THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 157, July 16, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE UTTER WASTE OF RECYCLING
By Alan Caruba
FULL STORY:
People are recycling less. In my home State of New Jersey the recycling rate for household garbage dropped for the fifth straight
year in 2002, hitting 34 percent according to the most recent statistics available. Nationwide, it’s the same. The national average
dropped to 27 percent in 2002, the most recent year for such data.
According to BioCycle Magazine and Columbia University’s Earth Engineering Center, that is the lowest it has been since
1995.
The justification for recycling is that it permits the reuse of things like paper, glass, aluminum and plastic. What you’re not told is
that it takes as much or more energy to recycle these things, that recycling can be more costly than to just do with them what
mankind has done with garbage since it began building up in the caves.
Garbage has either been buried or burned. This is the most practical way to deal with it. Once a landfill has become full, it is covered
over with a layer of dirt and becomes property that can be converted to some other use, such as, for example, a golf course.
There are less obvious costs involved with recycling programs. Since, in my hometown. paper, glass, and plastic cannot be put into
the same truck, that means the town has to pay crews of men to man the trucks for each. Those men draw salaries and other benefits.
There are all kinds of insurance costs. The trucks cost money and must be maintained. In addition, they all burn gas as they start
and stop repeatedly, adding to the cost and producing the greenhouse gases that recycling is supposed to reduce.
Then the recyclables have to be taken to recycling centers or, not infrequently, to landfills or incinerators. Where, of course, they
become just plain old garbage again.
Recycling advocates say the reason for the decline is that the need to recycle, debatable at best, no longer gets the kind of attention
it used to when it was fashionable to shame everyone into thinking they were “saving the environment” by separating their paper,
glass, plastic, and aluminum.
After awhile people began to wonder whether, in fact, it was necessary and with good reason. Glass, for example, is made from sand.
The world is not running out of sand.
Paper is made from trees and we are not running out of trees either, unless you count the ones destroyed by catastrophic forest fires
that usually result from bad state and federal forest management. There is still 70 percent of the forestland that was here in 1600, when
the Pilgrims arrived. Annually, more than 1.5 billion trees are planted in the U.S.A., more than five trees for every man, woman and
child, and, of those, more than 80 percent are planted by forest product companies and private timberland owners. The rest are planted
by federal and state agencies, and individuals.
As for aluminum, the Aluminum Institute says that plastic is crowding out higher-value aluminum cans in recycling bins, making the
whole process of recycling less efficient. Many states have stopped mandating buy-back programs for empty cans and bottles. The
recycling rate for aluminum hit 50 percent in 2002, its lowest point in a decade.
Similarly, the number of curbside collection programs nationally, which reached a high of about 9,700 between 1988 and 2000, fell to
8,875 by 2003, according to data provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. After 9-11, when New York City was hard hit by
the devastation, entire recyclable collection programs were stopped in order to save the millions they cost.
It took a federal court decision to deregulate the hauling of trash out of my home state, when it became apparent it was cheaper to
ship it to landfills in Pennsylvania. Expensive incinerators that had been built on the premise that the garbage to be hauled to them
would be required by law suddenly became a loss for those who invested in the bonds that underwrote their construction. When
the market is allowed to function, less costly, more rational rules assert themselves.
Recycling is a waste of time, financial resources and manpower, and is one more fraud perpetrated on people to further the myths of
environmentalism. Bit by bit, they will be abandoned in the same fashion that so many other environmental programs will be, when
proven to be the same hot air as global warming.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, Communications Director of the American Policy Center,
and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly
column, "Warning Signs," posted on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center
(www.anxietycenter.com). A compilation of his past columns, entitled Warning Signs, is published by Merril Press. In addition
to Warning Signs, Caruba is the author of A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam and The United Nations vs. the United States,
both of which are available from the National Anxiety Center, 9 Brookside Road, Maplewood, New Jersey, 07040.
Copyright 2004 Alan Caruba
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume VI, 2004
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy