Is recycling a load of rubbish?

Question

Ok sorry for the pun but does recycling actually prevent useful material resources from being wasted, reduce the consumption of raw materials and reduce engery usage or does it just contribute even more to them?

I remember looking out my window and seeing one lorry pumping out loads of carbon to collect the normal rubbish and then seeing a second lorry pumping out loads of carbon to collect the recyclable rubbish. It made me think about the Penn and Teller episode on recycling, so I decided to watch it again and found myself in agreement with much of what they were saying.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7734998370503499886&q=penn+teller

Answer 1

You have made such a good point there! One star for you!

Answer 2

yes, you are right to say that the lorries emit carbon dioxide when they pick up the rubbish etc. The key is that the amount of energy and resources that the recycling process cover probably offset the carbon dioxide due to the lorries.

Recycling has two sides of the picture：One, it prevents the rubbish from being thrown away that may just end up in landfill or somewhere else where it just pollutes the environment. Even in the landfill is not a good idea as well, plastic can take hundreds or thousands of years to break down and hence the area that is used for landfill will not be available for a very long period of time.

Recycling saves energy and resources that is involved when you make new products from virgin material. I think it is clear to you that when we make new bottles from old plastic bottles, you dont' have to use more crude oil to make the new bottles.

However, recycling is not the best solution to environmental problems. Reduce, reuse , recycle. If you recycle, you still need to use some energy and resources to make new products, and like you have pointed out, resources have to be spent to collect the material for recycling. Hence reduce your consumption, and reuse things if possible is the better option to recycling!

Answer 3

I'm not as concerned about global warming (which I don't think is caused by burning fossil fuels) as I am about littering in general. I recycle because I don't want to fill up the landfills any faster than necessary. It also saves me money on trash bags!

Answer 4

The answer is not in your approach ,it will mean people starve and will kill each other,is that what u want. CO2 is not the problem ,it is part of the solution. The plants take in the CO2 and hold on to the C and give us back the O2. It works and has done a good job. Understand what u are asking for .

Answer 5

we had recycling in my city for 5 years, until a report was made public. from the very start it cost more to do it than not, they even found that the trash truck actually just dumped it all in the same land will.

Answer 6

Think we should all recycle, it saves on landfill also saves in lots of other ways. Think of all the natural resource's it saves, when we run out then what recourse do we have? Digging up the landfill dumps and mining them?

Answer 7

you made quite a point right there but on my opinion recycle helps save the environment.
i mean, lets take papers for example. imagine that papers are not recycled. think about how many trees that we are going to lose. enough global warming for goodness sake.
you can do lot when recycling.

Answer 8

Yes it reduces carbon emmisions what with not having to reproduce the same product

Answer 9

Recycling is wonderful!!!

Answer 10

it is just less that we have to produce when you recycle