America Finally Admits Recycling Doesn’t Work

Posted by $ Olduglycarl 6 years, 1 month ago to Economics
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As engineer and author Richard Fulmer wrote in 2016,

"Recycling resources costs resources. For instance, old newsprint must be collected, transported, and processed. This requires trucks, which must be manufactured and fueled, and recycling plants, which must be constructed and powered."

" All this also produces pollution – from the factories that build the trucks and from the fuel burned to power them, and from the factories that produce the components to build and construct the recycling plant and from the fuel burned to power the plant. If companies can make a profit recycling paper, then we can be confident that more resources are saved than are used. However, if recycling is mandated by law, we have no such assurance."

Again, economics is the key.


All Comments

  • Posted by $ 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Up until environ mental diseases affected a small percentage of the population, it worked just fine for thousands of years....WITHOUT! government help...

    The change back to what really works best should be a Free Market decision.
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  • Posted by exceller 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    "If you think about it, using more trees and replanting would clean out all the dead wood and prevent forest fires...not to mention, create more jobs."

    Not exactly.

    It would devastate pristine forests and upset the environmental balance.

    I am saying this b/c I don't expect sound planning and implementation effort from the left. We have many examples of disastrous meddling of the ecosystem that resulted in the exact opposite than planned.

    Of course, if it's done well, you are correct. Tell me examples when the gov successfully planned and executed environmental strategies?
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  • Posted by $ 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    The only way to get out of this and truly become environmentally sound is to go back to paper bags, wax paper, paper straws, paper cups and glass bottles.
    If you think about it, using more trees and replanting would clean out all the dead wood and prevent forest fires...not to mention, create more jobs.
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  • Posted by exceller 6 years, 1 month ago in reply to this comment.
    Very good analysis of the subject.

    Recycling is similar to all other "rules" the left comes up with.

    They are experimenting with their environmental and socialist agenda and we the citizens are the ones subjected to the insanity that derives from the practice.

    I remember when we were told that paper bags were anti-social and we should use plastic at checkout. It made sense, in order to save the trees.

    Several years later, it was reversed: now you are a sinner if using plastic (the media is full of horror stories how it kills animals and sealife).

    I don't give it a long time until they come up with something else.

    Of course, it translates to milking people: you get hit by 10 cents for each and every bag.
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  • Posted by $ 6 years, 1 month ago
    The fact is that sometimes recycling makes sense and sometimes it doesn’t. In the legislative rush to pass recycling mandates, state and local governments should pause to consider the science and the economics of every proposition. Often, bad ideas are worse than none at all and can produce lasting damage if they are enshrined in law. Simply demanding that something be recycled can be disruptive of markets and it does not guarantee that recycling that makes either economic or environmental sense will even occur.
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