Random Nuclear Strikes

MYTH 7: RECYCLING SAVES RESOURCES

It is widely claimed that recycling “saves resources.” Proponents usually focus on savings of a specific resource, or they single out particularly successful examples such as the recycling of aluminum cans.

But using less of one resource generally means using more of other resources. Franklin Associates, a firm that consults on behalf of the EPA, has compared the costs per ton of handling rubbish through three methods: disposal into landfills (but with a voluntary drop-off or buy-back recycling program), a baseline curbside recycling program, and an extensive curbside recycling program.

On average, extensive recycling is 35 percent more costly than conventional disposal, and basic curbside recycling is 55 percent more costly than conventional disposal. That is, curbside recycling uses far more resources. As one expert puts it, adding curbside recycling is “like moving from once-a-week garbage collection to twice a week”.

Since I covered the costs to pick up recyclables at the curbside yesterday, I’d like to zoom in on the eco-socialists’ focus on the recycling of aluminum cans.

To gather the aluminum to make an aluminum can, you have to mine, haul, smelt, haul, refine and then manufacture before you can fill it. To do the same thing with a recycled can, you can cut out the mining part, saving approximately 15% of the cost of manufacturing one from scratch.

And that is why, before the big recycling push in the mid-90’s, people would actually get money for their aluminum cans. It is cheaper to make an aluminum can, or engine block, out of aluminum that is recycled than it is to dig it out of the ground and then produce your product.

Same thing goes for just about any metal you can think of (tin, copper, etc).

The reason no one was paying people for cardboard or newspaper or plastic bottles before the big recycling crunch is because it was cheaper to do so from virgin materials. Take a walk down memory lane and remember what recyclers were paying for before 1990 and that will tell you what is a net monetary and manpower gain and what is a loss.

The market will rule unmercifully. Well, it is unmerciful to the eco-socialists anyway.

And yes, deposit rebates on bottles and the like is a construct of social engineering. Unless you’re out there digging in dumpsters, you aren’t making any money other than that which you already spent, so they’re not even actually paying you for it.

MYTH 6: RECYCLING ALWAYS PROTECTS THE ENVIRONMENT

Recycling is a manufacturing process with environmental impacts. Viewed across a wide spectrum of goods, recycling sometimes cuts pollution, but not always. The EPA has examined both virgin paper processing and recycled paper processing for toxic substances and found that toxins often are more prevalent in the recycling processes.

Often the pollution associated with recycling shows up in unexpected ways. Curbside recycling, for example, requires that more trucks be used to collect the same amount of waste materials. Thus, Los Angeles has 800 rubbish trucks rather than 400, because of its curb-side recycling. This means more iron ore and coal mining, steel and rubber manufacturing, petroleum extraction and refining-and of course extra air pollution in the Los Angeles basin.

If you’ve ever driven by a pulp pond, you’ll know exactly what kind of horror show gets done to the environment just to make paper on a large scale.

Now remember that said pulp is coming from dead trees. To recycle used paper into new paper is at least twice as hazardous, what with all the bleaching chemicals used remove the residual ink. And there is currently no safer way to clean that stuff up.

As for the mention of LA’s 800 trucks, it’s is closer to 1000 when you add in the alternating weeks of yardwaste collection.

But nonetheless, what the eco-socialists never add into the equation when they give you the numbers about how much energy and resources recycling saves, is the cost of the collection of said recyclable bits. I’ve mentioned this in the past, but in Seattle alone, my employer goes through 3000 gallons of diesel fuel per day.

For reference, the tankers that fill the underground tanks at gas stations, we use two-thirds of one of those every single day to pick up just the half of the city which we are contracted. To pick up the whole city would be one full tanker and one-third of a similarly sized trailer.

That is to pick up trash, recycle and half of our area’s yardwaste. Fully two-fifths of our fuel costs go to picking up just the recycling. 1200 gallons. How much CO2 is that putting is anyone’s guess, but I’m sure that cutting down a few more trees would be less of an addition.

Oh, and to answer RD’s question from yesterday as to how his trash & recycle collection company is going to “soak up the cut in their revenue stream” from his trash can being less full now that he has a Single Stream recycling, my answer is actually a question: What cut in the revenue stream?

Your recyclables are pure gold my friend. The Japanese will be paying top dollar for your cardboard (to package that new DVD player in), the LDS folks at Pepsi are currently paying muy mucho for plastics and, if I remember correctly, all bottles from Gallo Wineries and their subsidiaries are made from recycled glass.

If they make you pay for that recyclables pickup I’d just like to know how you’re enjoying the use of the sandpaper condoms?

Remember, even the trash collector has to pay someone to take the trash they collect, whereas people actually pay for the recyclables.