Why the fixation with recycling?

Question

Whatever happened to reducing and reusing?

Answer 1

Reducing and reusing are even harder for none green people to think of doing than recycling. And the directives have come from Europe - thats why there is so much emphasis on it in the news, with councils forced by europe to hit targets.

Answer 2

I coudn't agree more.

This should be the last thing to consider.

We should reduce what we use, then use it again and only when it is completely useless consider recycling.

The current targets for recycling have meant that many companies are not selling off working redundant computer etc, as these cannot be counted towards their 'recycling' targets. The same applies in many other areas, it is a complete nonsense.

Come back the days of make do and mend. We live in a thow away world and 'recycling' fixation builds upon that.

It is nonsense to destroy stuff completely, to reuse the base material, when you can repair and reuse the item in its original state. Wasting money and energy.

Any one remember when you had returnable glass bottles?

Answer 3

It is sad that a forum like this has such uneducated people like the one above me here. While it is true that recycled materials do need energy to be made reusable, the energy is much less. But one of the main arguements for recycling is in the phasing out of more raw materials and therefore we have less to extract from the earth as well as a reduction in landfills. It would be nice if people that answered questions were at least moderately informed and educated.
The others in this column are correct however. Recycling in many parts of Canada has monetary incentives, like getting your bottle return back. This brings the arguement that some people only recycle to get that back. Reusing and reducing are fundemental shifts in ideology of how we want to live, so I think people have a much harder time with that we live in a world built by consumption. We are bombarded everyday with commercials telling us we NEED to buy this product because we could not possibly be happy without it. Hopefully this will slowly change over the next fifty years. I remain opitimistic but weary.

Answer 4

All three form the circle of proper resource management: first reduce (what ever you can, so the total in used resources is a lot smaller); the re-use anything that can be used a second time or even many times over (such as glass bottles, for example).
And what then goes into the waste process, should be treated in a careful way, so we can filter out all that can be recycled. But one should not forget a very old way of dealing sufficiently with certain types of waste either: Anything organic should be put on a compost heap and left to the natural process of regeneration. (And jolly good top soil it makes as well...)

Answer 5

Recycling is easier than reducing & reusing. Manufacturers can continue doing what they do & tell consumers it's okay because the packaging is being recycled.

Answer 6

I only know it's driving me nuts! I now have a bag for cardboard, a bag for plastics and tins and, a bag for glass hung in my kitchen as well as my normal kitchen bin. Before I put my plastic, glass , tins etc into said bags, I have to wash them out or else my kitchen would smell! So when washing up last thing at night where it would only take me 4 minutes before I started recycling, it now takes me 20 minutes! I then have to struggle to the recycling bins carrying all this stuff and carefully put everything in the relevant bins, while pausing for a breather I watch a car pull up and the driver shoves everything out of his one bag into one bin! Now is that bone idleness or what! There's me, recovering from a hip and knee replacement operation only 7 weeks ago, struggling to do my bit and this selfish plonker ruins what most of us have done through his thoughtlessness, doh!

Answer 7

I'm in Greece, & it's a bit of a joke. My wife wants to recycle everything, but I think we're the only people who do.
I go to the recycle bin & it's full of rotting food. I think that the bins here are only because of EU pressure!

Answer 8

recycling is re-using of raw materials, reducing the need to need new raw materials.

Alot of the recyclying is to reduce landfill ,which , i believe is at crisis point. There's nowhere to dispose of the rubbish.

Answer 9

reducing and reusing require lifestyle changes, recycling doesn't.

Answer 10

i agree. i mean come on people recycling requires energy to accomplish. so your using fossil fuels and causing pollution in an attempt to make the environment cleaner. dont make much sense to me.