Because in so many cases the pollution generated by trucks carrying recyclables all over the place negates any possible ecological advantage from recycling.
I think the benefit goes beyond the truck polution. Less refining is required and more of the produced resources are re-used in some cases producing revenues used to assist more responsible and environmentally sound land fill operations. It also reduces the vast volumes and acumulation of irreversable waste.
The problem is that natural resources are initially processed near where they are harvested or extracted, not where their end use products are consumed. So recyclables have to be transported back to that point--where manufacturing started. If distance were not an issue, recycling would make perfect sense for many materials.
For certain products such as discarded automotive glass, remanufacturing is not an option because of the cost to delaminate the layers that compose automotive glass.
Anyway...the thread asks why people make arguments against recycling. I provided a response to that answer.
When we lived in Florida the entire county received a grant to start a household recycle program. Trucks were purchased, bins delivered and most everyone did their recycle thing. Separated the paper, glass, metal and put it out every week.
After a few years of this one of the local news stations got a tip and went to the county landfill. Sure enough, there were all those expensive recycle trucks with separate bins for paper, glass, and metal dumping it with the rest of the garbage trucks.
When the officials were asked WTF? They responded the dump was closer than the recycle center and fuel prices made it a losing situation. But of course, they didn't stop driving to every home in the area and paying 2-3 people per truck.
So might be of some interest to find out what happens to all the recycle that is picked up in your city, especially if you can look at the accounting records to see if it costs more than it saves.
I bought a bottle of seltzer water last night and the guy behind the counter started telling me how much the 5 cent deposit sucks.
I said, I did not mind too much and that I actually save a lot of money by recycling since most of my trash is recyclable.
He got ticked off and started telling me why recycling does not work and how we are headed towards the nightmare of Japan style recycling. Conversation over ....
Little idiotic discussions like this happen all the time. People have chips on their shoulder on trivial matters which are no concern of theirs.
Some people are just stupid, where I am we have a huge recycling program and a few cities north of me actually use the methane from the dumps to power almost the entire dump.
The recycling industry generates jobs and does a neater job of waste management. Different effort, with different results.
For certain products such as discarded automotive glass, remanufacturing is not an option because of the cost to delaminate the layers that compose automotive glass.
Anyway...the thread asks why people make arguments against recycling. I provided a response to that answer.
After a few years of this one of the local news stations got a tip and went to the county landfill. Sure enough, there were all those expensive recycle trucks with separate bins for paper, glass, and metal dumping it with the rest of the garbage trucks.
When the officials were asked WTF? They responded the dump was closer than the recycle center and fuel prices made it a losing situation. But of course, they didn't stop driving to every home in the area and paying 2-3 people per truck.
So might be of some interest to find out what happens to all the recycle that is picked up in your city, especially if you can look at the accounting records to see if it costs more than it saves.
It is cheaper for me as an individual to recycle, and that has been something I have appreciated for a while.
I did business with the people who do the recycling in my town a while back. I believe it actually happens. They located themselves right.
I said, I did not mind too much and that I actually save a lot of money by recycling since most of my trash is recyclable.
He got ticked off and started telling me why recycling does not work and how we are headed towards the nightmare of Japan style recycling. Conversation over ....
Little idiotic discussions like this happen all the time. People have chips on their shoulder on trivial matters which are no concern of theirs.
All I know is that most of my trash is recyclable and it saves me a lot of cash to recycle it.