Not to be a hypocrit on the environment

[santo=dorf]

If energy consumption was the only factor, you are correct. Most plastic containers are not recycled into more plastic containers but in making textiles, plastic lumber, and other products where virgin material would not be as useful or economically friendly.

Which is still a huge waste of cash and it damages the environment by requiring MORE diesel powered trucks to pick up the stuff and move to other facilities. Recycling creates more manufacturing processes.

 

We can all thank the Mobro 4000 for having our Government waste billions of dollars on a useless process known as recycling.

[kapkomet]

The same could be said for ethanol. I do not have the source, but I have read with my own beadie little eyeballs that it takes .85 gallons of oil based energy to make one gallon of ethanol... and therefore, it's totally counterproductive to even be making it in the first place.

 

[BigSqwert]

I became vegan.

I sold my car and walk, bike, or use public transportation. If I need a car in a pinch I use the I-Go behind my building.

I try to buy locally grown, organic foods.

Installed energy efficient bulbs when bulbs burn out. Have a few more I am waiting on to switch out.

Turn lights off in rooms when I'm not in them.

Use bio-degradable cleaning products.

Participate in recycling program. 1st ward offers this.

Purchased H.E. appliances.

Bring my own canvas bags to the grocery store.

Stopped buying bottled water.

Keep most things unplugged when when not in use.

 

 

 

 

[sox4lifeinPA]

Instead of lightbulbs, I burn tires in my living room.

[BigSqwert]

Instead of lightbulbs, I burn tires in my living room.

LOL

 

I hope you don't have carpeting.

[Texsox]

Are you factoring in the diesel to take then plastic to dumps further and further away from the source? How about the diesel on all the earth moving equipment needed to cover and maintain the landfills? As suburbs sprawl, we are traveling further and further to dump our garbage.

[santo=dorf]

Are you factoring in the diesel to take then plastic to dumps further and further away from the source? How about the diesel on all the earth moving equipment needed to cover and maintain the landfills? As suburbs sprawl, we are traveling further and further to dump our garbage.

Do you think there are more recycling centers or landfills?

[NorthSideSox72]

The recycling process requires more energy usage for transporting, sorting, storing and cleaning the product.

 

Another truck is required to pick up your bins of recycled parts.

A facility has to be set up to sort and store all the stuff.

More transportation is required to move the sorted stuff to yet another facility to melt the plastic, or bundle up the paper

Then the next steps are used in the normal, initial start of making a new bottle from cash.

 

It's a complete waste of tax money. There is no value in recycling plastic or paper, however there is value in recycling aluminum.

 

Ever notice how bums don't go through trash cans looking for Evian bottles?

I think perhaps you misunderstand the main goals of recycling. Saving on the direct cost of material to make new cans and bottles is not the main point, or even in the top few. You are completely ignoring, for example, that plastic requires petroleum (read: oil) to produce, and anything we can do to cut down consumption of that is a positive. Then there is the landfill problem, as Tex pointed out, and plastic bottles to NOT biodegrade quickly. And further, the more crap we put in the ground in landfills and other waste areas, the more of those chemicals leach into the soil. The soil where we grow our food, and where our water sources filter through. Do you think that's a good thing?

 

There was a well known book that came out a number of years ago, taking the stance you do here. It pointed out that from a purely direct financial cost perspective, recycling actually costs money. That is true, but you see, it completely misses the point. How much will it cost is in ten years when we still have to buy such a large percentage of our oil from oveseas? How much in health care costs go out the door as our water supplies become contaminated? And how much will it cost to deal with the growing problem of having no more room for trash? All these have costs that, while indirect, are inevitable and very, very costly.

 

[Texsox]

The same could be said for ethanol. I do not have the source, but I have read with my own beadie little eyeballs that it takes .85 gallons of oil based energy to make one gallon of ethanol... and therefore, it's totally counterproductive to even be making it in the first place.

 

You are close, *today's technology* yields about 1.3 units of energy for every 1 unit put in. Contrasting that to Brazil and their sugar cane, which yields 8 units for every one in. But that is the process. We start out at one point and end at another. Right now a lot of biomass is left on the ground in corn production. With sugar cane is burned to power the plants. Similar research is being done one the corn plant and there seems to be good cause for optimism. And there are energy costs in producing any energy. There is no perpetual energy machine.

 

Back to recycling. the same process is taking place. Glass for example was a terrible product to recycle. It wasn't cost effective until about 10-12 years ago when someone invented a machine which recycles it much more effectively and now recycled glass is being used in a ton of different products, especially "glasphalt". It is also being used as border materials. All the rough edges are pounded out and you are back to colorful sand, or just about.

 

In all these cases, continuing research improves the processes, with greater and greater gains in efficiencies. To dismiss the technology based on the first or second draft or even the one hundredth is a mistake in some cases.

 

Another note to Kap, I am wondering if you are looking at a different measurement. It is also true that there is more stored energy in one gallon of gas than one gallon of ethanol. I believe it is 1.2 to 1.