What is Digg?185 Comments
- Renton, on 11/18/2008, -1/+28I don't know about plastic or glass, but it is MUCH cheaper to recycle aluminum than it is to refine new aluminum.
- jimfeet, on 11/18/2008, -3/+24Waste collection and dumping in a landfill is not "profitable" - except to the collector. Why do you require recycling to be profitable?
- Leviathan433, on 11/18/2008, -3/+22I don't believe the primary function of recycling is profit. Perhaps it could be streamlined or retooled to be more profitable, but the main goal of recycling is to cut down on waste.
- alexlinebrink, on 11/18/2008, -2/+19Recycling in the sense of re-manufacturing from waste is only a bandaid. We really need to focus on less consumption --- stop or limit waste production altogether. If everyone would stop taking a plastic bag every time they go shopping (and instead just bring their own bag), pretty soon we'd stop manufacturing bags. That doesn't cost anything, but saves a bunch.
- protodon, on 11/18/2008, -4/+19I don't think recycling is about saving money. It's about reducing waste and if you use the same ***** over and over, you're reducing waste.
- ElderBieler, on 11/18/2008, -7/+22I'm confused. Did you read the article?
It states that the environmental impact of recycling many of the common items do actually more environmental damage than that of just making new stuff.
Pollutions from the trucks, factories, emissions, etc. outweigh the cons of just putting it in the landfill and manufacturing new items.
Did I read it wrong? - rynvndrp, on 11/18/2008, -0/+13The value of a commodity over time isn't always equal to its worth right now. I think that materials should be seperated before buried regardless of their current use. Obviously there is a large amount of items where the material isn't seperatable, but those that can should be. Bury everything unless profit can be made using the material now. If it can't, then let it sit. If it decays, then good, its returning to the earth. If not, then hold on, it might be useful later. Plastics are a very useful material that in many places doesn't have a replacement at any price. After peak oil, its costs will increase dramatically and large piles of old plastic will be useful.
Times its happen in the past: Gasoline was a waste produce of kerosene lamp fuel production. The sludge off of aluminum and copper refining was considered waste but contains gallium. Much of it was deconcentrated and returned to the ground, but not anymore. Gallium arsenide is the main crystal in solar cells (not all of them, but many) and they profitably use copper sludge to get gallium. (there is no concentrated gallium on the surface) and today a lot of people wish that the sludge from so many decades of refining wasn't returned to the earth in low concentrations. Even nuclear waste contains a huge amount of rare elements that might be useful one day (Ruthenium comes to mind) as well as Plutonium 244 for nonproliferation and Curium for fusion driven subcritical reactors. (The next stage in nuclear energy if ITER shows pure fusion is even further away or is horribly cost heavy)
There was a time when titanium was thrown out as junk metal and a time when aluminum cost half the price of gold per ounce. Keep your resources, only use them when profitable. - GreyICE, on 11/18/2008, -1/+13
Aluminum, for example, requires 96 percent less energy to make from recycled cans than it does to process from bauxite. At the other end of the spectrum, recycled glass uses only about 21 percent less energy—but it still comes out ahead, according to a study by Washington-based environmental consultant Jeffrey Morris. Recycled plastic bottles use 76 percent less energy and newsprint about 45 percent less, he found. Across the board, the key factor is the energy intensity of extracting virgin materials, which is an order of magnitude higher than that of recovering the same material through recycling. “Even if you doubled the emissions from collecting recyclables, it wouldn’t come close,” Morris says. Overall, he found, it takes 10.4 million Btu to manufacture products from a ton of recyclables, compared to 23.3 million Btu for virgin materials. And all of the collecting, hauling and processing of those recyclables adds just 0.9 million Btu. - divinediva, on 11/18/2008, -10/+20These include the costs and environmental impacts of the waste stream on our recycling is not an "environmental hobby;" it is an economic imperative.
- pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -6/+16that episode was debunked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*****!#Recycling - pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -1/+11yeah, screw the planet. we don't need it or anything.
- Benjamintc, on 11/18/2008, -4/+13Good idea. I've got some other initiatives unprofitable to the taxpayer that we should drop.
National defense
Public education
Healthcare
Police, fire departments
Sanitation
Road construction
I mean, if its not profitable, its not worth it, right? - allenthar, on 11/18/2008, -2/+11They noted Penn & Teller in the article, but then went through hard numbers that disagreed with them. So yeah, next time, actually read something before spouting off about how it sucks.
- Renton, on 11/18/2008, -1/+10Or maybe it has something to do with the immense amount of energy required to extract aluminum from ore.
- ObeseSnake, on 11/18/2008, -14/+23Dugg for Penn and Teller.
- Ymeg, on 11/18/2008, -1/+9Nice argument.
- MacEnvy, on 11/18/2008, -2/+9Check his username. Like other Randroids he's concerned only with profit, not with people.
Truly a selfish philosophy. - duffman03, on 11/18/2008, -0/+7yeah because we are so close to reaching and colonizing a habitable planet with our massive space fleet.
- MacEnvy, on 11/18/2008, -0/+7Outgassing from landfills is not formed by recyclable materials. It's mostly from organics.
- bromac, on 11/18/2008, -1/+8Metal is not cheaper to extract than to recycle. Where do you ***** come up with this garbage data?
Why the hell do you think you have tweakers stealing copper? And steel...well that's a strategic resource, once you use it to build a building, you can't build a car with it, for example. All in all, it's still much much cheaper to melt it down. Do you honestly know how much money, resources and FUEL (everything on a mine site runs on diesel, including the diesel gensets) it takes to get ore out of the ground? And then to process that ore at the mill? And then to turn those minerals into usable alloys? Do you look at those HUGE industrial operations and say to yourself "They must be using fewer resources than me having to sort through my trash and actually use my brain to mechanically sort usable materials from disposable goods".
But seriously, I just want to know where you get that ***** information. Because it doesn't add up to the reality in front of your face. - KosherX, on 11/18/2008, -5/+12Absurd.
- mikbunn, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6Look at the username and you will have your answer.
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -2/+8The consumer will pay the cost. Just tax me instead please...
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6You forgot feeding the homeless, the orphans and providing assistance to war veterans.
- askantik, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5GreyICE summed it up well.. no idea why he had a digg down. At any rate, you must also remember that recycling doesn't actually USE new resources (energy consumption aside). Mining aluminum, for example, is very destructive, as is cutting timber. Even on tree farms, the trees provide habitat for tons of animals.
- js281, on 11/18/2008, -3/+8The amount of packaging on everything is a bit ridiculous. Cut down on that, or use biodegradable packaging and it would be a nice start.
- macapplejobs, on 11/18/2008, -6/+11And from the article....
"Thanks to life-cycle assessments, there’s no longer any serious debate among policymakers about whether recycling makes sense environmentally. But it’s fair to say that, at this point, it generally costs a little more to recycle waste than it does to dump it."
---- Just because it costs more $$$, doesn't mean anything. Like I said, you can't put a price on the earth. - roddack, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5no you didn't
- pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -1/+6according to socialpaths like ayn rand, yes.
- pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4cnot3: funny, you have no problem believing a couple hack magicians though.
- thehesiod, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4you obviously didn't read the article
- Anathapendika, on 11/18/2008, -3/+7All waste is recyclable.
I wonder of T. Boone Pickens would be interested... - Netmindstorm, on 11/18/2008, -2/+6" When compared with the amount of energy required to send the same goods to landfills or incinerators and make new products from scratch, the results vary dramatically, depending on the material."
So the answer is "it depends" - xtmno3, on 11/18/2008, -2/+6What higher goal does economy serve? If one nation suddenly has a quadrillion fictional units of "wealth" at the cost of X number of real resources, what has been gained? what has been lost?
Eventually the human race will have to learn to operate on principles outside economy. If we don't, the odds of surviving indefinitely become essentially zero.
Economy dictates that it is okay to do things simply because we can and want to. That is fine, but the price you pay is longevity. Actions based solely on economy are no different than a teenage doing drugs. It may seem like a great and harmless idea at the time, but you will regret it later, if you make it that long. - Ribbys, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4Yes, the most trusted names in science.
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -1/+5I think that may have had something to do with the fact that Digg has been choked to death with stories on Obama, McCain and Sarah bloody Palin for the last 3 months.
- thealsir, on 11/19/2008, -0/+4I actually use those plastic bags as garbage bags and for other purposes. It's cheaper for me than buying actual trash bags...I really don't see the advantage I would gain having to buy reusable grocery bags and Glad trash bags when I can just use the grocery bags for two purposes for free.
- expo1001, on 11/19/2008, -0/+4I recycle grocery bags by using them to carry my lunch to work.
- pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -2/+6since Randroid doesn't need anyone else for anything, he can go ***** himself.
- Benjamintc, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4Read the article. PM comes out more or less in favor of recycling.
- gbyrdeaux, on 11/18/2008, -0/+4did you even read the article?
- mwilhelm, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3Penn & Teller have never said anything except *****. They are complete idiots and their debunking only creates more confusion.
You're now more ignorant for having watched that show.
Try reading a book for a change.
BTW: Recycling is not a waste of time - it is a necessity; and a profitable one at that. - GiJoeBob, on 11/18/2008, -3/+6Yeah, we can tell the companies what to make, how to make it and then tell the people what to buy! Perfect plan!
- TechMike, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3My city bought into recycling because it cost $10 a ton less than sending stuff to the landfill. The citizens agreed to keep taxes under control.
- vitriolix, on 11/18/2008, -1/+4Yeah, that show was pretty terrible. Full of misinformation. For instance, the fact that they spent so much time mocking the Crying Indian, but that wasn't about recycling at all. That ad was chiefly (ha! sorry...) about pollution and littering. They also consistently setup straw men by taking one aspect of recycling (like plastics) and projecting the results on all other kinds (like paper and glass)... they are done by completely different process and have different pollution and energy costs. Putting them all together like they do repeatedly in this bit is dishonest at best.
- mwilhelm, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3A perfect example of how people of sound mind and principle can do the most ridiculous self-depreciating things in the name of proving a point.
You're a complete idiot for making this argument - even though you are completely right in your premise. Your silent voice of not recycling proves nothing except that you don't have the tenacity to really fight for what you believe in.
Writing your senator will get you nowhere - and I wouldn't expect you to do it anyway since that paper was made from trees. - BESTenemy, on 11/18/2008, -1/+4"The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...*****!"
- George Carlin - holdwilco, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3You did read it wrong, but the article is unclear on this. However, a link at the bottom of the article to "Recycling Myths: PM Debunks 5 Half Truths about Recycling" clarifies this:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4290 ...
Myth # "2. The trucks that collect recycling burn more energy and produce more pollution than recycling saves." - mwilhelm, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3Probably the most intelligent and well-spoken response to this article.
Very good idea actually. Just because we don't have a use for it today; doesn't mean we wont have a use for it tomorrow. If we planned ahead like this in every facet of our society, we would save so much energy in the long run and be able to produce REAL value and growth; rather than invent financial tools to use as multipliers.
Maximize the potential, and you maximize the profit. - Flashtone, on 11/18/2008, -0/+3touche
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