Re: OT: Police --> To Protect .. And beat, unless proven innocent - Armed citizens in Texas

On Fri, 23 May 2008 16:00:45 -0700, "DGDevin"
<dgdevin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Spender wrote:

The immediate fact that recycling a soda bottle uses more energy than
creating a new one isn't even apparent to them.

Even if true it overlooks other issues, like a recycled bottle means a
little less foreign oil that has to be imported, and a little less space is
used in a landfill.

Yet it is a very simple process to determine the value of recycling
any product. All you have to do is follow the money. Whatever a
homeless person can roam around collecting and then turn in for ready
cash (actual commodity value) is worth recycling. Aluminum cans.
That's about it.

If money is *all* you're concerned about that might be the case. However
there are issues other than just money. Last year we knocked down an old
fence and replaced it with a new one. Since the boards the fence was made
of were still perfectly good I told the contractor to reuse them. He
pointed out that paying labor for two guys to bust loose the old boards and
reuse them would cost as much as buying new ones. Entirely true, but it
also meant the old boards didn't end up in a landfill and in theory nobody
had to cut down any trees to make new boards for my fence. So did I make
the right decision, or the wrong one?

Plastic bottles that can be turned in for 5-10 cents each in some
states are not actually worth 5-10 cents as a resource. It is just a
tax that can be refunded at your discretion. No one seems to bother
asking how much energy is used transporting them to turn them in, and
then transporting them to a main recycling facility.

How much energy is used to haul them around and bury them as trash? How
much land is taken up for dumps? How much toxic sludge leaks out of those
dumps every year? It isn't as one-sided as you are depicting it.

They don't ask
about the energy and water used in the recycling process either. But
it all adds up to no savings at all, or a higher cost in resources.

Sometimes doing the right thing can cost you a little more, but it's still
the right thing to do. Besides, recycled cardboard and paper and plastic is
one of the few areas where America actually has something to sell to China.

If we could just sell them shit things would go okay...
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why does it take 50 years to build Fusion power plant?
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  • Re: Now Ive heard everything: Empty Wine Bottle Retrieval
    ... Tossing it into a can may cost just about nothing and the energy to ... re-manufacture from these materials costs money, ... If you're talking about recycling programs that are established and not ... >> One of my regular suppliers of empty wine bottles told me last night ...
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  • Re: off topic I know...but
    ... publicise the cost of recycling because it quite simply is not ... and get paid a few shillings for it... ... Happy birthday to me, by the way. ...
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