Tag Archives: recycling

View From The Lair

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What Is a Conservative?

I consider myself to be a conservative.  I suspect that most people reading this consider themselves to be one as well. Except the previously discussed leftists. Maybe they will learn something, but I won’t hold my breath.

“Conservative” comes from “conserve.” Thus, I endeavor to conserve things. Natural resources. Money. Time, if possible. Notice that I didn’t say “preserve” things. Somethings should be preserved: pickles, fruit, precious artifacts, good relationships.

But natural resources should be conserved: used wisely, not wasted nor used extravagantly without purpose. Many Leftists – enviro-nazis, as the late great Rush Limbaugh described them, believe that all of our natural resources should be preserved, that we should buy them from other countries, especially those countries that would like to see us destroyed. The primary reason for such a position is to see this country destroyed and the people subjugated. Fortunately, we now have President Donald J. Trump to prevent that.

But it’s still wise to conserve our resources. To use them wisely. One of the Executive Orders require a real cost/benefit analysis on all regulations. Such analysis has been required previously, but most of them were not real. The benefits were greatly exaggerated and the costs greatly inflated. Thus, while the agency met the criteria of doing the analysis, the agency itself, set the parameters. Sort of like creating, filing, and grading your own test. A+ Every Time!

Recycling is a good example. I recycle (much to the aggravation of my dear sweet wife). Recycling used materials must be sorted, either at the start or at the end. Plastics in particular present a challenge to the recycler. Some recycle easily, others not so much. Is it cheaper and more efficient to use new raw materials or recycled? What is the use of the end product? Vests for Walmart employees or bottles for hospital IV fluids. Both can use the same plastic. Which would you choose?

Some plastics – and virtually all other materials CAN be recycled, but at what cost? Especially compared to the production stream of new material. ALL products contain energy. For most, the energy to extract, refine, transport, and manufacture the raw material is a substantial part of the raw material cost. And the energy to transport, separate, recycle and render into an acceptable condition for used materials as a raw material is greater than to produce new material.

Yet the enviro-nazis using their cohorts in the EPA and other agencies manipulate the cost/benefit analysis to skew reality into their “reality.” What the market will actually pay is a good starting point for the EPA and other agencies to use to determine what should be recycled and what should be used as incinerator fuel to recover energy and reduce the landfill requirements. I’m anxious to see the results.

ciao,

The Snark

When We Mean Well, But Just Don’t Get It Right

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On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial about recycling. Most American communities have made provisions to recycle items rather than just dump them in the landfill, but evidently things are not always what they seem. China used to take about one third of America’s recycled material, but China has put strict rules on what it will accept–generally refusing most of our recycled material. This has resulted in many recycling companies dumping recyclables into landfills. So all of our sorting efforts are for naught.

The editorial reports:

But this isn’t even the worst of it. As John Tierney explained in an exhaustive analysis of recycling programs, also published by the New York Times, recycling is not only costly, but doesn’t do much to help the environment.

The claim that recycling is essential to avoid running out of landfill space is hogwash, since all the stuff Americans throw away for the next 1,000 years would fit into “one-tenth of 1% of land available for grazing,” Tierney says.

Other environmental benefits, he finds, are negligible, and come at an exceedingly high price. Tierney notes, for example, that washing plastics before recycling them, as is the recommended practice, could end up adding to greenhouse gas emissions. And the extra trucks and processing facilities produce CO2 as well.

Since it costs far more to recycle trash than to bury it, governments are wasting money that could be more effectively spent elsewhere.

We need to find a way to convert waste into energy without pollution. That might be a pipe dream, but it is a worthwhile goal.