Recycling Rant, (or) Why Recycling Sucks

(this post was written by Justin on June 22, 2007, and it concerns & & & )

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.