No, Recycling Will Not Save the Environment

[Kamaji]

No, Recycling Will Not Save the Environment

Despite what you may have heard, many "recyclables" sent to recycling plants are never recycled at all.

JOHN STOSSEL
1.18.2023

For decades, we've been told: recycle!

"If we're not using recycled paper, we're cutting down more trees!" says Lynn Hoffman, co-president of Eureka Recycling.

Recycling paper (or cardboard) does save trees. Recycling aluminum does save energy. But that's about it.

The ugly truth is that many "recyclables" sent to recycling plants are never recycled. The worst is plastic.

Even Greenpeace now says, "Plastic recycling is a dead-end street."

Hoffman often trucks it to a landfill.

*  *  *

Source:  https://reason.com/2023/01/18/no-recycling-will-not-save-the-environment/

[DefiantMassRINO]

"Recycling" is usually dumping the stuff in some $h!th0l3 country on the other side of the world.

[Bigun]

Recycling paper is FAR more expensive than producing it from trees which grow like grass in many parts of the world.

[roamer_1]

Recycling paper is FAR more expensive than producing it from trees which grow like grass in many parts of the world.

That's right..

[roamer_1]

What bugs me is glass. the ultimate in recyclable... and they mostly got rid of it.

[Smokin Joe]

Recycling paper is FAR more expensive than producing it from trees which grow like grass in many parts of the world.

The paper industry has whole forests of trees planted and harvested for the purpose of making paper. They're a crop.
Most metals are recyclable, glass, too, but that's about where it ends.

[Smokin Joe]

"Recycling" is usually dumping the stuff in some $h!th0l3 country on the other side of the world.

Or trucking it out to some place that's outvoted by the city folks, and burying it there.

[Bigun]

The paper industry has whole forests of trees planted and harvested for the purpose of making paper. They're a crop.
Most metals are recyclable, glass, too, but that's about where it ends.

  And this has been known for ages. Until we started ignoring economics for political purposes.

[berdie]

What bugs me is glass. the ultimate in recyclable... and they mostly got rid of it.

That's always been a curiosity to me as well.

I saw a special not long ago about recycling. The recycling of plastic and how cost ineffective it is. Given some incentives, I think glass recycling could catch on. Sort of like when we used to return coke bottles to get the deposit. It would be as cheap, and possibly cheaper.

[Kamaji]

What bugs me is glass. the ultimate in recyclable... and they mostly got rid of it.

I believe "they" got rid of glass because it was so much heavier than the plastic that replaced it, and thus increased shipping and delivery costs.

The part that I don't get is the fast-food restaurants moving from waxed paper cups to plastic cups.  The waxed paper cups were more than serviceable, and degraded on their own.  The plastic replacements don't, and the shipping costs for waxed paper cannot be so much greater than for plastic cups as to make it cost-effective overall.

My favorite, though, is the single-use paper straw that comes wrapped in plastic.

[roamer_1]

That's always been a curiosity to me as well.

I saw a special not long ago about recycling. The recycling of plastic and how cost ineffective it is. Given some incentives, I think glass recycling could catch on. Sort of like when we used to return coke bottles to get the deposit. It would be as cheap, and possibly cheaper.

Shoot, glass is just reusable, nearly infinitely. Pick any country home, and I will bet you they still have grandma's mason jars in use. Crocks pass down through generations too.

I STILL take my sweet tea in a Mason jar, every day. Still store it in the fridge in a typical gallon glass jug, just like we always put our milk in. That jug is likely my mother's or maybe even my grandmother's. Glass goes on forever if you care for it.

[Bigun]

Shoot, glass is just reusable, nearly infinitely. Pick any country home, and I will bet you they still have grandma's mason jars in use. Crocks pass down through generations too.

I STILL take my sweet tea in a Mason jar, every day. Still store it in the fridge in a typical gallon glass jug, just like we always put our milk in. That jug is likely my mother's or maybe even my grandmother's. Glass goes on forever if you care for it.

I think you have identified the problem @roamer_1  (Having to replace only what gets broken or lost)

Same deal with cloth baby diapers.

[roamer_1]

I believe "they" got rid of glass because it was so much heavier than the plastic that replaced it, and thus increased shipping and delivery costs.

The part that I don't get is the fast-food restaurants moving from waxed paper cups to plastic cups.  The waxed paper cups were more than serviceable, and degraded on their own.  The plastic replacements don't, and the shipping costs for waxed paper cannot be so much greater than for plastic cups as to make it cost-effective overall.

My favorite, though, is the single-use paper straw that comes wrapped in plastic.

Right... but the jar was ultimately reuseable - I can't even begin to tell you how many mayo jars we have laying around.  Pickle jars... If folks didn't have the money for canning jars, them store-bought jars would take a canning lid. Jam jars, olive jars, all of them found use and weren't thrown out.

That residual use is worth paying a bit more for shipping. Even now... we bottle beef tallow in them peach jars from over at the Costco. Great jar for it, and they seal and reseal alright.

[roamer_1]

I think you have identified the problem @roamer_1  (Having to replace only what gets broken or lost)

Same deal with cloth baby diapers.

That's right... And as a father of 3 of 4 babies that had cloth diapers, I can witness... I STILL have wore out diapers out in the shop that work great for absorbent shop rags. I will never run out, and I ain't had a baby in diapers in over 20 years.

Of course, once they hit the rag bin, they are on their last leg... Except that once you use em to sop up an oil spill, they work a treat to start a fire in the wood stove.

Use it up
Wear it out
Make it do
Or do without.
 

[Kamaji]

Right... but the jar was ultimately reuseable - I can't even begin to tell you how many mayo jars we have laying around.  Pickle jars... If folks didn't have the money for canning jars, them store-bought jars would take a canning lid. Jam jars, olive jars, all of them found use and weren't thrown out.

That residual use is worth paying a bit more for shipping. Even now... we bottle beef tallow in them peach jars from over at the Costco. Great jar for it, and they seal and reseal alright.

I agree that the jar has a lot of use above and beyond just transporting the goods being sold in it the first time; but the value of that secondary use isn't sufficiently captured by the initial producer, and so all they see is price pressure from competitors who go to plastic.

Some products are still sold in glass containers - pasta sauce and pickles, for example - however, not a lot of people keep those old pasta jars and pickle jars any more, so they either have to be recycled, or they go into the landfill.

[roamer_1]

Some products are still sold in glass containers - pasta sauce and pickles, for example - however, not a lot of people keep those old pasta jars and pickle jars any more, so they either have to be recycled, or they go into the landfill.

I do... I guess it is in how you're raised. 

I buy my pickles from Wallyworld on purpose.... They are a tall/thin 1/2 gallon jug that is PERFECT for dry storage in the cupboards. All my pasta, all my rice, All my beans are in them jugs in my cupboards... Now, that's for working with - all that is in bigger cans in the pantry, but even in the pantry there is plenty that gets into them tall jars.