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Recycling, like most pro environment action items are about appearing to be green. No one actually cares if they are green or not, they just need to look like they are to others.
I don't think that's true at all. We compost probably 70% of our trash plus all of our grass clippings and leaves. We don't do it to 'look green' we do it because it's easy and saves us from paying for soil amendments and potting soil.
In the old days when we had a city dump, a couple of guys made a living hauling scrap metal out of it. When the government got involved, they made it illegal.
no, actually the private companies who run about 80% of trash hauling services made it illegal.
Recycling, like most pro environment action items are about appearing to be green. No one actually cares if they are green or not, they just need to look like they are to others.
Not at all. I prefer to recycle. I don't pay any attention to who on my cul de sac recycles, other than to be reminded if it's the week to recycle plastics and glass.
Where to put the all garbage is a very different thing on the Eastern seaboard from Boston MA to Northern Virginia where 75 million people are packed into a strip of land 100 miles wide and about 350 miles long . We have filled up all the places locally with all the garbage they can handle. Our air quality is bad even before you add the emissions from any incinerators and their ash is a toxic material requiring expensive special land fills. New York City had to quit barging out into the Atlantic for dumping since it was beginning to wash up on beaches from Cape May NJ to Cape Cod MA!
NYC's last dump on Staten Island (The Fresh Kills Bay (yes they sacrificed a a bay) ) will be filled up by the 2020s. We are now shipping it to the Appalachian coal fields were there are many abandoned coal mine for disposal. Some of the garbage is even being sent to Southern Illinois for disposal by the same method. The issue of garbage always brings to mind Pete Seeger's little song called "Garbage".
I read somewhere that recycling is actually worse for the environment because the processes involved to break down the plastic, paper, and glass pollute more than just making new products.
I will admit that this is one that I blindly followed since it was ingrained in us since we were kids. Can you find what you read that shows that it's actually not beneficial, environmentally, to recycle? I'm very interested in reading it.
There is other things to consider here, glass for example. It's relatively cheap to make and the resources are overly abundant to make new glass. There is an energy expense you are using to recycle. If for example if it has to travel long distance to glass recycling facility, it does it not make economic sense and it doesn't make environmental sense either.
Locally my private garbage hauler takes the recyclables for free, single stream. They are obviously getting paid for it by the recycler, the metal, paper and plastics are going to have value. The rest of it, not so much.
I will admit that this is one that I blindly followed since it was ingrained in us since we were kids. Can you find what you read that shows that it's actually not beneficial, environmentally, to recycle? I'm very interested in reading it.
You can start with the article in the OP (from the New York Times). Here is the link again, so you don't have to look for it:
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