Is recycling bad?

[Danger Bird]

What do you guys think of this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFBO72uQoLo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXLowpL2nec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgRNrU_koaU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyVclbp0kAw

[BassRevelation1029]

recycling is wonderful. This is just propaganda to give americans an excuse to be wasteful and lazy.

[Danger Bird]

How do you refute their arguments?

[Pint of stella]

Everyone should be encouraged to recycle as much as possible. It's the best way to make Earth substainable for the future. Those Youtube videos were bollocks. Probably set up by corparations that pollute the planet and want to stop being restricted for it. Just a thought.

[Danger Bird]

Originally Posted by Pint of stella

Everyone should be encouraged to recycle as much as possible. It's the best way to make Earth substainable for the future. Those Youtube videos were bollocks. Probably set up by corparations that pollute the planet and want to stop being restricted for it. Just a thought.

It's interesting that this was posted in less time than it could have possibly taken you to watch all those videos. And Penn and Teller is a long-running Showtime series.

[free_thinkers_are_dangerous]

It takes less energy and materials to recycle something than it does to make something new. Not using something is better than recycling, but recycling is better than throwing it out. Period.

The only thing that's even close to not being worthy of being recycled is glass, because it takes almost as much energy to melt as to make new glass. It's still worth it though.

[Pint of stella]

Originally Posted by Led-Zeppelin

It's interesting that this was posted in less time than it could have possibly taken you to watch all those videos. And Penn and Teller is a long-running Showtime series.

I watched the first one and a bit of the second. Sorry mate I really can't be arsed to watch all of them. My comment was "just a thought" as I indicated. Question, are you for recycling?

[Steerpike]

Recycling aluminum is fine. It costs a hell of a lot less money and energy to recycle cans than dig up new bauxite.

Recycling paper on the other hand is wasteful and actually more polluting than making new paper. And deforestation has been so heavily regulated that paper companies now are just replanting trees in the same patches of land that they already own, and cut it down in cycles much like crop rotation. It's actually a cheaper, and far more efficient system than buying new land, clear-cutting it, and then never using it again.

Recycling plastic I'm still on the fence about.

Recycling glass isn't as wasteful as paper, but still not the Earth-saving miracle it's being touted as.

[Danger Bird]

I wasn't completely swayed byt the video, I'm with-holding judgement until I do my own research.

[Danger Bird]

Originally Posted by Steerpike

Recycling aluminum is fine. It costs a hell of a lot less money and energy to recycle cans than dig up new bauxite.

Recycling paper on the other hand is wasteful and actually more polluting than making new paper. And deforestation has been so heavily regulated that paper companies now are just replanting trees in the same patches of land that they already own, and cut it down in cycles much like crop rotation. It's actually a cheaper, and far more efficient system than buying new land, clear-cutting it, and then never using it again.

Recycling plastic I'm still on the fence about.

Recycling glass isn't as wasteful as paper, but still not the Earth-saving miracle it's being touted as.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what the video said.

[Steerpike]

Originally Posted by Pint of stella

My comment was "just a thought" as I indicated.

Your comment was reactionary and sophomoric. Next time, actually look at the source before you shoot your mouth off.

Originally Posted by Led-Zeppelin

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what the video said.

That's the whole point. I've done some checking, and I refuse to recycle paper anymore. I still recycle all of my cans, though.

[Pint of stella]

[quote=Steerpike]Your comment was reactionary and sophomoric. Next time, actually look at the source before you shoot your mouth off.

Allright mate, no need to get irate.

[RNR]

Originally Posted by Steerpike

Recycling aluminum is fine. It costs a hell of a lot less money and energy to recycle cans than dig up new bauxite.

Recycling paper on the other hand is wasteful and actually more polluting than making new paper. And deforestation has been so heavily regulated that paper companies now are just replanting trees in the same patches of land that they already own, and cut it down in cycles much like crop rotation. It's actually a cheaper, and far more efficient system than buying new land, clear-cutting it, and then never using it again.

Recycling plastic I'm still on the fence about.

Recycling glass isn't as wasteful as paper, but still not the Earth-saving miracle it's being touted as.

Definitely. They completely wrote off all forms of recycling as a bad just because a few elements of it are wasteful. If they had picked and chosen different materials and educated us about which ones are wasteful and which ones are beneficial, it wouldn't be nearly as good for the show.

+ the way Penn talks makes me want to punch him in the face.

[Steerpike]

Originally Posted by RNR

Definitely. They completely wrote off all forms of recycling as a bad just because a few elements of it are wasteful. If they had picked and chosen different materials and educated us about which ones are wasteful and which ones are beneficial, it wouldn't be nearly as good for the show.

+ the way Penn talks makes me want to punch him in the face.

Actually, they defended aluminum recycling. They were specifically attacking glass and paper and the fervor surrounding recycling. People need to question their sacred cows.

[free_thinkers_are_dangerous]

I guess they had a point in attacking the way people go "nuh uh i recycle" to forgive themselves for doing everything else wrong, but recycling is still better than throwing everything away.

[Steerpike]

Did you see the section on landfills? They're not as bad as they're made out to be.

No matter which way you slice it, recycling paper in particular is wasteful and more harmful to the environment than actually throwing it out.

[Against Miik!]

Based on that video, most of the downsides of recycling are economic. It's not the actual idea of recycling that is that bad it seems. Its more in the methodolgy.

[Steerpike]

Bingo. It's the action more often than the thought that is the problem.

[Against Miik!]

That bald guy is a dbag though.

[halfdeadhippo]

As far as I've always known, reuse has always been more effective than recycling. Rather than wasting the energy and whatnot with the government recycling your old newspapers, use them to line your birdcage or rinse out pop bottles and fill them with tap water (which, depending on what your tap water's like, is pretty much what bottled water is, anyway). The American mindset of "why bother using a napkin until it's completely saturated when there's a whole stack of nice, pretty, clean ones" is pretty hypocritical when coupled with the "omg save the whales recycle" mindset. That's my take on it, at any rate.

edit: I didn't mean to say "burning your old newspapers", but I'm listening to Iced Earth, and typed it without thinking.