Is recycling a big con?

Question

Why do we recycle paper? Surely it grows on trees - wait it is trees?! Recycling uses bleach which is really bad for the environment and growing trees is good for the environment. Do we just recycle to make ourselves feel a bit better?

Answer 1

We use paper so much that if we did not recycle there would become a shortage of trees, due to the time for a tree to be big enough. If we did not recycle anything where are we going to put the waste can't bury it for ever we are running out of landfill sites already. Can't use farmland as food grown on that land could become contaminated in all sorts or nasty stuff.

Answer 2

You want the answer - Well its yes and no.

Recycling paper is much less harmful to the environment, although it does need to mixed with new paper to make a decent quality product this is also better for the environment. The bleach used is harmful to the environment but most companies treat it as much as they can. Bleach is also an expensive resource and only when it is beyond its usefulness is it gotten rid of.

The big con with recycling is down to the huge amount spoilage that goes on. if for instance the a large amount of plastic are found or even general waste is found is sorted waste it will just get sent to a landfill to be disposed of (contary to opinion this is not done secretly in companies own landfills, it is sent to the municipal landfill and is considered in the LATS scheme).

The best way to improve the amount of recycling and get better results is to be more vigilant in what bin you throw your waste into.

On another note - you will rarely find a piece of paper within the UK and Europe that hasn't got any recycled content within it

Answer 3

Recycling is a complex subject. I gave a talk once about paper production and I was apalled how many people thought paper makers went aound the countryside chopping down any likely looking tree. It is on a par with if I started a jam factory sending my mum out around the hedgerows to pick blackberries. Wood pulp for paper comes from plantations of fir trees and unfortunately they are not so good at converting CO2 to O2. I hear nothing from my local UK council on recyling other than a clear plastic bag and some instructions as to what to put in it. I would like there to be a series of lectures around the countryside on recycling so that we could educate ourselves on the various plastics and so on that can or can't go in the bag.

Answer 4

By recycling it doesn't go into a landfill. And even though paper is biodegradable, it doesn't really biodegrade when stuffed into a landfill.

Making paper uses bleach, too. In fact paper pulp making is very damaging to the environment because it uses lots of water that it mucks up. Cutting down trees for paper is not good for the environment. Much more trees are cut down than are grown for paper maker. Most of the trees cut down in tropical rainforests is made into pulp for paper. They use giant floating paper pulp mills on the Amazon to turn trees into pulp that is shipped around the world to make paper.

Paper recycling does use bleach and it is expensive, which is why it isn't done more often. But it does help the environment.

Answer 5

Yes, we recycle paper. About 3 years ago the inorganic dye in newsprint was changed to a dye made from soybeans. Now we can recycle it more sucessfully back to newsprint. Steel, copper and most metals are recycled at a profit for the communities that collect trash and incinerate it. Glass is easily recycled.

Most plastics, howerver, and I say most, but not all wind up in the incinerator. There is little market for ground up junk plastic. Some boards now appear at Lowes made from recycled plastic. Mudflaps on trucks in another product. But that is a drop in bucket and most of the stuff you see in those recycle containers winds up incinerated. Plastic bottles that is. Pellets are made by extreme compression from this junk plastic and fed into a boiler in NY.

Think of it this way, extruding or molding plastic takes place at certain critical temps of the plastic. That plastic mess of grindings would never yield a material suitable to go thru the heat extruder of a $5 million dollar machine. So its never hardly used in that sort of application.

Answer 6

I think it is a little out of hand, paper comes from managed forests and the mountains of waste as you point out are not necessarily enviro friendly in the manner of recycling.

I suppose we have to get into that frame of mind not to waste reusable resources, but I think the main advantage is that it reduces the need to land fill.

Glass is made from sand, there is plenty of that out there, but recycled glass is often a constituent of road surfaces (along with old tyres)

I remember the old days of recycling paper, when people would arrive in their cars dump off a bundle of newspapers, with no regard to the greenhouse gas their car had produced during that exercise.

We have a long way to go yet with this. I have lived and worked in poor countries in Africa, they recycle anything, just to make a living. Prime example were pairs of old trainers, resoled with tread from an old car tyre, sold from a stall by the roadside. Absolutely nothing went to waste, but this is for very different reasons to ourselves

Answer 7

It's a big waste of time if we don't buy recycled paper or glass or whatever is recycled.
Growing trees takes time, we don't have enough trees as it is!
The big problem is not what to do with our waste but how come we have so much waste to start with! It's not OK to let consumerism go unchecked!

Answer 8

not all recycled materials are re used a lot go into the private landfil sites of the companies, I`ts only the council that are running out of landfil sites. If councils aren`t seen to be recycling a certain percentage of waste they will soon se fines from europe .

Answer 9

the main effective con is that, interior the united kingdom a minimum of, lots of product this is meant for recylcing does not get recycled. by using shortcoming of recycling flowers, numerous the plastic, metallic and paper that is going into recycling containers interior the united kingdom purely is going into landfill sites with the non-recycled stuff!

Answer 10

Its starting to look that way often the cost of recycling is more than the end product is worth.