Even Greenpeace now admits the obvious: recycling doesn’t work

https://www.city-journal.org/greenpeace-admits-recycling-doesnt-work

by starkd • 4 years ago

10 8 4 years ago

transfire• 4 years ago

This more pessimistic then the reality. For example a woman in Africa figured out how to compress recycled plastic into bricks suitable for build houses. There are lots of people in this world that could benefit from this.

The real problem is not the technical and labor hurdles, but our application — doing things that actually work,, rather than politically expedient.

starkd2• 4 years ago

It's pessimistic because most of the recycled materials goes right to the landfills with the other garbage. Meanwhile, we are consuming twice the resources just to collect the garbage.

stubish• 4 years ago

Compressed plastic bricks is above ground landfill, in that it has many of the same problems. The various toxins and problems with plastic over time? Now your walls are built of it. Hiding the problem in the 3rd world. Better than recycling would be wood or bamboo (carbon capture), or clay baked with green energy. Perhaps generated by burning the waste plastic we can't bear to be without.

chinabot• 4 years ago

Where as re-using works perfectly, now if I could just find something to do with the 10 perfectly good phones in the draw that wont accept updates..

Tiktaalik• 4 years ago

What a weird ass article. Starts off innocent enough talking about how it turns out recycling plastic isn't that effective, but ends up being a way to launder the author's frankly bizarre crank viewpoints.

  But why demonize plastic? Why ban products that are cheaper, sturdier, lighter, cleaner, healthier, and better for the environment? One reason: the plastic scare helps Greenpeace activists raise money and keep their jobs. Environmentalists need something to replace their failed recycling campaign.

  But there’s more to it than just financial self-interest. The best explanation I’ve come up with is that plastic bans are a revival of the sumptuary laws formerly imposed on the lower classes by monarchs, nobles, and clergy.

The dull reality is that even though recycling isn't effective, disposable plastic is bad, as it ends up in the oceans and kills wildlife and it takes forever to break down (if ever?). Obviously this would lead some people to be alarmed and to try to think of a way to limit this very real problem.

Everyone involved here in pushing for recycling is well intentioned if unfortunately apparently misguided, but it takes time and study for people to discover that proposed solutions are actually ineffective.

starkd2• 4 years ago

The US has been recycling for a good 30 years now. How much more time should it take?

At some point, you have to question why we are separating our garbage when it all winds up in the same place anyway. Is it just a ritual to make us feel better? the article's conclusions are only logical.

bediger4000• 4 years ago

Yes, it is just such a ritual. It makes consumers feel good so that corporations don't have to work so hard at reducing their waste. This is deliberate, I believe.

jfengel• 4 years ago

That's city-journal for you. It's a right-wing blog. It's not even really so much support for right-wing causes, but hating left-wing causes.

They don't care about recycling one way or the other. They care about painting Greenpeace as stupid.

Even Greenpeace now admits the obvious: recycling doesn’t work

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