I simply don't care either way. If you want to recycle, do it. If you don't wan't to, fine. I don't, however, think that recycling=righteousness.

 

good call.

 

I have a question: where do plastics go into? We have a bin for papers and a bin for aluminum cans, yet I always get confused about plastics. So I always put them into the aluminum bin. Oh, same for glass bottles.

 

I have a recycling bin next to my trash too... but its tough to lift that sticky dirty green cover up... at the same time while throwing a can inside.. its much easier to lift up the regular trash cover and throw a can in there. Don't ask me why...

 

the only thing the link provided to support your claims was that recycling a ton of paper pulp used 5000 more gallons of water...

it never addressed the pollution savings from all the harvesting and production needs which are decresed when recycling, it also failed to address the amount of energy saved through recycling paper...

however, the (arguably) easiest to recycle is also one of the most efficent: aluminum cans. Even your article supports this: "Scrap aluminum fetches a high price because recycling it consumes so much less energy than manufacturing new aluminum. "

in effect, your basing all of your evidence off of a single fact and then extrapolating it out to apply to ALL recycling.

 

they probably dont recycle plastic or glass.....

itd be better if you didnt put extra "stuff" in the recycling bin because you could be causing them to just throw out the entire bin (if not more) because there is extra material in there.

 

Sometimes it's so much of a pain in the a$$ to do.

I have been calling my city boneheads for weeks trying to get the recycling bin I'm supposed to have. During this time I've saved up about 30 2liter soda bottles. I'm about to throw them the hell out though. As far as I'm concerned, I've done my part. Why this city didn't have a program in place already is beyone me.

 

You should do some homework. Scrap metal recycling has always been worth it. It's metal that already been made into a useable form, lot easier than mining the raw material. However during the reprocessing of aluminum cans the printing on the cans used to release toxins during the process. I would imagine that they have changed to non-toxic dyes. Theres far more information on the negative aspects of recycleing and the tons of pollution the plants have generated over the years. Paper is one of the easiest and most efficent to recycle but ground water contamination is terrible. Plastic is very inefficent to recycle the article shows that plastic takes up a minimum amount of space in a landfill and doesn't release toxins into the enviorment. The reprocessing process of plastic creates the same amount of pollution as createing from a new however your not using new oil(s). You just get to use the material again, so the only benifit is that 20 plastic bags don't take up the same amount of space as 1 paper bag in the landfill. Not to say this is a bad thing and paper will eventually, after several years, start to decay while the plastic will stay there forever but the trade off needs to be questioned. We only need so many plastic benches. You want to do your part don't worry just about recycleing your soda bottles also buy a plastic bench every couple of years.

 

What about plastic decks? They last longer than wood decks and require no maintenance....

I have never seen any of these articles that you are quoting..... i would think if it was environmentally smarter to not recycle, then people would be discouraged from doing it......... but that doesn't seem to be the case.?

 

I didn't say it was smart to not recycle I said you'd be shocked to find out just how inefficent it has been and just how polluting it is now. I havn't seen plastic decking, sounds like a good idea. Some estimate put 80% of the items we send to the recycling plant end up in the landfill because the plants lack the capacity and contamination. I doubt it trully is that high. I doubt the figures of how good recycleing is take into account the pollution made by the process itself and the wasted oil transporting not only the contaminated waste but the refined products themselves.