Happy Earth Day - Recycling Plastic?

This may not be related to computer technology, but I wanted to take a second and discuss recycling plastic. Millions of Americans recycle every week, and think they are doing their part. This is false. Recycling plastic costs taxpayer's money, leads to a waste of resources, pollutes our atmosphere, and ultimately leads to the recycled material being shipped back to us as items we throw away eventually anyway. When was the last time you used recycled materials and they didn't end up back in the trash? Let's discuss the recycling process.

The first step is consumption. You purchase plastic bottles because there is no alternative. Water, Gatorade, Pepsi, Coca-Cola: these items are consumed and thrown in the trash. Oh wait, you're green so you toss them into the recycling bin after wasting water to clean them out. The week continues, you add to the collection, and trash day comes. You haul out your recycled materials for them to be picked up the next day. The next day a 60 ton (29k - 33k lb) garbage truck that gets 2.8 MPG avg loads you and your neighbor's recycled plastic to be shipped off. This, of course assuming, you have someone who picks up recyclables in your neighborhood. If not, well I'm sure you can imagine the fuel cost of everyone driving to the landfill to recycle their plastic, and other materials.

Now depending on your area, recycling is handled in different ways. For some, the material is shipped off to China to be burned and reused for clothing because plastic cannot be used twice for food, or beverages. Clothes cannot be recycled; They can be passed around, and sold, but ultimately end up filling landfills anyway. In other areas plastic can be sent back to the manufacturer who do the same. Sending it to the manufacturer may cut down on the emissions of sending it oversea, but the process is still the same. Burn, baby burn.

In the late 80's we were told the landfills were going to be full. This was a scare tactic, partially feeding off the scares of the Mobro 4000 (trash barge) that went from place to place looking for a place to dump 3,168 tons of trash when no one would take it. Even if the landfills were filling up, how is recycling going to stop it? It would be delaying the inevitable with a pointless, resource wasting process.

My solution? Use less wasteful products. Use real dishes, and silverware! The world was fine without plastic, and you can be too. You may even feel good about it.