“The Recycling Religion“, Consumer Recycling Has Failed, How Do We Get out?

[Ingomike]

How does society change an indoctrination?


“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."

"If you think of the United States as a football field," says Tierney, "all the garbage that we will generate in the next 1,000 years would fit inside a tiny fraction of the one-inch line."

“Putting garbage in landfills is often much cheaper than recycling. My town would save $340 million a year if it just stopped recycling.”

“But they won't, "because people demand it," says Tierney. "It's a sacrament of the green religion."

The Recycling Religion

townhall.com

 

[Michigan Slim]

Burn it for energy. The technology is here for it.

 

[Keith_Indy]

The government needs to stop funding this non-sense. Good luck with that.

If the country were a business, we'd measure the success of government law/regulation/actions versus the cost and adjust as we go.

I'm certain the Founders of our country were thinking along that line, but that intent was subverted long ago.

 

[Keith_Indy]

Burn it for energy. The technology is here for it.

Yup https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biomass/waste-to-energy-in-depth.php

Nukes, biomass, geothermal are safer, more reliable and proven than wind and solar.

 

[foszoe]

How does society change an indoctrination?


“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."

"If you think of the United States as a football field," says Tierney, "all the garbage that we will generate in the next 1,000 years would fit inside a tiny fraction of the one-inch line."

“Putting garbage in landfills is often much cheaper than recycling. My town would save $340 million a year if it just stopped recycling.”

“But they won't, "because people demand it," says Tierney. "It's a sacrament of the green religion."

The Recycling Religion

townhall.com

If people demand it then they are the ones paying for it?

Put up a town referendum. If it passes the people decided

 

[Ingomike]

If people demand it then they are the ones paying for it?

Put up a town referendum. If it passes the people decided

I mark you down as good with pure democracy and its majority tax theft…

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Good luck. The plastics manufacturers put a lot of time and money into convincing us that plastic is recyclable and therefore good for us. The undeniable fact it isn't has been floated for decades and from multiple sources. I read "The Skeptical Environmentalist" roughly 25 years ago and the author talked about this very thing back then. How plastic bottles are made up of different types of plastics (the bottle, the label, the cap) and they can't be recycled without separating them, which nobody does, etc.

I'm in agreement with you. I think absent legislation banning single use plastics there is no realistic route to overcoming how ingrained the idea that recycling is good. It's honestly one of the best and most successful marketing campaigns in history and people *want* to believe it because it lets the feel good about something that's super low effort.

 

[foszoe]

I mark you down as good with pure democracy and its majority tax theft…

Nah. Can always move out of that HOA, the true bane of a free society.

Live in the country side.

Be free. Burn it. What little is left over, throw it in the Walmart dumpster.

 

[HoughMade]

Single use plastic (in the U.S.) are not a problem and there is no landfill emergency...or even problem.

 

[Ark]

Bring back glass bottles?

I'm a lot more worried about microplastic pollution than plastic bags in landfills. It's unfortunate that recycling hasn't panned out, but what's important is keeping plastic out of waterways and the environment in general. Bans are dumb but people need to stop hucking plastic crap out car windows or into the ocean.

Pay people to bring it in and burn for energy.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

One of the goals of my manufacturer is to be “landfill free”. As long as there are political points to be made (ESG), these companies will keep pushing this stuff. I just throw mine in the trash.

 

[littletommy]

I recycle anything I can get money out of. I take it to the recycling place near me. Metal is king. Plastic goes in the counties “mandatory” recycling bin, so does the small amount of glass we throw away, and that’s about it. If I don’t scrap it, and make a few bucks off it, it goes in the firepit. I will not put anything in the.gov bin that they can make money on, even though I know I’m paying for the BS.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Bring back glass bottles?

I've sometimes wondered if that's better or worse. Glass is heavier, so how much extra energy would be used to transport? Would breakage exceed plastic? Washing and reusing glass would seem to be much more efficient than making new plastic constantly, but I don't really know if that's the case or not. My gut instinct is glass is better, but I really don't have any data to back that up.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I've sometimes wondered if that's better or worse. Glass is heavier, so how much extra energy would be used to transport? Would breakage exceed plastic? Washing and reusing glass would seem to be much more efficient than making new plastic constantly, but I don't really know if that's the case or not. My gut instinct is glass is better, but I really don't have any data to back that up.

I still remember having to take our glass pop bottles back to the grocery store for the deposit, and taking longneck beer bottles back to the liquor or grocery store for the deposit. There's something to be said for that. Michigan used to have deposits on aluminum cans (they might still). There was considerably less litter in the form of aluminum cans on their roads back in the late 70's when I was there.

I often have to go out to the cart corrals at Kroger to bring in a cart to use because the homeless people keep stealing them or taking them off the property. I don't have that problem at Aldi where I have to put a quarter in to get a cart unlocked from their one and only cart corral. That's the way to go IMHO.

 

[Knight Rider]

Lumberjacks and miners need jobs too. I’m so happy to live in a county that doesn’t hassle me about burning.

Elkhart recently closed multiple recycling drop points due to them just being a giant trash dump.

 

[ancjr]

The ego boost from spending other people's money on destructive nonsense is still worth it to them.

 

[Expat]

We recently went to mandatory curbside recycling. In a subsequent flyer, they mentioned the problem with plastics... there are so many kinds, many they can't recycle but they are all mixed in together. So I don't know what they are going to do.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Living out in the country, we don’t have curbside anything. We have to take our trash off to one of the county’s solid waste collection sites. The only thing I will recycle is cardboard. EVERYTHING else goes into a black plastic bag and into the compactor. They have spots for cans and plastic but I get money for my cans.

 

[LeftyGunner]

I really feel like we are Going the wrong way with consumer packaging.

My wife keeps our laundry detergent in a glass dispenser jar-thingy on the shelf above the washer. She says it allows her to buy the detergent in “low-waste“ bladder packs, and it looks better than the ugly plastic jugs we used to buy.

Sounds good…except the bladder packs are plastic, they are individually packaged in a plastic box, and then the boxes bulk-packed on a heavy plastic tray…and that’s before Amazon puts the tray in a box with a bunch of inflated plastic bags for me to deal with upon arrival.

When I was really little I remember mom taking a can with her to the butcher, and he filled it and charged her a dollar or two. Growing up, I always thought that can was butter, but looking back I think it must have been tallow...I was really little.

It would be both convenient and low-waste if I could buy my detergent the way mom bought…whatever was in that can.

 

[Ingomike]

When I was really little I remember mom taking a can with her to the butcher, and he filled it and charged her a dollar or two. Growing up, I always thought that can was butter, but looking back I think it must have been tallow...I was really little.

Did she make lye soap?