Posted: 4/24/2006 2:34:01 PM EDT
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Now I know this is a touchy subject for some tree huggers, but I don't want anyone to get their panties in a twist. I recycle some of the stuff I use, mainly newspaper/magazines, metal cans, plastic bottles, and glass bottles. I do the work to sort it, I store it, I take it out to the curb every Wednesday. I'm not sure if you have to recycle by law in NJ or not, but I do it anyway. Ya know what really gets me, I buy the product, then I do the work, then I pay for it to be hauled and stored. A friends son was just hired by my town to pickup recycling from people's curbs, he is paid a little less than the garbage men in our town, $17/hour plus good benefits. And then I wonder why my property taxes went up to almost $10K this year. Somebody is making a profit off of recycling, aren't they? Why don't I get paid for my recycling? Why do I have to buy the product and the container it comes in, then do the work and have the available storage space, then pay for it to be hauled, etc? Some bottles and cans say "Return for 5 cent deposit in this state and that state", my state isn't one of them. Now I know that recycling is better for the planet we live on, and I do it anyway regardless of law. I just don't understand why I am the one getting screwed out of the deal? |
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Paying to recycle is retarded, especially in the absence of any real evidence that recycling actually makes any tangible difference on a global (or even local) scale. The PLANET doesn't care, so your assumption that it's "better for the planet we live on" is not necessarily a correct one. You could donate the money you are spending on recycling to a soup kitchen or something instead. The PEOPLE you'll actually help will care. Not trying to flame - just providing an alternative view. |
| NewToHighPower: Well I think most of the high value stuff like CAlif redemption containers are spoken for, and all that is left the paper and cardboard. In the past paper and cardboard was not worth much, but currently due to heavy overseas demand for cardboard, there has been record prices for recycled cardboard, and the USA has the most high quality recycle cardboard in the world. |
Not trying to flame - just providing an alternative view. |
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You're on to something I've known for a while now. If garbage recycling was anything more than an unworkable hippie fantasy, they would pay you for your debris and not the other way around. You're basically doing free sorting for the recylers and then paying them to remove the sorted debris. It must be a sweet deal for them- or the cities who have an excuse to collect more taxes to run the program. Some things actually use more resources and generate a lot of excess pollution when they are recycled- particularly certain kinds of paper. Some recycling does work. Brass ammunition casings are a prime example. You can reuse brass several times. When they're worn out you can melt them down and recast them. And (surprise) there are people who pay good money for used brass casings and scrap metal. Galland |
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Sometimes I neglect to turn the water off in public restrooms after I've used most of their paper towels to dry every little damp crevice on my hands. I normally use as much stuff as I can for the smallest tasks. Isn't that what they mean by "use it or lose it" ?? |
That's largely a myth (just like deforestation and large-scale species extinction) - perpetrated by the environmentalist lobby. There is NO actual problem with limited space for landfills. It's a complete fabrication. A statistician (Bjoern Lomborg) ran the numbers. If you assume that the population of the U.S. will double by the end of the 21st century, and that the increase in waste per person sent to landfills will follow the same trend as it has for the last 15 years (1990 to 2005) - then ALL of the waste sent to landfills in the U.S. over the next 100 years would take up about a quarter of Woodward county in Oklahoma (assuming 100ft high landfill - not an unreasonable size for large landfills). In other words - if ALL of the waste generated by Americans over the next hundred years were concentrated and sent to the same place in one giant landfill, it would fill less than one county in a "fly-over" state. Whenever I fly from St. Louis to Los Angeles, for about 2/3 of the flight, pretty much EVERYTHING I fly over is completely 100% empty. The notion that "there's only so much space" is completely erroneous. If we kept polluting and creating landfills at our current rate, we wouldn't even notice it in a thousand years, much less our lifetimes or the lifetimes of our grandchildren.
Let me know how that works out - I'll definitely want to try it if you can figure out how! 
Crystal clear vision here! 
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