Quote:
Originally Posted by Bacchanal
They covered recycling in another episode of Bullshit. Basically what they said (that I remember) is that outside of aluminum, recycling actually harms the environment more than helps. Driving to pick up the recycling and take it to the plant releases pollutants, the plant itself releases pollutants and uses energy and leaves behind excess chemicals.
I don't know all about it, but I don't recycle either...
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Largely it depends on what part of the country you are in. My SO is a student in environmental engineering/chemical engineering, and he took a class on polymers (plastics) not too long ago; one of the big things they looked at is recycling plastics. Recycling plastics isn't always cost-effective; they're expensive to reprocess into new plastics, but at least if they are recycled (truly recycled) they aren't taking up precious landfill space. But more often than not that isn't what happens; in our area, plastics put in the comingled bin that the garbage collector picks up are sorted out and shipped to China. That is all the garbage company will say on the matter; they don't imply that those plastics are actually being recycled. In fact, it's much more likely that they're being burned to power something.
It's an easy matter to call up your garbage collector and ASK them what happens to your recycling, though, and it's also not hard to find alternative recyclers who do actually recycle plastics. We recycle our plastics through the hippie food co-op recycling center, because they take the plastics to a more local company where they are reprocessed.
To me, environmentalism is more than a fad; I've been one since I was a kid and my mother bought me a book called "50 Ways Kids Can Save the Planet." Of course, it seems that out here in the PacNW it's more of a way of life; I honestly feel like the rest of the world is just starting to catch up with stuff we've been doing for a long time. For instance, Cyn recently posted about an article in the NYTimes in regards to front-yard vegetable gardens. In my community, those are very common, and have been for a long time. Furthermore, a lot of what I do just makes simple economic sense. It's cheaper to buy locally-grown organic produce at the farmer's market than it is to buy factory-farmed vegetables, and it makes more health sense too. It's cheaper--free--to ride my bicycle everywhere instead of driving. I also live in a bottle bill state--each can or bottle is worth a nickel. Would you throw a nickel away?
But I'm not going overboard with this green nonsense. I'm just doing what I've always done--reduce, reuse, recycle. Next summer I'm going to plant a vegetable garden, because it makes economic sense, and I love gardening.