Recycling is mostly a lie.

[Osmeric]

Sounds like a lot of the Penn and Teller argument is based on monetary gain. As has been stated numerous times in the thread, recycling isn't the pursuit of profit.

Money is a representation of human effort. Resources are also a product of human effort. Spending a lot of effort to save less effort is wasteful.

[namelessone]

OP, I studied waste management, and I can assure you Penn and Teller are exaggerating. There are issues with recycling. Paper is a good example - the most efficient AND environmentally friendly way to get rid of paper in MOST CASES is just to burn it. There are also a lot of nuances regarding landfills - they tend to leach toxic materials like motherfuckers, they require quite a bit of maintenance (which pretty much increases exponentially with size). Kitchen and yard waste, on the other hand, is a lot better to compost, turn into sludge or whatnot, rather than dump on the landfill.

Still, the absolutely best way to deal with garbage is to produce less garbage to begin with. Conserve resources, reduce costs AND reduce waste. There's literally no downsides to this, except maybe having to give up a bit of convenience.

[Snorkle]

Money is a placeholder for resources, so spending more money to save some resources is a net loss.

If there are externalities not properly accounted for, add them back in explicitly via Pigovian taxes. Otherwise, imposing a specific solution leads to suboptimality and waste.

You have a lot to learn... That only applies to renewable resources. What about the others ?

The world's resources don't last forever. There are some resources which, no matter what amount of money, will never be viable to create.

[Osmeric]

You have a lot to learn... That only applies to renewable resources. What about the others ?

Why should non-renewability make any difference? In that case, the resource is a finite good that is priced via interest rates. Consumption of the resource is not an externality. If there are externalities (pollution, for example), handle this with appropriate taxes.

[belfpala]

Why should non-renewability make any difference?

Because some of us think of future generations?

I mean, your life is non-renewable. But I bet you'd disagree with someone killing you.

[Durandro]

Recycling isn't a lie. Its just expensive. But money isn't a real thing, is a representation of human effort. And the things being recycled are real and finite things. Metal recycling especially is very important, since there's not enough of it to be wasting - especially gold, silver and copper.

But hey, I will tell you something that is a lie. Hybrid engine cars being even remotely enviromentally friendly. When the materials used for the construction need to be shipped across the world four times just for the engine's battery, you know something is wrong. And they're not even as economical as modern diseal engines in real conditions (i.e. traffic and motorways).

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

Why should non-renewability make any difference? In that case, the resource is a finite good that is priced via interest rates. Consumption of the resource is not an externality. If there are externalities (pollution, for example), handle this with appropriate taxes.

Dah fuck? Do you really not think that non-renewability isn't significant?

[Tilde]

The real problem with recycling is that morons think that's an acceptable alternative to finding a real solution, so money is wasted on recycling rather than actual science.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

The real problem with recycling is that morons think that's an acceptable alternative to finding a real solution, so money is wasted on recycling rather than actual science.

Uh, what? Scientific research goes into recycling and how to make it more effective. What would you even define as a real solution anyway? Without magic recycling is very likely going to have value. I mean, look at the international space station. They're recycling water not just from waste like urine, but from sweat and breath. Those things add to the humidity of the air in the cabin and that vapor is eventually condensed back into their water supply.

[lordjust]

Sounds like a lot of the Penn and Teller argument is based on monetary gain. As has been stated numerous times in the thread, recycling isn't the pursuit of profit.

That isn't completely true.

Sure by recycling paper you lose money but in a lot of cases you make profit by recycling. For example when you recycle plastic, metals or glass you need a lot less power to melt them. Producing steel out of ore takes 70% more energy than melting old metals. A lot of recycling is done to make a profit. You need less resources (like ore and energy) and you can sell the finished product for the same amount of money.

There are good examples of recycling like metals, glass or plastic and there are bad examples like paper but you can make a lot of money by recycling. In Europe we buy waste from Africa to recycle it and sell the recycled materials to China to make a big profit. With China becoming more modern they also start to recycle to make a profit (they started with plastic).

[Theodon]

That isn't completely true.

Sure by recycling paper you lose money but in a lot of cases you make profit by recycling. For example when you recycle plastic, metals or glass you need a lot less power to melt them. Producing steel out of ore takes 70% more energy than melting old metals. A lot of recycling is done to make a profit. You need less resources (like ore and energy) and you can sell the finished product for the same amount of money.

There are good examples of recycling like metals, glass or plastic and there are bad examples like paper but you can make a lot of money by recycling. In Europe we buy waste from Africa to recycle it and sell the recycled materials to China to make a big profit. With China becoming more modern they also start to recycle to make a profit (they started with plastic).

I was thinking of a particular example of recycling that Sweden are kicking arse with at the present; http://planetivy.com/news/9257/swede...an-neighbours/

There's also those types of metals that are in high demand and are nearing the point where mining them from the ground is getting difficult, due to us tapping the mines of the world dry. That would be a future investment for companies who sell that resource, but also the only way we could create technology based on those materials in the future.

[saffi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tc4G...feature=relmfu
yup, total bull obviously, the boxes at the end were made magically with good thoughts

[Deleted]

In my country, the government uses the "environment" card to put up taxes that don't go into any fucking saving of the environment, just to collect more money to the budget.

[Osmeric]

Dah fuck? Do you really not think that non-renewability isn't significant?

It's not significant to the argument. If it is, please explain. "Think of future generations" isn't an argument, btw. It could be that future generations are best served by consumption of a particular resource now.

---------- Post added 2012-11-10 at 01:38 PM ----------

There's also those types of metals that are in high demand and are nearing the point where mining them from the ground is getting difficult, due to us tapping the mines of the world dry.

Which metal is that? I know of none. In general, depletion of the richest ores has been more than matched by improvements in extraction technology and improved tech allowing substitution.

[Powell]

I recycle just because its not much of a hassle to do, but its useless in my neighbourhood.

I get a calender for when paper, plastic, glass or other trash is being picked up, so you put it outside.
Just to have the garbage truck come up, pick the paper trash bag, the plastic and other trash, to throw in in the same fucking truck and dump it in the same container.
These fuckers don't sort the trash people have to recycle.

[belfpala]

It's not significant to the argument. If it is, please explain. "Think of future generations" isn't an argument, btw. It could be that future generations are best served by consumption of a particular resource now.

Then make that argument rather than saying "it could be" an argument.

Since we're apparently not grounded in reality, let's play around with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale . In order to become a Type 1 civilization, we have to be able to harness all resources available on Earth. That means previously used resources. That means recycling.

OK?

[Osmeric]

Since we're apparently not grounded in reality, let's play around with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale . In order to become a Type 1 civilization, we have to be able to harness all resources available on Earth. That means previously used resources. That means recycling.

OK?

We're going to become a Kardashev Type 1 civilization? If you say so. And, if so, preserving any resources right now is pretty meaningless, don't you think? It would be like saving pennies when you're going to inherit a billion dollars.

[belfpala]

We're going to become a Kardashev Type 1 civilization? If you say so. And, if so, preserving any resources right now is pretty meaningless, don't you think? It would be like saving pennies when you're going to inherit a billion dollars.

I said I was going way far our, man.

But yes, we'll either become Type 1 or we'll blow ourselves up first. That's pretty clear to me. In the process of becoming Type 1, we need to develop the technology to do so.

[Sole-Warrior]

[/COLOR]

I said I was going way far our, man.

But yes, we'll either become Type 1 or we'll blow ourselves up first. That's pretty clear to me. In the process of becoming Type 1, we need to develop the technology to do so.

According to Michio, assuming that we are smart enough to NOT destroy ourselves with weapons of mass destruction, it may take 100-200 years to reach so quite some time.