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Recycling: Is It Still B.S.?

SPQR

Darwin's Dachshund
SPQR
Joined
Mar 25, 2006
Messages
453
I haven't recycled one plastic bottle or piece of paper ever since I saw that P&T Bullsh!t episode debunking recycling. The thing is, that episode aired a few years ago and I was wondering if any new info has emerged refutting P&T's claims, like what happened with the second hand-smoking episode. P&T were pretty upfront about their mistake with the smoking thing and they have yet to issue such a statement regarding recycling.

I ask because I am currently enrolled in a very pro-recycling environmental studies class in college and I want to make sure I have my facts straight before I go up against them.

Thanks for any responses. :D
 
Well, the "beer can cleanup fee" paid to homeless guys is totally worth it.
 
In all the wide world of woo-woo, how is it possible that P&T ran out of material and had to try to debunk things like second hand smoke, recycling. and romantic love? What will be BS next? Moms, apple pie, democracy, science?

Can't they please do an episode on some real garbage like the New Age Law of Attraction?
 
It also varies from municipality to municipality.

In places like Las Vegas and Tucson it may not make economic sense to recycle it they have plenty of usable landfill and the cost to transport glass/paper/plastic/whatever is costly.

Here in Seattle there was a revolt (lawsuit) from the community that the landfill used to be located at. So they and a few other communities now ship their solid waste to a landfill in Oregon. There is also a market for the paper and plastic nearby so it is economical to sale it to them. Recently kitchen waste has been added to what is allowable in yard waste (including pizza boxes!)... that is turned into compost locally.

Linky to a pdf list of where the stuff is sent to.

Linky to a list of reports.
 
Recycling is one of those weird things which was either a few years ahead of its time, or has just taken a while to get right.

Early on, nobody cared, and they cared even less when it became widely-known that the "recycled" rubbish was in fact just dumped somewhere else, or cost money to recycle. Even at inefficient rates of collection, the huge volumes created opportunities, and as rightly pointed out, has meant that it's now viable as well as sensible. Hopefully the trend will continue, because you'd have to admit, we make a one helluva mess, and if we keep burying rubbish at the rate we are, we'll be sorry.
 
We had a bit of a recycling flap here at the university. We have all the little recycling waste containers all over the place, with seperate bins for glass- plastic, trash, paper, etc.
Seemed real good; till some student spotted the housekeeping staff dumping everything into the dumpster to be hauled off by the regular trash service....

Now they have a seperate recycling truck do the pickups.
 
The Atheist said:
Recycling is one of those weird things which was either a few years ahead of its time, or has just taken a while to get right.

Early on, nobody cared, and they cared even less when it became widely-known that the "recycled" rubbish was in fact just dumped somewhere else, or cost money to recycle. Even at inefficient rates of collection, the huge volumes created opportunities, and as rightly pointed out, has meant that it's now viable as well as sensible. Hopefully the trend will continue, because you'd have to admit, we make a one helluva mess, and if we keep burying rubbish at the rate we are, we'll be sorry.
Click to expand...

Actually if you watch the P&T episode they claim that if america dumped all of it's trash into the same spot for 1000 years, that spot would only be a 35 square mile area. Logistics aside, I dont think we'll be running out of space.
 
Crowbot said:
Actually if you watch the P&T episode they claim that if america dumped all of it's trash into the same spot for 1000 years, that spot would only be a 35 square mile area. Logistics aside, I dont think we'll be running out of space.
Click to expand...

The problem is finding that one particular spot and transporting to that spot.

As mentioned earlier... Seattle was somewhat forced into recycling when the residents around its previous landfill (Cedar Hills) forced them to close that landfill. It then had to find someplace else... that being in a desert area of Oregon. It requires a long train to get that trash there (I know, I saw it go by when I was waiting for the northbound Amtrak earlier this summer). That costs money... selling stuff to recyclers helps. And apparently it does same the city money:
http://www.seattlechannel.org/news/detail.asp?ID=6338&Dept=20

Where is the landfill in for your community?
 
Well here's my story.
We don't have a landfill. We had to shut our landfill down in the late 1980's because it was such a toxic dump. In fact, I've heard that our landfill is the number one case study for people who have to know about toxic dumps. Anyway, we are required to keep our trash levels at a 1990 level or our county gets fined. We have an extensive recycling program. We recycle everything. I have a family of four and we generate one 35 gallon trash can a week. We produce 4-5 times that much recyclable material. We pay for the trash, recycling is free. They pick it up. We don't even have to sort.
 
Hydrogen Cyanide said:
The problem is finding that one particular spot and transporting to that spot.

As mentioned earlier... Seattle was somewhat forced into recycling when the residents around its previous landfill (Cedar Hills) forced them to close that landfill. It then had to find someplace else... that being in a desert area of Oregon. It requires a long train to get that trash there (I know, I saw it go by when I was waiting for the northbound Amtrak earlier this summer). That costs money... selling stuff to recyclers helps. And apparently it does same the city money:
http://www.seattlechannel.org/news/detail.asp?ID=6338&Dept=20

Where is the landfill in for your community?
Click to expand...

Interesting thought experiment, imagining all the waste from the USA being transported to one 35sq mile place in the whole country.
 
Thanks to everyone who replied. I guess recycling does make sense in the part of the country in which I am currently living (Bellingham, WA). Either that, or the people up here have been so completely brainwashed that they refuse to say anything bad about recycling. ;)

When the issue comes up in my class, I'll offer a healthy dose of skepticism but I won't be too forceful about it. I'll mention that landfill figure and the "grow trees to make paper" point from the Bullsh!t episode.
 
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