All right, let me first off say that when I talk “recycling,” I am talking about recycling, not composting. Composting rocks and everyone should do it, even though I don’t right now. But this is not about me. It’s about everyone else.
All right, lets get into it.
Recycling is a scam. It’s there to make everyone feel good about killing the planet. People think, “Hey I recycle. I am doing my part,” and they then go back to killing. Now, before you start freaking out, let me explain my position. Hopefully you will come onto my side of the street.
Let’s get the little things out of the way:
- Is sending two giant diesel beasts out to collect garbage at the same place really helping?
- Is taking materials and using energy to convert them into other materials really helping?
These things I do not know, but I guess there could be studies out there that back up the “recycling is good” campaign. But that is not my main issue, although it still bugs me and we will get back to it.
Now, let’s get to my main issue with recycling. Recycling is what the drug world refers to as an “enabler.” It enables us to pollute without feeling bad. First, let’s get a couple facts down before we continue. There is no such thing as recycling. That’s right folks. When you put out that paper, plastic, whatever in that bin, it will never be the same. For it to be recycled, it would mean that if it was a paper, it would be recycled back into the same paper, bottle to bottle, and so on. Well, every time something gets “recycled,” it gets converted into something less than what it originally was. So (and I thank McDonough for opening my eyes to it) the correct term is downcycled. What you put into that bucket gets downcycled into something else less durable and less valuable than what you put in.
“But Justin,” you say out loud (or to your pet cat), “At least it’s not taking up space in landfills and is being used for something right?”
Fine, but what happens when we use that new product? At some point, whatever was made by downcycling will have to be dealt with, and guess what? It will end up either landfilled or incinerated, because it has been stripped down so far from the original product.
So instead of recycling, things are being downcycled, and for the most part we are postponing the inevitable. But wait: it gets worse. In the “recycling” process, we use energy to make whatever we throw away into whatever we need made. But wait: it gets worse. Most times, in order for the process to work, it has to be infused with a whole bunch of dangerous chemicals, which are now part of the new product. So when we have to dispose of say, a park bench that was made from recycled plastic (this was the example given in Cradle to Cradle), it is more dangerous now then it was before.
Back to the enabling part of this. Instead of us being completely bullshit on how companies make shit, we let them get away with it because of the “recycle” option. The question we should be asking is why make shit that does not go away?
Recycling is not the answer. It just moves the problem (and makes it more dangerous) further down the road.
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It may not be the answer (as with all things regarding our various environmental crises, there is no “single” answer, and it’s ridiculous to discard “small fixes” in hopes of finding the “big fix”), but without downcycling (a term I very much like, by the way), this stuff would just be thrown away.
This is the second time this week that you’ve brought up the “postponing the inevitable” argument, but what you don’t seem to realize is that death is the inevitable. Not just for us, but our species generally, and for the entire planet more specifically. Inevitably, the sun is going to die, and our planet is going to die. There’s absolutely nothing we can do to stop that. But that doesn’t mean we should give up. It means we should do everything we can to “postpone the inevitable.” To some extent, the definition of “living” could be “postponing the inevitable.”
I agree that new things should be made with a focus on their decomposition. In an ideal world, that park bench would not go to the dump, but to the compost pile. I think that’s an awesome first-principle for designers to have.
But what about the things that already exist? We gotta do something with them. Even if it is downcycling, at least the objects still remain within the cycle.
The issue of the objects becoming more dangerous in the downcycling process is difficult one, however. I don’t have an answer to that.
what’s up with the comment box? - why do half of my words disappear into a void?
boo…
good post justin… - yeah… - companies have tto figure out a way to downsize their containers… - like cereal… - you got both paper and plastic… - what about cereal that just comes in the plastic with a sticker on it tso you can tell what kind of cereal it is…
you have to change the comment box… - just look at the errors of my last comment… - i couldn’t fix them because i can’t see them… - and there isn’t even a submit button… - i have to click the mouse around the comment box to efind the submit button…
Justin-interesting post. I just want to make sure I’m understanding your argument correctly.
First, your main point is that recycling is a scam (which, I’m assuming, you’re saying is being perpetuated by corporate America…if I’m wrong on this, let me know). Second, you’re inferring that recycling is the only mainstream environmental action happening right now, and as a result, we’re all being suckered into believing that we’re doing everything we can, environmentally-speaking.
So your conclusion is that, as a result of this scam, we should completely dump the recycling idea. Is this correct?
Kyle, I guess my point is that what ever gets made from the recycled stuff eventually ends up in the trash or incinerated anyway, is it better that we spend all that energy just to postpone its trip there?
Dovev, well I am not sure who is behind it, if anyone. It could be the corporations(even though it would be cheaper for them to make the stuff environmentally friendly), but if I had to bet I would say it is everyone. We all like to use stuff, we like convenience, but all of us feel bad about it. So someone came up with this idea or recycling to make all of us feel better about what we use and throw away. Not to mention what federal money companies get for being “green” and using recyclable stuff.
Now I am not saying dump the recycling program but as it is presently constituted.Companies should get federal money for creating packaging that does not hurt the environment and us.
I will get more into my save the world solutions later today.
Here’s what I’m thinking, regarding the “using energy to postpone its trip” thing. The only reason we have to worry about “energy” is because we don’t get it from renewable resources (wind, solar, hydro, etc.). If we can shift our entire energy-creation system away from fossil fuels (as we absolutely need to do, for reasons that go beyond downcycling), then the energy we spend on the process won’t really matter. Of course, that’s an ideal system I’m talking about, not a current real-world one.
(And Dave, what web browser are using? I need to be able to replicate the problem before I can figure out how to fix it)
Pretty good stuff. Unfortunately lazy people will use bullshit arguments like this to explain why they don’t recycle. We cannot control automobiles or the way that trash is picked up. So, enormous co2 beasts will constantly spew waste into the air. Yeah, that sucks, but at least the life span of a plastic container will be prolonged and reborn to package once again.
I am totally against the longevity of the industrial revolution. The way all items are processed and manufactured is insanely wasteful. Should I get into a fight with every vegan I encounter? Yelling at them that a machine that uses animal fat to grease its cogs likely made their vegan shoes? No, because little change does matter (the cynic in me has fought hard with this point for a while).
Sure, recycling is a flawed system but it is one step in the right direction (much like hybrid cars). I would urge anyone arguing against recycling to first take a trip to his or her local dump and observe the man-made mountains of shit.
So the question is, how do we actually make progress in shifting away from 1. Fossil-fuel based economies and 2. A disposable society?
I think the first step is reevaluating what we assign costs to. For example, most natural systems don’t have any cost assigned to their usage…this results in free usage of things like air, water, atmosphere, etc. Until we assign a cost to this stuff, environmental damage will keep happening (and keep getting worse as we’re going to add another 3 billion people to the planet over the next few decades).
So, any ideas on where to start with this? Is it through the political system? Where can we actually gain a foothold on making progress?
But a lot of stuff in that dump was already recycled, so it ended up there anyway. The point being why make shit that does not help the planet? Why not make it so that when I throw my empty ice cream wrapper on the ground I can feel good about it. Because that wrapper will break down and feed the grass, maybe at some point it would have grass seeds in it so that it would create something good. My question is why take a plastic bottle, melt it down with a whole bunch of other plastic bottles, add some more dangerous chemicals to it, create a new plastic frankenstein(whatever product) that will end up a tthe same dump the bottles would of ended at only with it being more dangerous.
What I am talking about is not science fiction, there have already been products made with this in mind.
My next rant will be on how chemicals “gas off” into our systems.
The only way to make a foothold with anything in the world is with the corporations, proving to them that making things the right way is profitable.
Right.
Wrong?
Speaking of which, have you seen The Corporation? If not, you should.
You MIGHT be able to watch the whole thing via Google video. Check out this link.
kyle… - m’browser is safari…
Another problem I have with recycling is that the products that are recycled are not made to be recycled. How smart is that? An example in Cradle to Cradle, is paper. Because it is not made with the idea that it will be recycled it takes “extensive bleaching” and other processes to be done to in in order to make it blank. This makes it less smooth, filled with chemicals, and according to the book causes the particles to become airborne where we inhale it. Let’s hear it for recycled paper.
Regarding recycling, like everything else it depends.
Here’s some good recent reading on the subject.
http://economist.co.uk/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9249262
Key takeaways:
“Recycling aluminium, for example, can reduce energy consumption by as much as 95%. Savings for other materials are lower but still substantial: about 70% for plastics, 60% for steel, 40% for paper and 30% for glass.”
“Metals and glass can be remelted almost indefinitely without any loss in quality, while paper can be recycled up to six times. (As it goes through the process, its fibres get shorter and the quality deteriorates.)”
Lies.
Aluminum- is constantly down cycled.
the largest amount of aluminum comes from cans but the problem with that is that on a typical can there are two kinds of aluminum. “the walls are aluminum, manganese alloy with some magnesium, plus coatings and paint while the harder top is aluminum magnesium alloy. In conventional recycling these materials are melted together, resulting in a weaker-and less useful- product”
So long story short even with recycling, companies still have to go out and get virgin aluminum to make the cans that get down cycled and made into craptastic stuff.
Metals- most metal that gets down cycled comes from cars, but most things would fall under this category of down cycling.
When a car gets recycled, “the high quality steel-high carbon, high-tensile steel- is “recycled” by melting it down with other car parts, including copper from the cables, and the paint and plastic coatings. More high quality steel can be added to make the hybrid metal strong enough for its next use, but it will not have the properties to make new cars again.
So long story short if nothing is added to the metal and it is melted down only with its own type (copper pipes) then yes it will retain its high quality.
Glass? It’s just melted sand anyway.
Paper I have already gone into, every time it gets down cycled it becomes more dangerous to everyone that come into contact with it. As the fibers shorten they have more of a chance to fray and become airborne and all those chemicals used to make it usable again can end up in the air, your lungs, where ever.
Anyway, recycling is needed what needs to be worked on is creating things that are meant to be recycled. Things need to be made so that when there life span is finished they can be broken down in to different materials to be used again.
The percentage figures are not the percentage of material that is useful, rather they are showing how much energy would be saved as opposed to creating virgin materials.
Those are misleading because say you recycle 1 ton of aluminum, you are going to get 10 pounds of aluminum that would be the same quality as virgin. So the savings would be 90% of energy it would take to get those 10 pounds of recycled aluminum compared to virgin aluminum. Sweet. The problem is there is 2230 pounds of second grade aluminum that gets made into whatever(and then recucled, and you still need to get virgin aluminum.
The main point is that we should produce things that can be recycled 100% back into what they were originally intended to for.
Get cradle to cradle and read it. I think you would dig it. It is geared towards engineers/designers its only 200 pages or so should it shouldn’t take to long for you to read it.
saw a good documentary last night, called “Maxed Out” about credit cards and debt (both personal and governmental)…I highly recommend.
One line from the movie that struck me was the following:
Currently the United States spends more on interest (to pay off foreign debt) than on homeland security, education and healthcare combined.
Pretty shocking that our INTEREST payments on foreign debt is more than all three of those programs (which we all know are astronomical in themselves).
Anyway, the movie focuses more on personal debt and evil credit card companies (and they are insanely evil) but it does talk a bit about politics and how the US debt problem starts at the top…..
anyway, it doesn’t necessarily fit into this post or comment chain, but I thought it was amazing when we talk about all the ways our government mis-spends money to think that such an incredibly, unbelievably large chunk just goes directly to interest on debt we will likely never pay off.
Adam…you have posting rights on Fluid Imagination. If you’ve got something you want to say that doesn’t quite fit into an ongoing conversation, feel free to log in and write a new post.
Not every post you write has to be 1000 words. This would have been fine.
Good post Justin - My husband happens to BE a plastic industry executive (soon to be “former”), and trust me, no one in the plastic industry is using recycled plastics. There are hundreds of different types of plastics, all with different uses. You would have to use 300 blue boxes to separate them all. There is no recycled plastics industry - doesn’t exist! Yes, some people make decking or roads or something, VERY high cost, energy intensive, limited use.
Two things, Justin.
1) My uncle is the dude in charge of this stuff for Marblehead, and has been since before I can remember (of course, my memory sucks). Anyway, I saw him this weekend, and it turns out that he reads Fluid Imagination every once in a while, and he said, “Hey, I read that recycling rant. You know what? He’s about 80% right.”
Now, Adam can jump in here, because he was part of the conversation too, but what I understood from the conversation was that recycling makes no difference from an environmental perspective, but they make sense from an economical one; i.e., recycling programs save towns money.
My contention was that the town would be willing to spend more money if they knew that the programs they signed up for were actually doing something environmental-wise, and I said so, but my uncle responded with something to the effect of, “Even if the town was willing to spend more money, there aren’t any better programs out there to spend money on.”
And that’s distressing.
(If I’m incorrect on my understanding of this conversation, Adam or Wayne — if you’re out there — please correct it. After all, I was a few beers in)
2) My uncle just e-mailed me this article from the Economist. I haven’t read it yet, but I assume it supports Justin’s argument: The Truth about Recycling.
Since I was called out, I guess I’ll chime in (plus Leigh is getting dangerously close to out commenting me)
So, I joined the discussion late and was also a few beers (and one particularly long and tiring scuba dive) into my day but from what I could gather from Wayne, was this:
Paper and cardboard has what’s called a “market” for recycling. In other words, it is inexpensive enough to recylce this stuff and you can actually make new paper and cardboard products out of it. Therefore, everyone should basically continue to recycle paper and cardboard. It’s a system that actually works (to some degree)
However, there is no “market” for recycling metal or plastic and by this he means that it is too expensive to even send his plastic and metal to be recycled so he just ends up sending them to the dump anyway. However, it is MUCH cheaper to send seperated plastic and metal to various dumps than it is to send ‘lump” wasted. Therefore, it is important to continue to preach recycling because it makes it cheaper for the town to throw away all the stuff you think you are recycling, Ain’t life a bitch.
Apparently, all plastic products are made of single “resins” and that when you recylce them you are mixing “resins” and that mixing is expensive and rarely results in the creation of a new product. I believe Glass and Metal have similar problems (not the resin part, but the expensiveness and inability to create new products). Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to recycle plastic, metal, or glass because we the products we make today, aren’t designed to be recycled and the recycling process hasn’t really been figured out yet (Except for with paper). It’s really just a ruse to make people seperate their garbage because its cheaper to throw away seperated garbabe (I feel like I’m repeating myself now)….
Anyway, that’s what I got out of the conversatin and the really ironic thing is that we JUST started recycling in my apartment (like three weeks ago) and now my girlfriend is like the recycle nazi, always yelling at me when I don’t put the tuna can in the right bin, etc……which normally would be fine, because its the right thing to do…but after my conversation last weekend, it seems kind of pointless (although I guess I’m saving my town money, which lessens my taxes, right?, I mean right?)
So that’s my dos centavos.