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

[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.