Recycling not inherently virtuous
So check out the stats before you toss that paper in the recycling bin
Michael Mayday
Issue date: 4/24/08 Section: Opinion
The environmental goody-two-shoes have lied to us. Our entire lives they've told us that recycling is an all around good. But when it's put under scrutiny the golden calf of the environmentalist movement reveals itself as merely fool's gold. Because the process of recycling requires more energy and resources than it conserves.
It's not too shocking when you think about it. Let's choose a recyclable almost at random: paper.
It all begins with you, Joe Whoever, putting paper in its proper bin. Then a man in a recycling truck pulls up and takes the paper. He takes your paper to the garbage/recycling center. Then another man in another truck pulls up and relieves the former man of the paper. He then takes that paper to a lumber mill or recycling plant. There, more workers sort and store it. When the time comes, a man in a forklift takes the proper paper over to a conveyor belt and dumps it into a large vat of chemicals that heats it. It becomes pulp, and the plant then screens the pulp for bits and pieces and washes it of ink. Then, when it's squeaky clean, the recycling plant refines it and mixes it with water and chemicals. Finally, machines spray the muck into a sheet, reheating it, and drying it to make semi-new paper.
All of this takes more time, money, energy, and resources than just making raw paper. And all of this takes place to preserve a resource that grows out of the ground. In fact, we farm it.
So how did this get started?
The madness of the recycling movement took hold during the spring of 1987, when the Mobro 4000, a garbage barge, traveled up and down the east cost of North America looking for a place to unload over 3,000 tons of New York City trash. Reasonably, people didn't accept the trash. And because no one would take it, the panicking media, like the New York Times, determined that we're running out of landfills. Obviously not.
Because a curious little report by Dr. Daniel K. Benjamin, of Clemson University, says differently. In a myth-destroying article, published in Environment News, he claims we have, "18 years worth of landfill capacity nationwide - even if no other landfills are built." Dr. Benjamin occasionally writes for The Heartland Institute, a non-profit organization aiming to debunk and expose junk science.
And for those who wish for someone a little closer to home we've got Assistant Professor of Economics Charles Steele saying, "The idea that all recycling is inherently 'good for the environment' is obviously wrong: e.g. burning $1 of gasoline to recycle $0.02 of glass and newsprint makes no sense from a resource standpoint, but people do it simply because it makes them feel good."
If ignorance is bliss, then we're in heaven.
However, not all recycling is a waste. Aluminum cans are actually easier to recycle than to make. But easy to recycle products remain the exception, not the rule. When the process for recycling paper, plastic and grass is cheaper, and hence needing fewer resources, then we should recycle without worry. But that's simply not the case.
"Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America: A waste of time and money, a waste of human and natural resources." These aren't my words; they belong to John Tierney, a reporter for the New York Times.
Environmental concerns have unified people across the world toward a common and what's thought to be a positive cause. Unfortunately too many of us don't take the time to question why we do the things we do. We should love our planet, but we all should take care not to smother the earth with our love for it.
For more info about the recycling process, click here.
It's not too shocking when you think about it. Let's choose a recyclable almost at random: paper.
It all begins with you, Joe Whoever, putting paper in its proper bin. Then a man in a recycling truck pulls up and takes the paper. He takes your paper to the garbage/recycling center. Then another man in another truck pulls up and relieves the former man of the paper. He then takes that paper to a lumber mill or recycling plant. There, more workers sort and store it. When the time comes, a man in a forklift takes the proper paper over to a conveyor belt and dumps it into a large vat of chemicals that heats it. It becomes pulp, and the plant then screens the pulp for bits and pieces and washes it of ink. Then, when it's squeaky clean, the recycling plant refines it and mixes it with water and chemicals. Finally, machines spray the muck into a sheet, reheating it, and drying it to make semi-new paper.
All of this takes more time, money, energy, and resources than just making raw paper. And all of this takes place to preserve a resource that grows out of the ground. In fact, we farm it.
So how did this get started?
The madness of the recycling movement took hold during the spring of 1987, when the Mobro 4000, a garbage barge, traveled up and down the east cost of North America looking for a place to unload over 3,000 tons of New York City trash. Reasonably, people didn't accept the trash. And because no one would take it, the panicking media, like the New York Times, determined that we're running out of landfills. Obviously not.
Because a curious little report by Dr. Daniel K. Benjamin, of Clemson University, says differently. In a myth-destroying article, published in Environment News, he claims we have, "18 years worth of landfill capacity nationwide - even if no other landfills are built." Dr. Benjamin occasionally writes for The Heartland Institute, a non-profit organization aiming to debunk and expose junk science.
And for those who wish for someone a little closer to home we've got Assistant Professor of Economics Charles Steele saying, "The idea that all recycling is inherently 'good for the environment' is obviously wrong: e.g. burning $1 of gasoline to recycle $0.02 of glass and newsprint makes no sense from a resource standpoint, but people do it simply because it makes them feel good."
If ignorance is bliss, then we're in heaven.
However, not all recycling is a waste. Aluminum cans are actually easier to recycle than to make. But easy to recycle products remain the exception, not the rule. When the process for recycling paper, plastic and grass is cheaper, and hence needing fewer resources, then we should recycle without worry. But that's simply not the case.
"Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America: A waste of time and money, a waste of human and natural resources." These aren't my words; they belong to John Tierney, a reporter for the New York Times.
Environmental concerns have unified people across the world toward a common and what's thought to be a positive cause. Unfortunately too many of us don't take the time to question why we do the things we do. We should love our planet, but we all should take care not to smother the earth with our love for it.
For more info about the recycling process, click here.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Michael Smith
posted 5/21/08 @ 5:52 PM EST
Fascinating thoughts. Does this mean I should throw my old papers in the trash as opposed to putting them in the paper recycling container?
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