Some thoughts about recycling

[Mantikore]

I was watching an episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit the other day and that episode was about recycling.

It was claimed on that show that recycling could prove to be a bad way for people to deal with waste. The reason is that it takes a lot more energy (and therefore greenhouse gases) as well as money to recycle things than to produce them from raw resources.

It was claimed that the only thing worth recycling are metals, as they save both energy and money. Paper and plastic both fared pretty poorly when it comes to energy conservation.

The alternative provided was to landfill everything. They said that something like a 35 mile x 35 mile x 100 foot hole can hold all of America's trash for 1000 years at the current rate. And biofuels produced from such landfills can provide a source of energy.

Now I want 2 things from you
1) your opinion on this matter
2) any hard evidence that may prove this idea if you happen to know any (Penn and Teller didnt provide any citations, and im not sure if theyre right)

[Prometheus]

I saw that one a long time back. I personally agree that throwing out paper is no big deal. Hell, that will have the result of putting some carbon back underground. Rather than fermenting dumps for biofuels, incinerating it would be far faster and more efficient.

I can't say I know much about the energy economy of plastics recycling. In any event, recycling plastics will prolong the petrochemical supply. And many, if not most, plastics are recycled into other forms.

[Trousersnake]

What about landfill management? That's a HUGE deal. Making sure leechates (sp) don't contaminate water infrastructure, rehabilitation of old sites, plus it DOES take up unnescessary space, even if Penn and Teller think it's not a big deal.

If the end result is no noticable difference (at this snapshot in time, things will change) why not just recycle and avoid those issues? Penn and Teller imply it's a waste (no pun intended, from me) of time to sort things. To me there's no additional effort to recycle. Most of my 'rubbish' is put out as recycling.

To me it's all about waste minimisation.

Bigger is better - WRONG.
Too much is never enough - WRONG.

[Mantikore]

I saw that one a long time back. I personally agree that throwing out paper is no big deal. Hell, that will have the result of putting some carbon back underground. Rather than fermenting dumps for biofuels, incinerating it would be far faster and more efficient.

I can't say I know much about the energy economy of plastics recycling. In any event, recycling plastics will prolong the petrochemical supply. And many, if not most, plastics are recycled into other forms.

good point about the petrochemical industry factor, though i think our good friends the scientists are discovering new ways to make plastics

1) plants > cellulose +enzyme > glucose > fermentation > ethanol >dehydrate with H2SO4> ethene > polyethene plastic
2) polymers from direct natural sources. e.g poly hydroxyl alkanoates as well as poly lactic acid

though both need more research

to recycle, it does require a lot of fuel to move stuff around and melt it down. and form new stuff, so possibly its more damaging to the environment to recycle some items. though i would have to agree with the importance of waste reduction on top of this

[Prometheus]

Yeah, there are a lot of organically derived plastics now. Very few of them are in the industrial supply chain yet. It will happen though, we don't have much of a choice.

If you'll check out the Reprap (http://www.reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome), you'll see that at home recycling of plastics and metals may become not only possible, but practical in the near future.

I believe that there was a thread in MS on the Reprap, but it seems to have vanished.

[MR END]

Rewatch the video.
And pay attention this time.
One of the guys that got the ball rolling back in the 60's did a reassesment of it, and his report was what most of the show was based on.

Let this be a lesson, Penn and Teller ALWAYS get evidence crammed in there.

[groovitude]

The whole point of recycling, I think, isn't so much about conserving energy as opposed to reducing wastes. And our wastes, most of which are made of plastics, won't decompose anytime soon, so we're just fucking over the next several generations just because we're too lazy to sort out our trash.