmental -- would not decrease if incineration replaced recycling.
"You can't put an incinerator in the middle of downtown Toronto," he said.
"So you've still got to haul the stuff to an incinerator."
David Wimberly, a well-known Canadian environmentalist, said the campaigners are doing nothing more than trying to sell a few incinerators.
Either way, other observers said it is time that Canadians -- who produce approximately 21 million tonnes of garbage every year -- more rigorously debate the merits of recycling.
"It's always worth taking a look at the numbers and looking at the reliability and asking: Have we got the mix right now or should we be trying something else," said Donald Dewees, a University of Toronto professor who specializes in environmental economics.
So, how do you achieve that committment? Keep in mind that your choices are limited to:
1) Deceptive public education campaigns,
2) Financial incentives,
3) Financial penalties, or
4) Force.
This is all the government can do. Given this, having them lie to us is the least offensive course they can take.
The commitment is individual. Most folks are so apathetic they don't care to be good stewards of the earth. *I'm not an earth muffin so don't even consider it* I believe in taking care of what I have and taking into consideration ways to lower the level of landfill, while recycling those things that can indeed be recycled. As mentioned before in an earlier post, recycling success varies by area. Our area is successful.
So how do you change the level of individual committment for most folks?
Most places I have been have penalties associated with failure to recycle. These penalties are assessed by the local government. People recycle in order to avoid a fine. The fines make recycling the economically logical choice.
There is no way the economics of recycling justify the number of man hours and the consumption of resources required to make it work. Even the best programs barely cover the direct costs of collection and processing. But what is absent from these costs is the subsidy from the free labor and resources that were extracted from the individual householder through force of law. Add up all that, and recycling is a loser for everybody.
It seems that those who have a small presence in a narrow segment of the industry are creating a different picture on Industrial waste VS. curbside garbage.
I was born and raised in Grand Forks. No one needs to tell me that global warming is a huge lie. We know it already.
Poppycock.
At home you recycle so you don't get a fine.
At work you recycle so your company doesn't get a fine.
Given that you get a fine whenever you fail to recycle, there is a financial incentive to recycle. But it is not a positive incentive.
Some recycling supports itself. Nobody throws away automobiles because they have scrap value. If your company produces a lot of waste that is fairly easy to segregate and collect, then some recycling of certain materials can be a paying proposition.
But I defy you to show me a single instance where the mandated levels of recycling, sorting out all recyclable plastic, tin, aluminum, misc. metals, glass, high-grade paper, and newsprint, makes economic sense absent the threat of fines.
I'm sure some people do it, and they have their reasons. But economics is not one of them.
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