(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

[eneref.livejournal.com]

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.

This is a sort of apples and oranges thing. New growth forests are mostly pine -- utterly useless material for ANYthing... bad for stopping soil erosion... bad for housing animals... bad for use in construction... bad for the soil... etc.

Old growth forests are cut down and replaced with new growth forests in the forestry industry... doing incredible damage. Pines spring up first when a forest is cut and leveled. After a few hundred to a thousand years, other trees sprout... like oak... However, you've essentially rendered the forest useless for anything but causing allergies and pine-brush fires for several hundred years.

Recycling requires more energy, but mostly because recycling technologies are not often given the R&D they need. It also avoids the trash/manufacture cycle which is really quite horrible for the land. Trash has to go SOMEwhere. We can't keep shipping it off to other countries... and recycled plastic requires no additional infusion of petroleum -- a decidedly limited product.

Penn Jillette is a noted anti-conservationist. I'm not sure this wasn't slightly slanted to mislead.

[solsistr3.livejournal.com]

I find that very disheartening!

[xopherg.livejournal.com]

I notice the article is citation free.

Just thought I would throw this in:

[plantyhamchuk.livejournal.com]

The environmentalist mantra I've heard for years is:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

There was an understanding that the further down the chain one goes, the less efficient or aware one is being. So while recycling is definitely a uh.. encouraged activity, reducing consumption is looked upon more highly.

[rivian.livejournal.com]

My 8th grade physics teacher used to tell us that recycling was terribly inefficient and cost way more than just making new stuff. He rationalized it under the importance of getting people used to doing it so that when it was finally efficient enough to make sense, people would already be doing it.

I have to imagine at some point it actually will be cost effective, even if that effectiveness comes not from better technology, but just from the lack of natural resources on our planet in the future.

[mumpish.livejournal.com]

It's just a data point, but worth noting ... my neighborhood was built after an old-growth - well, middle-aged-growth; nothing much east of the Mississippi is old growth, really - forest was leveled. Somehow, though, I have both pine trees and oak trees sprouting wild in my back yard - as well as maples, tulip poplars, sweet gums, birch and others I can't identify. Pulpwood forests are all pine because paper companies want it to be. Wild forests are primarily pine early on because pines are essentially weeds. But they're less resistant to fire, ice, and disease and within one human generation a fallow field will return to a decent hardwood forest.

Jim

[ramirez13.livejournal.com]

hey, finally got around to adding your journal yo my list, was a pleasure meeting you last week.

heads up, I sent you the official SR flier for sat show, hope its not to late to get on the site

[saluki.livejournal.com]

Saw that too. Watch the second episode on Thursdsay, May 12, at 9:30 this week. They discuss the Bible. I totally need to tape that one.