Why do people recycle?

Question

People waste so much time recycling and I can't understand why. The only recyclable materials that are actually worth recycling, companies are actually willing to pay you for (aluminium & steel). The rest actually do the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish through recycling, it takes more energy & creates more pollution (the refining process) and costs an enormous amout of money (taxpayer money) and manpower to refine these products.
The 1st story that I read to address this issue stated that "Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America” printed in the New York Times in 1996. America has no shortage of landfills, and the current landfill regulations are very environmentally friendly and are the most cost effective way of disposing of waste.
There is no shortage of trees available in the US the number of trees in our forest has actually increased in the last 50 years according to Jerry Taylor, director of natural resources at the Cato Institute.

I love some of these answers! Incredibly funny.
With the exception of the aluminium & steel recyclers, has anyone noticed that all of the research that supports recycling is done by or supported by persons or groups who have a financial interest in recycling.

Answer 1

We recycle to get the most out of our resources and to maintain a sustainable relationship between economics and stewardship for our environment. Besides deriving the maximum amount of value from a resource, recycling also reduces or prevents emissions to air and water, saves energy and natural resources and reduces greenhouse gas emissions from landfills.

While it is correct to assert that fossil fuels are used in the remanufacture of recycled items, research indicates that overall emissions are lower from recovered materials than from virgin materials. Recycling aluminum cans, for example, saves 95 percent of the energy needed to extract an equal amount of aluminum from bauxite, its virgin source.

A recent Executive Order directs all federal agencies to purchase copier paper with at least 30 percent recycled content. As a result, up to 500,000 fewer trees will be harvested annually for the production of paper, and the remaining trees will absorb 16,000 tons of carbon in a year. Energy used to produce the copier paper will be reduced by 12 percent, and an average reduction of 14 percent in air emissions and greenhouse gases will be achieved. Finally, a 13 percent reduction will occur in both water pollutants and the amount of solid waste requiring disposal.

Answer 2

I believe we all have a vested interest in preserving the integrity of the only home we know. Recycling practices in every city may not be economically solvent, nor is recycling the whole answer to how to help preserve some semblance of health on this planet. But it is something everyone can help with and it is part of the solution (reduction in consumption is a better place to start, as most people are wasteful consumers). I've been recycling on many levels for more than 20 years and I don't do it to make money. And recycling enterprises create jobs.

Answer 3

Haha, that would be a little ironic to do that. I'm absolutely sure you can recycle plastic, but it depends on where you go to recycle it. Recycling doesn't always mean melting a metal down to form a different object, it could just be interpreted as re-using something. So if you take on this meaning, you could use a recycling bin multiple times.

Answer 4

That is probably the most irresponsible statement (and question) that I have ever heard. Recycling plastic etc. takes less pollution and energy than generating plastic from raw resourses. There is no doubt that we have no shortage of landfills; I see them popping up everywhere. The shortage of trees is not caused here in the US. We have arbor laws here. It's the relentless and irresponsible ravaging of the equatorial rain forests that is killing our planet. Our taxes are going to generate wars that we really don't need. Recycling pays for itself. Do some REAL research. You really need to thinik globally. Your attitude seems to be based on pure laziness. It really isn't that much trouble to separate your trash and recycle. Preserving our environment is not just some wild conspiracy theory. I plan to be ground up into fertilizer when I die, so that your wasteful grandchildren will have something to eat.

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Why do people recycle?
People waste so much time recycling and I can't understand why. The only recyclable materials that are actually worth recycling, companies are actually willing to pay you for (aluminium & steel). The rest actually do the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish through recycling, it...

Answer 6

The bigger question is why DON'T people recycle??

If more people recycled their aluminum, steel, plastic, asphalt, used cooking grease, cardboard, magazines, scrap paper, phone books, newsprint, styrofoam, wood, grass clippings, - and everything else that's not biodegradable - maybe the costs of recycling would go down, and the natural resources would be used up less quickly.

There will come a time when there is no more land available for landfills because people won't want them near their homes and neighborhoods, and because even this mammoth country will eventually run out of land. As landfills fill to overflowing, all the crap we've tossed into them will eventually begin to leach toxic poisons into our air and water supplies.

I'm going to assume, rf186, that you're a young person who only cares about your own needs and your own convenience.
Well, eventually - someday - you might even marry and have children, and your children will have children, and those children will have children. So your irresponsible attitude today might very well cause your descendants to wear gas masks in order to breathe. Or, they may find themselves without sufficient fresh water supplies, and they will die. Apparently, you have no concern for future generations, including your own relatives. What a selfish, arrogant, pathetic person you must be!

Finally, what if recycling isn't necessary? What if Earth's natural resources are so plentiful that we'll never run out of wood, water, oil, coal, mineral ore, or fresh air? Does that mean we should simply waste such bounty? Surely the evolutionary process (or Nature, or an intelligent designer, or God) gave us these resources for more purpose than to just arbitrarily throw them all in landfills!

Before our European ancestors invaded this country, Native Americans regarded the land and its resources as sacred. If they killed a buffalo on the great plains, they used it for food, clothing, shelter; nothing from that slaughtered animal went to waste. When early pioneers went west, they slew buffalo just for the sport of it, leaving decaying carcasses to rot on the desolate plains.

Our disposable society has no time for REturning, REusing, or REcycling. It's just so much easier to toss it all in a dumpster and let someone haul it away to a landfill (as long as it's not in MY backyard!).

There IS a time - perhaps generations from now - when Earth's resources will be wiped out as our population grows and lives longer. So when your great-great-great-great-grandchildren meet you in Hell, you can confess to them why you didn't feel it was important to recycle on their behalf. Good luck explaining yourself to them throughout your eternal damnation. -RKO-

Answer 7

Break this down into the fundamentals. There is conflicting readouts on how much energy is consumed by recycling, so it is important to look at WHAT you are recycling. There are three items that are the top of the list: paper, plastic, and aluminum.

Paper,

While a renewable resource has an upper limit. If you look at population growth and the advancement of education worldwide, paper is at a premium. In Australia and Japan, wood is very costly because it is scarce. Small Indonesian islands are being ripped to pieces as they are deforested to supply 2nd and first world countries with paper. Wood is also a prime fuel source in third world countries and some locations in first and second world countries. While the forest density has increased, it has been an artificial increase which is a problem!

Eighty years ago the forest service mandated that all forest fires be extinguished within 24 hours of starting. This created a problem: too much fuel for forest fires. The forest and its trees have evolved for millions of years into a self-sustaining arrangement that accounts for forest fires started by lightening. The smaller threes would burn off occasionally, but the much taller trees would be above the flames, and their trunks are fire resistant. Now, with natural forest fires stopped from playing their role in nature, the forest is filled with short, medium, and tall trees. Now, when a forest fire does come along, it jumps right to the top and decimates the forest, turning it into a desert! Before this ill advised management system, a fire would leave the forest intact and select for trees with a stronger resistance to fire. Now we have fires that rage out of control and force us to evacuate half of California when the Santa Anas are just right.

Paper is not as easy to come by as some seem to think, the issue is much bigger. When China (which has huge environmental problems of its own) moves to second world status, it will be willing to pay a premium for US forest products, and the price will skyrocket. This is currently the case with steel, as China has been building so much in the last ten years that the price of steel has more than doubled. This hurts domestic building, which is one of the staples of the US economy. It would be a huge bonus if we could keep the paper here and recycle it!

Plastic,

This is a no-brainer: it is NOT a renewable resource. When we run out of this, we’ll have to start coming through the landfills looking for it! Look around you right this second and count the number of things in the room you are in which have plastic in them. The modern lifestyle is built not on silicon, but petroleum-based plastic.

Aluminum,

This makes the top three because, by compression, the amount of energy used to create aluminum from bauxite (its derivative) is over 6000 times that to make steel, paper, tin, or plastic. It takes a huge amount of electricity. This is an easy way to save a huge amount of waste energy: aluminum recycled uses a fraction of a percentage point worth of energy in comparison to mining raw ore, shipping it, refining it, distributing, and so on. Let us say it again: this one is NOT renewable. Look around the room again and count the number of things that use aluminum.

Answer 8

Yes we should recycle some things, but most of it is complete BS.
Most of the scientific community is in agreement with my above statement.
You should watch Penn & Tellers show Bullsh*t they had a good episode on recycling.

Answer 9

I think you had better do some more research into recycling. And what landfills are all about.

Answer 10

I don't know, maybe because we have been given the false sense that we're helping in some sort of way towards the environment, or life. That's really an interesting question.