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Recycling, Good or Bad?

C

CrazyLazy

Platinum Member
So I have recycled most of my life because that's how I was brought up. Recently I saw the Penn and Teller video on it here,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sp8PzgY7XA

The basic claim is that recycling most things isn't economically or environmentally beneficial. Now I'm not 100% convinced, a bunch of magicians telling me recycling is bad doesn't mean it's true. I was wondering what people's opinion on it here was and if you had any information on the subject. Thanks
 
It may not be economical but it is environmental depending on what is being recycled and the processes used to create the original and reuse the waste.
 
I didn't watch the video, however I've heard that something like 75% of all the aluminum ever made is still in product use due to recycling. It costs something like only 5% of the power needed to recycle aluminum over producing new aluminum. I'm not sure how you can argue against that if those numbers are remotely close to reality.
 
Originally posted by: rbV5
I didn't watch the video, however I've heard that something like 75% of all the aluminum ever made is still in product use due to recycling. It costs something like only 5% of the power needed to recycle aluminum over producing new aluminum. I'm not sure how you can argue against that if those numbers are remotely close to reality.
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They talked about that in the video, saying aluminum was one of the few things where it was worth it to recycle. For paper and plastic products they said it wasn't worth it though.
 
Originally posted by: CrazyLazy
Originally posted by: rbV5
I didn't watch the video, however I've heard that something like 75% of all the aluminum ever made is still in product use due to recycling. It costs something like only 5% of the power needed to recycle aluminum over producing new aluminum. I'm not sure how you can argue against that if those numbers are remotely close to reality.
Click to expand...

They talked about that in the video, saying aluminum was one of the few things where it was worth it to recycle. For paper and plastic products they said it wasn't worth it though.
Click to expand...

I wonder if recycling hinges on the "Its not recycling if the new product isn't the old product" A lot of stuff that seems like recycling to me, technically isn't...like composting, or making different products from recycled materials.
 
It varies from place to place.

Where I live cellulose (paper and other fibers) is recycled and used locally if not exported for a profit.

Aluminum is the cash cow.
Metals other than aluminum (steel cans,etc.) also turn a hefty profit for the recycling contractor and the city. Same with plastics.

Glass is a different story, as the nearest glass producer is hundreds of miles away. the price of transporting it kills the profit (when petroleum is high). Instead it is saved until the market improves, with any excess being ground up and used in asphalt and other products, so it is still certainly worth recycling it.




 
Economical or not, recycling is environmentally good of course. Anything that is not recycled ends up in a landfill somewhere, causing pollution that affects humans and other species.

However, it is even better to reduce and reuse. If you reduce your consumption of a particular product, less of that product is produced in the first place (less energy expended). If you reuse a product or give it to someone else to reuse, then a new product wasn't purchased to fill that need, and the reused product wasn't recycled, so there was no energy consumed for the recycling process.
 
Originally posted by: InflatableBuddha
Economical or not, recycling is environmentally good of course. Anything that is not recycled ends up in a landfill somewhere, causing pollution that affects humans and other species.
Click to expand...

I dunno about this, when we throw things in a landfill it's not like it magically escapes to pollute the outside world. You could also make the argument that the energy that goes into breaking down stuff in the recycling process causes even more pollution. I don't have hard numbers for this either way though.

I agree with you on the reusing point.


 
IMO, its all about efficiency and money. if it costs more money to recycle (collection, processing, reuse) than to create new, that is waste. Wasted money that could have been spent researching more efficient technology or replenishing resources (companies will ALWAYS look for ways to cut costs). No business will do something unprofitable. If the government subsidies recycling, then it becomes profitable for the company, but at the expense of the taxpayer. Net result is the same - increased cost and waste.

As more and more garbage is produced and disposal becomes harder and harder, it will become more expensive to throw things away. As natural resources are depleted, they will become more and more expensive. Ultimately there will be an intersection point where recycling makes sense. It already does for some goods like aluminum.
 
I can tell you that as of right now nothing in recycling is economical to the recycler. Paper and cardboard are actually being rerouted to landfills because there is not demand for the recycled product.
 
They need to make all styrofoam products biodegradable. Back in early 90's my high school science class teacher showed us packing peanuts that melt when in they come in contact with water. You just dump the entire box of peanuts into the sink, turn on the water and watch everything flush down the drain. Almost 20 years later, they're still using the landfill packing non-biodegradable peanuts. Assholes.

We recycle everything.
 
In the UK they are having serious problems because all the recycled crap was being shipped off to places like China, and now China isn't accepting the material, and prices have dropped a lot, so there are large areas where recyclable paper etc are just sitting and being stored and not actually being recycled, because the UK lacks domestic recycling plants and manufacturers.

In theory recycling is good, in practice, it's not always so great.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...ewing-say-experts.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear...rnt-as-cheap-fuel.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...xic-waste-1624869.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...cycling-price-collapse
 
Originally posted by: CrazyLazy
Originally posted by: InflatableBuddha
Economical or not, recycling is environmentally good of course. Anything that is not recycled ends up in a landfill somewhere, causing pollution that affects humans and other species.
Click to expand...

I dunno about this, when we throw things in a landfill it's not like it magically escapes to pollute the outside world. You could also make the argument that the energy that goes into breaking down stuff in the recycling process causes even more pollution. I don't have hard numbers for this either way though.

I agree with you on the reusing point.
Click to expand...

You're right that we try to contain the waste that goes to landfills, but seepage into surrounding groundwater is a legitimate concern, and it does happen sometimes.

And you're spot on about recycling potentially causing pollution - I addressed that in my previous post. For example, a recycling facility powered by coal-fired generators is not only consuming energy, but it's also adding pollution.
 
Originally posted by: looker001
Recycling is not economical and for that reason i call recycling bad.
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unfortunately it's not economical NOW....however; we will run out of dump space eventually...


unless we annex Canada.
 
Originally posted by: alkemyst
Originally posted by: looker001
Recycling is not economical and for that reason i call recycling bad.
Click to expand...

unfortunately it's not economical NOW....however; we will run out of dump space eventually...


unless we annex Canada.
Click to expand...

I have difficultly believing that we will run out of space soon. Seeing that the United States as thousands of square miles of open land, and you can stack a fair amount of trash on top of it I don't see how that can be true.
 
As others have mentioned, it depends on the material. Aluminum was mentioned earlier as a really good material to recycle. The energy used in recycling it is tiny compared to that needed to mine and process aluminum from bauxite ore.

I think it was on ATOT, somebody linked to a site that listed the energy used for recycling vs. creating for some commonly recycled materials. Maybe somebody has the link (I'll try to find it, probably won't have any luck, though).
 
Originally posted by: CrazyLazy
Originally posted by: alkemyst
Originally posted by: looker001
Recycling is not economical and for that reason i call recycling bad.
Click to expand...

unfortunately it's not economical NOW....however; we will run out of dump space eventually...


unless we annex Canada.
Click to expand...

I have difficultly believing that we will run out of space soon. Seeing that the United States as thousands of square miles of open land, and you can stack a fair amount of trash on top of it I don't see how that can be true.
Click to expand...

If there's enough room for all the stuff we have, by definition, there is enough room to throw it out.

And AFAIK (I think this may be in the episode) recycling paper and plastic takes more energy and produces more CO2 than just throwing it out and making new. We're probably better off burying a lot of our waste, but recycling makes people feel fuzzy inside, so we do it.
 
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