is recycling bad for the environment?

Question

because it "wastes more resources than it produces"
it sounds ridiculous to me but i really need to know the truth

Answer 1

no it aint
i recycle nearly all my used stuff
I only throw about about two small bags of trash a week

Answer 2

In order to lesson our impact to the environment, there are the so-called 3-R: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Sometimes, people also include "replace" (or rethink) and make it 4-R.

Even though we have been talking mostly on recycle, reduce and reuse are as important and sometimes more important than recycle.

Think about recylce this way. If the materials are not recylced, we would have to produce the products 100% from materials we obtained from the envrironment. Recycling help reduce our demand of raw materials from natural resources. Some of the recycled materials may take more energy resource to reintegrate into our products. That is mainly due to the inefficiency of the current industry structure and collection mechanisms. When the industry built their plants back then, there weren't much interests to recycle. It would take time for the industries to make it more efficient to incorporate recycle materials from collection, transport, and integrate into their production. It can be done.

Answer 3

Yes, it can be.

Since Al Gore's movie, manufacturers are cashing in with the word "Green". They blindly recycles everything, even when it takes up too much energy, use too much water, need to be transported far away and worst produce toxic by-products during the recycling process.

On HowStuffWorks.com, they say 'A "recycled" plastic bottle has far more virgin plastic in it than recycled plastic.' So in addition to the transportation, the energy required to recycle, more material are used in recycling bottles!
http://home.howstuffworks.com/bottled-water4.htm

There was a very good article on the New York Post few days ago. Wish I can find the link. It was about how many green products are actually not that great. (will update if I find the link)

The best way is still to consume less.

Answer 4

In the truest sense of the word, recycling is the best thing that you can do, not only for the environment, but for your own economic benefit.

Any time that you re-use something, even if it's for something that it's not meant to be used for, you are, in fact, recycling it.

For instance, after I am done eating my yogurt, I wash out the cup, and use it for any of a number of things. From planting seedlings, to an alternative to plastic cups, to holding screws and such, to using it to mold jello, I manage to reuse the container many times.

This is good for the environment, because the container does not get to the landfill right away, it is good for your pocketbook, because instead of spending money on needless things, you are using things that you already have. All you need is some imagination. With time, it becomes second nature.

Answer 5

Depends on they type.

Paper - Yes, the chemicals used in paper recycling if not properly handled have higher detrimental effects than those used in the paper its self when it breaks down, the cost to recycle paper is more than the cost to grow new trees, and requires new wood matterials to recycle it. Most US papers are made using wood from tree farms which are grown for that specific purpose.

Aluminum - No. The eviromental costs to dig up, both fiscal and eviromental, Aluminum and most any other metal is higher than that of resmelting the metal, metal can be resmelted as many times as needed with little to no degridation to the matterials.

Plastics - Lesser of two evils, they both can be extreamly detrimental to the enviroment, plastic also has limited recycling potential, an the final product is the worst form of plastic to dispose of, because the only thing left after its' cycle is the worst stuff in plastic to break down and put into the ground.

There was an episode of Penn and Teller's: Bulls**t which delt with recycling, and they covered almost every type of recycling and the reasoning behind them. (Season 2, Episode 5)

Answer 6

It depends on how its done.

Government run recycling programs are notorious sources of pollution because of how bad the government is at doing everything, not just recycling.

It would be better to try to reuse things, or find alternative uses, if possible, than to recycle for this reason.

Government waste and mismanagement is just a fact of life, however, and recycling things that cannot be reused is still better for the environment than nothing.

Answer 7

most recycling does not produce more waste, for example, recycling aluminum cans uses much less energy that creating new aluminum, which is a plus side on the energy. same for creating plastics, out of recycled plastic, youre doing a lot if you just recycle your pop and beer cans and water and pop bottles.
also most plastic comes from oil so you are saving oil usage

Answer 8

It's not really the issue is it? The real issue is to scale down the use of particular kinds of materials in the first place; I wonder whether recycling reproduces our reliance upon unnecessary packaging and such like. It's not that it's inherently bad, but that it disguises some more fundamental problems with packaging, production, food miles and so forth.

Answer 9

I have read in a reputable magazine that we are being led to believe that we need to recycle because of the damage to the planet and to reduce our carbon emissions. if you take a look at America, China and India you will see a different story. The scare mongering we are subjected to is making it more acceptable for the government to introduce more green taxes without opposition from the public, because the public feels a sense of guilt and thinks by paying the extra taxes on fuel etc they are putting their conscience at ease. Personally I think that recycling is a waste of time for these reasons. Its all politics and backdoor revenue for the government.So to answer your question, it doesn't really matter.

Answer 10

Making recycled paper uses 30-55% less energy than making paper out of new trees
Source:
http://www.dced.state.ut.us/energy/recyclefacts.html

Some paper and paperboard is made from 100% recycled fiber, (post consumer, post converter, post mill included) Some manufacturers use a mixture of recycled and virgin and as far as I am aware there are only two paper mills left in the U.S. that use 100% virgin fiber (from trees). Another note is that recycled or as its sometimes called "recovered" paper is a large export item, particularly to Asia.

The most harmful chemical used in paper making is elemental chlorine. Look for paper marked as TCF (Total Chlorine Free), ECF (Elemental Chlorine Free), PCF (Process Chlorine Free). There are good ways around using elemental Chlorine, such as oxygen bleaching to get whiter papers.

Answer 11

It is not ridiculous to recycle and people have been recycling for years and years. I also recycle anything that can be recycled and have been doing so for a long time.