Help Me Prove The Myth of 'Green".
 

My Brother and I have been having some interesting discussions concerning the whole 'green' thing. He used to be big into recycling until he took a few minutes and did some research and quickly discovered that his towns (and others) recycling efforts are actually a bad idea for a few reasons - not cost effective, actually creates a larger carbon footprint and is really not better for the environment. I guess the only thing that makes sense to recycle is metal (mostly aluminum).

So, does anyone have more soild logic examples to support/debunk the green myth claim?

I can think of several...

Recycled paper has to be treated more chemically than new paper, which is not good for the environment, and a shiat load of water is used in the process.

Plastic bottles are bad to recycle because they are not meant to be reused. This leads to bacteria growth that cannot be removed and leaching of the plastic into whatever the new bottle contains.

MIke - you may findsome in Env'l Science text books...

Nucor must be run by "Green" idiots; their products are 87% recycled steel. They are recycling 20 million tons of steel a year. Why aren't they bankrupt?

read

Nucor steel has very little aluminum content.

It is worth while recycling the following "non-metallic" materials due to either the replacement cost or the cost of disposal:

helium
sulfur hexafluoride
fluorinated and brominated hydrocarbons
acetone, ketones, alcohols and other similar organic solvents
carbides (cutting tools)

remember, recycling has other benefits - it keep stuff out of the landfills

I expect that we will someday mine our landfills to reclaim the most valuable components...

One study providing a cost vs benefit comparison of recycling, landfill disposal and incineration:

http://envirovaluation.org/index.php/2005/08/15/comparative_lcas_for_curbside_recycling_

Both are examples of only considering single factors - re paper, it reduces the need to clearcut our forests. Most of that water is recovered, BTW

re plastic bottle - I have never heard of them going back into food containers. Instead they are generally recycled into garments (Patagonia does this for their fleece jackets), door mats, and industrial materials.

Bottle plastic must be certified food safe like other food plastics used.

If you know of instances where bottles are recycled back into other (food or beverage) bottles, I'd like to hear about it.

I've often thought the same thing. Eventually it will become cost effective to "mine" landfills for certain things.

Penn & Teller put a stake through the heart of recycling

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Steel is not a metal? Good to know:rolleyes:

Can we re-brain these left wing fools?

I had a work-up once that showed the total life cycle cost of of an incandescent light bulb vs a flourescent. Very surprising to some that the incandescent was actually more enviromentally and energy friendly.

There are plenty of green "myths" out there.

For example, the begining of flourescent bulbs should have been in congunction with a federally-mandated deposit system.
I'd expect 99% of every used florescent tube ever produced and sold throughout history has been broken up and put into dumpsters: leaching mercury and other (recoverable) heavy metals into the ground water system. Eventually the mercury levels build up locally, people drink the local water, babies have birth defects, and no one knows why. Percentage-wise, why is there so must autism, cancer, and other mental/physical problems these days?

The managment of toxic materials has to come from the top, and through financial incentives. Can you trust "the top"? That would be another discussion.

The "myth" I see these days is scientific ignorance. Pure ignorance.
Humans are part of their environment with every breath, and drink, and bite they take.

The other day, the dog chased a squirrel, then took a long piss on a plant in the back yard. Plants feed primarily from the soil, so (by my "scientific" observation) the radical chemical imbalance affected the one in the foreground. They were the same size at the time of pissing:

(photo of two plants-one is dead)
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I don't think anyone opposes environmental sensitivities, but there is a big difference between Greenpeace, Sierra Club, et al and leading a reasonable approach to ecological sustainability.

The adage that we must sleep in the bed we make applies big time to the environment, but environmental grandstanding for the sake of fame with no options for alternatives does not cut it.

Responsible management of the environment is all of our responsibilities. Change is inherent in our climate, but certainly can be accelerated through the unmitigated use of "greenhouse gasses". Responsible use of resources such as water, carbon based fuels, renewable resources (forests, vegetation) really hits home with our current rates of consumption. We need to keep this use sustainable.

If we can achieve this through conservation, recycling, reuse or what have you, we're ahead. If we wait until a crunch, we may have a lot of work ahead of us to get back what we now have.

My $0.02 worth.

Tim

The solution to pollution is dilution.
So a chemical plant only has to add "x" amount of water to it's discharge tubes and it's ok?

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Uploads still take about 3-4 minutes to get past the NSA censors. Yup.