Why I Don't Recycle: My Time is Better Spent

[Cyrus]

...and all of this happens at 12:01 on day 1. Don't forget that. You don't think phases are inevitable.
I don't know what to say but I guess I have a more realistic idea about what is involved in making a change of this scale than you. If I were to take you at face value, I'd think you figure programes of this scale just sort of ... happen ... literally overnight.

OK. I guess that's the point of our disagreement.

Ummmmmmmm, you can phase it it at 12:01, and it doesn't have to be a sudden ramp up. That is to say, you can ramp up if you wanted to, but there is no reason why it can't be gradual as well. In fact, gradual phasing it in when it is cost effective means it pays for itself quicker. It's not like you HAVE to ramp it up THE MOMENT it becomes cost effective.

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Dave's posts: 2
Reasons for recycling provided: 0

 

[edward]

Source?

http://www.uos.harvard.edu/fmo/recycling/myths.shtml

So what? It also takes resources to recycle them.

You are talking about energy and it is very little compared to what it takes to process plastic from crude, paper from trees, or metal from ore.

I have one 50 gallon recycle can on wheels. All mixed recyclables can go in it. The truck that picks it up uses robotics to lift and dump.

 

[Cyrus]

http://www.uos.harvard.edu/fmo/recycling/myths.shtml




You are talking about energy and it is very little compared to what it takes to process plastic from crude, paper from trees, or metal from ore.

I have one 50 gallon recycle can on wheels. All mixed recyclables can go in it. The truck that picks it up uses robotics to lift and dump.

Good job Edward, you get a point. Dave, I'm very disappointed in your performance.

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Edward's posts: 1
Reasons for recycling provided: 1
Dave's posts: 2
Reasons for recycling provided: 0

 

[russ_watters]

Heh, if Dave wins this argument, I'm going to have to stop recycling!

 

[KrisOhn]

But next generation will grow up with it as second nature

I'm pretty sure you mean another generation after me, but I agree with this, because I see it in myself. I grew up with recycling, it's just something we did, and now, I do it without even thinking about it. I've thrown away plastic bottles before, and something about it just doesn't feel right.

 

[cesiumfrog]

Plastic, aluminum and paper are renewable. Landfill space is cheap. When the cost of these items rises to the point where it's profitable to remove them from the trash stream, it will be done.
My time to put items (properly, according to my local G) in a bin is expensive. Therefore, the benefit is near zero to me. I guess economic literacy isn't very common.

(Not sure what you mean about plastic/aluminium being renewable. And I wonder: If we all used worm farms and demanded less, or at least biodegradable, packaging then would there even need be any garbage?)

Are you only saying you refuse to make any personal effort (by discarding only recyclables into a second bin) unless you will be personally reimbursed at market rate? Hence, that each person should leave their waste unsorted, and wait for it to become economical for the discarded resources to be commercially scavenged? (And if the common external environmental cost is too high then regulation should be imposed so that it becomes a viable business strategy for the recycling company to directly reward each person who uses separate bins?)

Or are you claiming that the total environmental benefit of everyone recycling as they do today is less than the total (opportunity) cost of everyone doing so, and that the environment would be better protected if we invested ourselves in something else? So we should leave landfill unsorted and instead invest the original effort into something like tree-planting (or into R&D for far more efficient future recycling technology) which you expect would more than offset the greater pollution resulting from refining all new materials from scratch?

 

[Jack21222]

http://www.uos.harvard.edu/fmo/recycling/myths.shtml

It's a shame that Harvard doesn't cite any sources on that page, because some of it is suspect. Here are the lines on that page I find questionable:

Well-run recycling programs cost less than landfills and incinerators.

This compares the "well-run" recycling programs with the average landfill. How does it compare to the "well-run" landfills? How does the "average" recycling program compare to the "average" landfill? I would really have liked to see numbers here.

Recycling helps families save money, especially in communities with pay-as-you-throw programs.

I'd say *only* in communities with such programs. Otherwise, recycling helps families save nothing.

Recycling generates revenue to help pay for itself, while incineration and landfilling do not.

The net cost is what counts. The fact that recycling generates revenue doesn't matter if the gap between costs and revenue is greater than the cost without revenue of landfills. Plus, landfills do generate a little revenue. It costs money for commercial waste to get hauled to the dump. This is another one where numbers would have been helpful.

Recycling creates more than one million U.S. jobs in recycled product manufacturing alone. There are 10 times more jobs in recycling than there are in disposal.

This refers to manufacturing. If the items weren't being manufactured from recycled material, they'd be manufactured from new material. I'm having a hard time imagining a net creation of jobs through recycling. It seems to me that it would be a lateral move from one type of manufacturing to another.

Recycling trucks often generate less pollution than garbage trucks because they do not idle as long at the curb. If you add recycling trucks, you should be able to subtract garbage trucks.

I've noticed no difference in the idling time between the garbage truck and the recycling truck in my neighborhood.

Most states have less than twenty years of landfill capacity: who wants to live next to a new landfill?

Some of the nicest homes in the county I live in are within walking distance to the landfill. I'd love to live there, if only I could afford it.

Space is very limited and if we save the space today we will have it for tomorrow.

There's plenty of space.

Government supports lots of services that the free market wouldn't provide, such as the delivery of running water, electricity, and mail to our homes.

Unlike most public services, recycling does function with in the market economy, and quite successfully.

These two directly contradict one another.

Recycling is so popular because the American public wants to do it.

More people recycle than vote.

More than 20,000 curbside programs and drop-off centers for recycling are active today because Americans use and support them.

None of those 3 items under the heading "Excuse: Recycling is a burden on families" actually addresses the "excuse."

That page is wholly unconvincing.

 

[Cyrus]

It's a shame that Harvard doesn't cite any sources on that page, because some of it is suspect. Here are the lines on that page I find questionable:



This compares the "well-run" recycling programs with the average landfill. How does it compare to the "well-run" landfills? How does the "average" recycling program compare to the "average" landfill? I would really have liked to see numbers here.



I'd say *only* in communities with such programs. Otherwise, recycling helps families save nothing.



The net cost is what counts. The fact that recycling generates revenue doesn't matter if the gap between costs and revenue is greater than the cost without revenue of landfills. Plus, landfills do generate a little revenue. It costs money for commercial waste to get hauled to the dump. This is another one where numbers would have been helpful.



This refers to manufacturing. If the items weren't being manufactured from recycled material, they'd be manufactured from new material. I'm having a hard time imagining a net creation of jobs through recycling. It seems to me that it would be a lateral move from one type of manufacturing to another.



I've noticed no difference in the idling time between the garbage truck and the recycling truck in my neighborhood.



Some of the nicest homes in the county I live in are within walking distance to the landfill. I'd love to live there, if only I could afford it.



There's plenty of space.



These two directly contradict one another.



None of those 3 items under the heading "Excuse: Recycling is a burden on families" actually addresses the "excuse."

That page is wholly unconvincing.

Yes, yes, and more yes.

 

[xxChrisxx]

Frankly, this thread annoys me.

OP if you don't feel the need to recycle don't, but don't waste everyones time (including yours) bitching about how much of a waste of time it is.To everyone else apart from the OP (as you don't seem to care, so again in the effort of not wasting everyones time, do not bother responding to this next section):

I've been a huge proponent for scrapping plastic bottles as much as possible and going back to glass jars/bottles that can be refilled or returned and get a deposit back. Although initially more expensive to make (but not by that much) we can reduce the cost and time of both making new and recycling. The downside is that it's more inconvenient to get something refilled as you have to haul the empties to the shop.

Like the OP, many people simply don't give a **** about the environment (less impact on the environment is a key factor in recycling). Not all gains are monetary based or can be measured is MA DOLLAZ. (You will never agree, so don't bother responding saying so.)

 

[cesiumfrog]

I've been a huge proponent for scrapping plastic bottles as much as possible and going back to glass jars/bottles that can be refilled or returned and get a deposit back.

I don't know the stats, but commercially refilled glass bottles used to explode and cause shrapnel injuries.

Some places do still run that deposit system on current drink cans/bottles. Y'know, in Japan, every street corner has a vending machine and matching recycling bin (and nowhere there will you find a general waste bin).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Outside of obviously toxic items like chemicals, electronics and batteries, I don't recycle my trash. I don't think the environmental benefit is worth the opportunity cost of my time (lost classifying and sorting trash). My time is better spent working, improving my skills, paying more taxes, and generating wealth.

Also, given that:
A) landfill space is inexpensive in North America AND
B) within 100 years we should have robotic sorters (with RFD chips in packaging?!?) to separate trash
- it makes no sense to separate trash manually now. Increasing economic growth by working harder so that we get to the point where trash can be sorted by robots would be a better use of everyone's time.

At least some cities no longer require that the recyclables be separated from the garbage.

However, I think you overstate both the time required for recycling, and the value of your time. When you are rich enough to pay someone to separate your garbage for you, then you can claim that your time is too valuable to be bothered. In short, I think your rationalization is a complete copout. By your logic, and given that it might take a few minutes to deal with recycling each week, you must not engage in any leisure activities at all. Not a free moment spared from generating wealth and paying taxes, eh? Give me a break! The time spent on this thread will probably cover a month's worth of recycling efforts. Or are you paying taxes now?

 

[xxChrisxx]

I don't know the stats, but commercially refilled glass bottles used to explode and cause shrapnel injuries.

You make it sound like they were all ticking timebombs, exploding glass (especially modern safety glass) would be pretty rare. And I can gaurantee you that no glass jar exploded from putting some more instant coffee into it, or some juice (which you could do at the store).

Pressurised stuff is different, that has to be taken away and done. But making it soung like all glass bottles explode on contact when refilling is like me saying I wonder how many people have fallen into the recycling machine that shreds the plastic into bits.

Some places do still run that deposit system on current drink cans/bottles. Y'know, in Japan, every street corner has a vending machine and matching recycling bin (and nowhere there will you find a general waste bin).

It's just a better way of doing it. Plus carbonated drinks hold their fizzyness longer and taste much much better than plastic or cans. A nice fizzy, tasty pepsi would be worth someone losing an eye at a refilling station.

DISCLAIMER TO THOSE WITH NO SENSE OF HUMOUR: OBVIOUS JOKE ABOUT LOSING AN EYE, IS OBVIOUS!

 

[DaveC426913]

Good job Edward, you get a point. Dave, I'm very disappointed in your performance.

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Edward's posts: 1
Reasons for recycling provided: 1
Dave's posts: 2
Reasons for recycling provided: 0

More theatrics.

You're not interested in discussing; you're interested in competing. You demand "answers" from me yet you do not reciprocate.

Cyrus' constructive contributions to discussion: 0

 

[Cyrus]

More theatrics.

You're not interested in discussing; you're interested in competing. You demand "answers" from me yet you do not reciprocate.

Cyrus' constructive contributions to discussion: 0

This isn't a reason for why I should recycle, or why you think the government should slowly change my behavior and use my tax money on an inefficient and expensive system. Again, I ask why? (And you know full well the onus of proof is on you here, its your claim, not mine.)

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Edward's posts: 1
Reasons for recycling provided: 1
Dave's posts: 3
Reasons for recycling provided: 0
Cyrus' constructive contributions to discussion: 1

 

[Cyrus]

Like the OP, many people simply don't give a **** about the environment (less impact on the environment is a key factor in recycling). Not all gains are monetary based or can be measured is MA DOLLAZ. (You will never agree, so don't bother responding saying so.)

No one has demonstrated that recycling is good for the environment so far. I'd certainly like to know where you got that fact from.

As a general note, I see a lot of unsupported dogma concerning recyling being posted in this thread.

 

[Chi Meson]

I think that I may have put in this opinion before on a previous thread. I consider myself quite tilted toward environmentalism for no other reason than "I like trees and clean air and rivers and mountains and I like to put myself into wildernesses for relatively short durations."

I happen to think that the best thing to do with used paper and plastics and other combustible trash is to burn them in a proper, clean, modern waste-to-energy facility. As long as the trash is burnt instead of the equivalent amount of coal, it is a better option (vis a vis good ol' fashioned pollution, let's leave AGW out of it).

Aluminum should always be recycled because the amount of energy required to remove it from bauxite is enormous compared to the energy required to recast.

I am not a fan of recycling post-consumer paper or glass. I'm not against it either, I personally believe that the energy use involved is a wash at best.

Above everything, the reduction of unnecessarily used energy trumps all other "green" concerns, IMH (and correct) O .

 

[xxChrisxx]

No one has demonstrated that recycling is good for the environment so far. I'd certainly like to know where you got that fact from.

As a general note, I see a lot of unsupported dogma concerning recyling being posted in this thread.

Oh **** this, you are just like leroy and I am not getting suckered into arguing pointless crap just for the sake of disagreeing.

Take aluminium. (I chose this as it's the easiest to demonstrate and I am not feeling particularly rigourous today, and it's the most cost effective to recycle)
http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/metals.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling (do a search on this page for aluminium)
http://www.mrw.co.uk/news/glass-packaging-has-lowest-carbon-footprint/5217131.article

Even a really casual search can yield answers to environmental effects of recycling vs mining new ore. Is it really necessary that one has to post links when you can easily google it. In fact you probably know it to be true, and just make people run after links so for that extra few moments you can dance your little victory jig.You know if you think that throwing perfectly good stuff away never to be used again and making something identical out of brand new parts is more environmentally sounds then fair enough, nothing I can say will make a difference.

 

[turbo]

No one has demonstrated that recycling is good for the environment so far. I'd certainly like to know where you got that fact from.

As a general note, I see a lot of unsupported dogma concerning recyling being posted in this thread.

I recycle because it IS good for the environment, and for our town's finances. Recycling cardboard means that the fiber can be re-used by simply re-pulping the material. Lots of linerboard made in this country is made from recycled linerboard in part on in whole. One mill that I serviced had no pulp mill and made linerboard 100% from recycled materials. No need to cut down trees and put them through chemical digestion to free the fiber. Our town gets paid for the baled cardboard. We also get paid for steel and aluminum cans and other metal scrap. That stuff can be magnetically separated, melted, and re-used without mining and smelting ore.

Producing plastic requires petroleum products as raw materials plus energy, and refining aluminum takes a lot of electricity. There are energy savings inherent in recycling and re-use of both. Less so in glass recycling, I suspect, but still our transfer/recycling attendant runs all the bottles and jars through a crusher, and collects the glass in a large bin.

 

[TMFKAN64]

I'm with the OP.

If I'm not in my house, I don't even bother with trash cans. It's just not an economically efficient use of my valuable time to look for one. Let the people who are paid to do such work clean up after me.

 

[xxChrisxx]

I'm with the OP.

If I'm not in my house, I don't even bother with trash cans. It's just not an economically efficient use of my valuable time to look for one. Let the people who are paid to do such work clean up after me.

I can't tell if that's a joke or not.

 

[Evo]

We have interstate commerce. We have vast open areas in many states. Landfill space IS cheap.

If you think I'm trolling, you're a mentor. Kill this thread.
It's economically inefficient to sort trash manually. That's the point of this thread.
Many (maybe even most) people don't sort their trash - because it's economically inefficient.

Economically inefficient for whom? The recycling operations? I already mentioned that some states have already run out of space for landfills.

Surely you don't expect anyone to believe that a few minutes a week in your spare time is costing you anything. (I assume you do not need to take off from your job to do this).

 

[turbo]

I can't tell if that's a joke or not.

It might not be. There are enough people who feel that way already, so this nice wooded road is trashed regularly with McDonalds wrappers, pizza boxes, cans, bottles, chip bags, etc. I try to clean up the section within walking distance of my house, but it's a never-ending battle against the pigs who are too lazy to drive their trash home to dispose of it.

 

[stevenb]

Outside of obviously toxic items like chemicals, electronics and batteries, I don't recycle my trash. I don't think the environmental benefit is worth the opportunity cost of my time (lost classifying and sorting trash). My time is better spent working, improving my skills, paying more taxes, and generating wealth.

Also, given that:
A) landfill space is inexpensive in North America AND
B) within 100 years we should have robotic sorters (with RFD chips in packaging?!?) to separate trash
- it makes no sense to separate trash manually now. Increasing economic growth by working harder so that we get to the point where trash can be sorted by robots would be a better use of everyone's time.

I agree with you 100%. Your logic is rock solid and beyond contestation. I would do exactly the same as you do, but instead I take it much farther. I don't even bother to throw recyclable items in a trash bucket at all. I don't think the environmental benefit is worth the opportunity cost of my time, and finding a bucket takes even more time than trying to decide if I should throw an empty bottle in the left or the right bucket. Believe me, walking 100 ft takes much more time than trying to read even those long words like "recyclable" and "non-recyclable".

To support my position, note that:
A: North American land cost is not even a factor if you just randomly throw recyclable trash on public and private property.
B: In 100 years we will have robots that can pickup all the non-biodegradable stuff that I've thrown around in my lifetime.

 

[slide_Rules]

At least some cities no longer require that the recyclables be separated from the garbage.

However, I think you overstate both the time required for recycling, and the value of your time. When you are rich enough to pay someone to separate your garbage for you, then you can claim that your time is too valuable to be bothered. In short, I think your rationalization is a complete copout. By your logic, and given that it might take a few minutes to deal with recycling each week, you must not engage in any leisure activities at all. Not a free moment spared from generating wealth and paying taxes, eh? Give me a break! The time spent on this thread will probably cover a month's worth of recycling efforts. Or are you paying taxes now?

Leisure recharges my body and mind for work. Therefore, it has economic value to me.
Manually sorting trash does not. Therefore, it is almost economically worthless to me.

If recycling were really important, the state should levy heavy taxes on non-recyclers. All non-recyclers' trash could then be sorted (more efficiently) in bulk.

But the above is not going to happen because
A) Many local governments are run too poorly
B) The political backlash would be strong. The economic inefficiency of recycling is already suspect - the last thing pro-recyclers need is a tax in their name.

 

[Evo]

Yet you have tons of time to waste on this thread, which is going nowhere. Locked.