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How do the recycling schemes cause more harm than good?

by Tycho 5y ago

rsj_hn 5y ago
Basically because once you get past recycling scrap metals you start consuming many more resources than you save, which forces municipal governments to subsidize the recycling operations, which becomes so expensive it threatens local budgets. Then the cities start paying China or Africa to take their trash to "recycle" and they end up shipping it overseas, consuming even more real resources when in reality much of that is just thrown away and disposed of in less safe ways than if it were to be put in local landfills in jurisdictions with stricter environmental rules. This is all to make people feel good about saving the planet. Interestingly, this was already known in the 1990s, and the NYTimes science writer, John Tierney, wrote an article about how recycling is actually harmful for many of the items recycled, and that this has taken on a type of upper middle class religious ritual (https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html?pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-gar...). No science article ever published by the times received so many death threats and angry letters as that article. But things have gotten much worse since then, as demands for recycling increased and city budgets began to be eaten by the costs of subsidizing this. See https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-... for an update in 2015. Then when China stopped accepting US trash, cities around the country began dumping recycling into landfills as they could no longer afford it. (https://fee.org/articles/america-finally-admits-recycling-doesn-t-work/ https://fee.org/articles/america-finally-admits-recycling-do...). See also: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/as-city-budgets-shrink-its-time-to-rethink-recycling-programs https://www.manhattan-institute.org/as-city-budgets-shrink-i... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/business/local-recycling-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/business/local-recycling-... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-...

How do the recycling schemes cause more harm than good?

by Tycho 5y ago

How do the recycling schemes cause more harm than good?

Basically because once you get past recycling scrap metals you start consuming many more resources than you save, which forces municipal governments to subsidize the recycling operations, which becomes so expensive it threatens local budgets. Then the cities start paying China or Africa to take their trash to "recycle" and they end up shipping it overseas, consuming even more real resources when in reality much of that is just thrown away and disposed of in less safe ways than if it were to be put in local landfills in jurisdictions with stricter environmental rules. This is all to make people feel good about saving the planet. Interestingly, this was already known in the 1990s, and the NYTimes science writer, John Tierney, wrote an article about how recycling is actually harmful for many of the items recycled, and that this has taken on a type of upper middle class religious ritual (https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-garbage.html?pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-gar...). No science article ever published by the times received so many death threats and angry letters as that article. But things have gotten much worse since then, as demands for recycling increased and city budgets began to be eaten by the costs of subsidizing this. See https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-... for an update in 2015. Then when China stopped accepting US trash, cities around the country began dumping recycling into landfills as they could no longer afford it. (https://fee.org/articles/america-finally-admits-recycling-doesn-t-work/ https://fee.org/articles/america-finally-admits-recycling-do...). See also: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/as-city-budgets-shrink-its-time-to-rethink-recycling-programs https://www.manhattan-institute.org/as-city-budgets-shrink-i... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/business/local-recycling-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/business/local-recycling-... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-...