To follow Fatmouse’s thread, tomorrow is America Recycles Day.
Here’s the link:
http://www.americarecyclesday.org/home.html
Lots of good information.
Good link. I’m fortunate at my office that we have a bunch of young and idealistic people interested in this. They have set up a full system for recycling of a number of things, including arranging for pickup or drop-off of accumulated items. Once it was set up, everybody just does it.
Now, all we need is for Art to come on here and tell us how he tried recycling once and it just didn’t work, and this company that recycled did something wrong, but maybe things are better now.
Reduce-Reuse-Recycle-Incinerate-Landfill
I don’t have time to recycle and why should I spend time sorting glass and plastic and aluminum, just so the waste management company that charges me extra to pick up my recycled goods can make more money? If they want to make money off of it, they can sort it.
Penn and Teller did a pretty good show about recycling. You can view it at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7734998370503499886
Except for aluminum cans, it seems recycling is mostly a wasteful enterprise.
I love Penn & Teller. That piece was (fucking) priceless. In my own way of “helping” I buy bulk foods, rarely use aluminum cans, don’t have a garbage disposal and compost, and keep old shit around way too long.
The only point I take exception to was the tree issue. Yes, there are tree farms that supply our paper jones, the ones I want to protect are the 200 year old Cedars and Sequoias.
Another cool site is treehuger.com
Anyone who thinks recycling will save the earth is crazy. Likewise, anyone who thinks recycles does no good or actually harms the environment is just as crazy.
Energy costs, transportation costs, material costs, plus added and improved capacity to process recycled materials have all dramatically changed the equation. Every piece of steel manufactured in the US (and likely the rest of the world) has a recycled content of at least 25%. Most plastic bottles have recycled content of over 20%, etc., etc., etc.
While there were many myths busted in the penn and teller show, there were just as many angles missed and bullshit in their show about bullshit.
I ride an aluminum bike, does that count?