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Recycling Is Evil

by thunderbird
15 replies
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The concept of recycling is great. After all, the idea of reusing junk instead of wasting it and dumping it in landfills is nice and all. However, the forms recycling takes often involves exposing people to an array of highly toxic pollutants:

#recycling ewaste
  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    When the recycling mills and plants are run state of the art - they are fairly safe. Those going up in the US are usually of a state that makes them not only safe, but energy savers in ways that are incredible when compared to producing "new".

    With about 4 precious metals being endangered - with much more above ground now than remains in the ground - we don't have much choice but to start recycling in earnest.

    People should make sure, though, that they are recycling to centers which process metals within the US - not only because many of the processors overseas are not equipped to do so safely, but to keep those metals in the US.
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    Sal
    When the Roads and Paths end, learn to guide yourself through the wilderness
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  • Profile picture of the author chlmortgagebankers99
    i don't think so.. its reasonable though and earth friendly !
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by chlmortgagebankers99 View Post

      i don't think so.. its reasonable though and earth friendly !
      Did you watch the video?
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    The fun part is that lots places will start up recycling programs, make it mandatory to recycle, and then discover their recycling plant is costing them more money than it's making them.

    So instead of actually recycling, some area are sorting and separating and cataloging all this trash... then dropping it right in the same landfill where it was going anyway.

    Post-consumer recycling may be earth-friendly, but it sure as hell isn't cheap, and it doesn't exactly produce the high-quality materials we demand in new products. So while there's a great deal of stuff we could conceivably recycle... the demand for recycled goods just isn't anywhere near high enough to use it all.
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    "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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    • Profile picture of the author HeySal
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      The fun part is that lots places will start up recycling programs, make it mandatory to recycle, and then discover their recycling plant is costing them more money than it's making them.

      So instead of actually recycling, some area are sorting and separating and cataloging all this trash... then dropping it right in the same landfill where it was going anyway.

      Post-consumer recycling may be earth-friendly, but it sure as hell isn't cheap, and it doesn't exactly produce the high-quality materials we demand in new products. So while there's a great deal of stuff we could conceivably recycle... the demand for recycled goods just isn't anywhere near high enough to use it all.
      CD - that's not the true situation. I don't have the stats any more but recycling, when done right - and the US is........saves energy, money, fossil fuel, water, and it gets back resources, some of which are endangered in as soon as 10 years. Others we can stretch for the better part of the century, but we're running low on precious metals........um......scarcity........that's what made the crap "precious" in the first place.

      China is a swill pit in the first place........
      My apologies if you are Chinese and reading this. I am not talking about the people, I'm talking about the pollution levels and the toxic crap your government is allowing to go on. America is real guilty of that, too - but we're going in the right direction on some things. Recycling is one of them.

      Recycling also means that we buy products from countries who produce things with their own native metals and we recycle them over here, keep the metals in our own economy. Its one of the smartest moves our government has ever made at a time that there isn't much of some stuff left in the ground - it's all up here. Send us your cell phones, computers, etc - we'll corner the market on precious metals when the last mine closes.
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      Sal
      When the Roads and Paths end, learn to guide yourself through the wilderness
      Beyond the Path

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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by HeySal View Post

        CD - that's not the true situation.
        So your response to the lack of uses for and interest in post-consumer recycled goods is that... we do a pretty good job recycling metals?

        How does that excuse the bales of sorted plastic in landfills? Why didn't we just let people throw it away?
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        "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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        • Profile picture of the author HeySal
          Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

          So your response to the lack of uses for and interest in post-consumer recycled goods is that... we do a pretty good job recycling metals?

          How does that excuse the bales of sorted plastic in landfills? Why didn't we just let people throw it away?
          What is the lack of use, CD? We can use anything recycled. If there are bales of sorted plastics in landfills that aren't being recycled, that is NOT a good thing. Why that would happen is not something I have looked into. It's true we aren't doing nearly enough recycling - we are just making plants that are not emitting much toxins. I didn't say there were enough of them. I would actually like to see them take those bales of plastic and blast them into space and allow us to get rid of at least a state size wad of that toxic crap. I hate plastic.

          What I was saying is that our recycling plants are constructed well and we don't have the toxic output from them that some countries are experiencing. Europe is cleaning up their recycling plants, so is the US and a few other countries. A few countries just don't give a crap in the long run about what hurts their people. Since waste eventually effects us all, we should be concerned even if we're not right downwind from a plant. Same with kilns. Europe and the US are working to curb kiln emissions yet some countries are just dead determined to continue to crank out the mercury pollution. So our shorelines and fish are cleaner - but where's the fish in your frying pan from? Off the coast of China? Freaking yum.

          As far as plastic goes - That crap is so lethal that there's not much of a good excuse to be manufacturing as much as we are it in the first place. Japan is now developing a "plastic" made from water that will be close to non-toxic and completely bio-degradable (but not rapidly deteriorating). So waste from that will just eventually melt and be gone instead of piling up and continuing to emit toxic fumes like oil based plastics do.

          Hemp bags instead of plastic - bamboo product shells instead of plastic. Glass or metal beverage containers instead of plastic -- think how much cleaner this planet would be just from that much decline in plastic production.
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          Sal
          When the Roads and Paths end, learn to guide yourself through the wilderness
          Beyond the Path

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          • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
            Originally Posted by HeySal View Post

            What is the lack of use, CD? We can use anything recycled.
            Well, yes. But look at plastic soda bottles.

            Because they're plastic, they cost less to manufacture and ship, as opposed to glass. Glass may just be sand, but it's heavy, and the production of glass bottles is more hazardous.

            The plastic from a soda bottle gets rinsed out and recycled, of course, but this particular variety of plastic is odour-absorbent. It can only be used once for food purposes, because when you recycle it, you have to heat it to the point where it starts to decompose - to get rid of the odour.

            And then it's not stable or strong enough to be used for another plastic bottle. It can only be used in film form. So we can make, basically, shopping bags and bubble wrap out of it.

            Now, the alternative - of course - is to bottle the soda in something else! Something else which is more expensive, heavier, and probably more dangerous to produce.

            But what do you care? You probably don't drink soda anyway.
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            "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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            • Profile picture of the author HeySal
              Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

              Well, yes. But look at plastic soda bottles.

              Because they're plastic, they cost less to manufacture and ship, as opposed to glass. Glass may just be sand, but it's heavy, and the production of glass bottles is more hazardous.

              The plastic from a soda bottle gets rinsed out and recycled, of course, but this particular variety of plastic is odour-absorbent. It can only be used once for food purposes, because when you recycle it, you have to heat it to the point where it starts to decompose - to get rid of the odour.

              And then it's not stable or strong enough to be used for another plastic bottle. It can only be used in film form. So we can make, basically, shopping bags and bubble wrap out of it.

              Now, the alternative - of course - is to bottle the soda in something else! Something else which is more expensive, heavier, and probably more dangerous to produce.

              But what do you care? You probably don't drink soda anyway.
              LOL - you're straight I don't drink it. I have better things to do than produce a physiological meltdown - can't afford that kind of medical bills. There are a few that I do drink once or twice a year though - and I drink it from cans or glass bottles. I think the expense of using other spendier containers far overrides the destruction the plastic does to our environment and the toxic fumes produced from plastic. That's leaving out the fact that plastic leeches more poison into the crap they are drinking.

              People are also more likely to recycle cans and glass than plastic, which just gets dumped and piles up on roadsides, in fields, at campsites, and in waterways. I know you don't get around that much, but I go into the wilderness a lot and you would not believe how far out into nowhere you have to get to get beyond dumped plastic.

              At some point of time it is really best to stop worrying about convenience and go for the least toxic methods of production.
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              Sal
              When the Roads and Paths end, learn to guide yourself through the wilderness
              Beyond the Path

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        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

          Why didn't we just let people throw it away?
          Because recycling has become a mantra, a sacred cow. Doesn't matter that there are cases where it's safer, cheaper and more environmentally-friendly to produce stuff new than it is to do so through recycling.

          One day, we'll have the ultimate in recycling. Matter to energy converters. Then, we can just beam up the landfills and problem solved.
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  • Profile picture of the author King Shiloh
    Banned
    Recycling? Evil?

    Hmm...My computer's recycle bin is an exception.
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by King Shiloh View Post

      Recycling? Evil?

      Hmm...My computer's recycle bin is an exception.
      Noxious and toxic e-waste recycling takes place in Nigeria too. It is extremely bad for human health and the environment. Can you see YouTube from your side? I ask because it is blocked in some countries.

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  • Profile picture of the author alvinarnold
    It's good to see that Brogondy Griddleface takes recycling so seriously she's decided to ressurect other people's ideas. Of course it would be churlish to suggest that her article reads like something she chewed over with a few dozen pints of White Lightening and a kebab before regurgitating it on the page. But it does.
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  • Profile picture of the author TheGrooby
    Watch Penn & Teller's Bull**** Show on recycling and you will realize what a joke recycling really is.
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