(no subject)

[ghini]

I watched an interesting episode of Penn & Tellers show "Bullshit" on recycling. They spent a lot of time talking about a paper (summed up here) called "The Eight Myths of Recycling " which explains how the recycling movement has a ton of bad ideas behind it. Some points I found very interesting:

The amount of new growth that occurs each year in forests is more than 20 times the number of trees consumed by the world each year for wood and paper.

In virtually all cases, recycling materials requires more energy and produces more pollution than acquiring new materials and manufacturing with them.

There is exactly one material that is more profitable and environmentally friendly to recycle: aluminum. That's why a homeless guy will pick up aluminum cans and won't take plastic, newspapers, etc.

The recycling industry is supported by an estimated $8 billion in government subsidies.

Comments

[quandry.livejournal.com]

Some data. Yes, yes, it's from those _evil_ foresters! But you know, the environmentalists make money off their propaganda too, so don't trust it either. Anyway, apparently a large percentage of paper is already recycled, and within the US anyway, trees are replanted at a rate that replaces the ones cut down. This organization puts American paper recycling at about 48 percent.

from: http://www.afandpa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Forestry/Forestry_Facts_and_Figures/Forestry_Facts_and_Figures.htm

Growth/Harvesting:
http://www.afandpa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Forestry/Forestry_Facts_and_Figures/growth_harvesting.pdf

Recycling:
http://www.afandpa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Forestry/Forestry_Facts_and_Figures/recycling.pdf


The site is extensive, and worth poking around.

[eneref.livejournal.com]

Again... they compare trees as all the same... which they're not. The American Forestry and Paper industry is hardly an unskewed source. :)

A forest of white oak to them is just a forest of trees... easily replaced by pines.

But it's not quite that cut and dry number for number.