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193 Comments
- lockr, on 11/18/2008, -2/+66I heard something a few weeks ago about how people in Africa call donated stuff "dead mans clothing" because they don't understand throwing something away while it still has use. It makes you think.
- doiveo, on 11/18/2008, -5/+47Most things were made of fully recycleable materials. There was no choice.
Now we design and manfacture products out of toxins etc. specificallly to be wasted. We literally bury money.
To change that you have to remove the choice again. ie - take back laws, full cost ecomony (no more subsidized polution), design resources that teach designers how to make recoverable products. - havek23, on 11/18/2008, -1/+39Well when it becomes cheaper to buy a new product than to repair the one you have (due to specialization and outsourcing of labor, a negative side-effect of Globalization) then we start replacing instead of recycling.
- ileftfark, on 11/18/2008, -4/+35Hey, in their defense, Penn & Teller have been recycling their act for *years* now.
- borez, on 11/18/2008, -1/+27Plastic... that's what happened.
- AaronCo, on 11/18/2008, -4/+23What waste? The stuff we throw away and toss into a landfill? It's not like we've lost it, if we ever need it we know exactly where to find it.
- ricksite, on 11/18/2008, -4/+23Others get their science from a couple of hack politicians.
- aethelberga, on 11/18/2008, -1/+19Our economy is so completely driven by consumer spending, that if we ever developed a culture of "make do and mend" (to use the WWII term) the economy would collapse. Shopping is now the number one pastime and your patriotic duty in times of trouble. All media is focusssed on the one message - Consume.
- depro9, on 11/18/2008, -12/+30You can thank capitalism for our waste.
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -3/+20It became cheaper to burrows hundreds of metres underground to extract ore, subject it to electrolysis and mould it than to get lazy bastards to put their cans in a green bin.
Seriously humanity, WTF? - inactive, on 11/18/2008, -2/+17Most things we throw out in the u.s. are unheard of in third world countries.
When i moved here, i was shocked at the amount of food people threw out in high school lunch rooms.
All of us should appreciate every meal we get and our warm homes and try to help anyone without them. - interiot, on 11/18/2008, -0/+12The invention of the assembly line caused it. You can create an automated assembly line to manufacture the most complex product. However, you can't create an automated assembly line to diagnose and repair complex products. So new is cheaper than repaired.
- JFitzpatrick, on 11/18/2008, -0/+12While I can agree with the some of the points like ditching functional electronics for shinier models (I'm still using a beast of a Sony Trinitron SDTV from 1987 as my primary television!) I think they overlook a huge point: Even a single generation ago (when baby boomers were children) you could reuse common daily things and they wouldn't kill you. Food came almost entirely in glass jars and tin cans. Packaging was fairly generic, it's easier to reuse a relatively standard size box than it is to try and resuse sharp-edged clamshell plastic packaging. You can't very well resuse the bottles water and cola come in, they aren't designed for reuse and aren't chemically stable, etc. etc.
Frankly I'm starting to wonder if the recycling I put out at the curb is even worth it. I can't see how that pile of rain soaked cardboard and food-stuff splattered plastic actually generates a net gain for the environment after it's been hauled, sorted, washed, and reprocessed? - MattZed, on 11/18/2008, -3/+15Writing(hieroglyphs), the 365 day calendar, the pyramids, paper...
- Myxllamatosis, on 11/18/2008, -2/+13I used to recycle everything. Then the garbage/recycle dudes started putting nasty tags on my recycle bin "because certain types of cardboard aren't recyclable anymore and please stop putting them in the bin, and plastic bottles with certain numbers in the little recycle logo aren't recyclable anymore (why put the recycle logo there then???), and please don't put glass in the recycle bin please". Screw you Captain Planet and your band of Planeteers!
- Kireblade, on 11/18/2008, -3/+13I've researched that aluminum cans are the only things worth recycling, but I honestly don't know what to believe anymore.
- imasuperDOTcom, on 11/18/2008, -11/+20We used to live in caves and write on walls - what happened?
- Anub1s, on 11/18/2008, -5/+14Many recyclables cost more money and are more harmful to the environment in processing than just manufacturing new materials.
Paper for instance is more environmentally damaging to recycle than it is to simply throw away and bury. - inactive, on 11/18/2008, -1/+10The ***** "recycling" episode turned out to be, ironically...codswallop.
- Antialias, on 11/18/2008, -1/+10Why can't they afford it now? They can afford it just as well now as any time before.
Plus the majority of "green" methods/practices/ideas are cheaper than their non green counterparts. Buy used rather than new, fix things rather than buying a new one, recycle(only costs a bit of your time over throwing things away), grow your own food rather than buying stuff shipped on trucks, etc.
Tons of ways you can save money and help the environment. - Rikkochet, on 11/18/2008, -0/+9That'll do it! Call me a big smelly socialist, but isn't the government there to provide some sort of long term planning for their citizens? People live in their moment - not recycling isn't going to affect them for years (if not generations). Governments are supposed to be far-sighted enough to tax accordingly and introduce programs that are ultimately necessary in the long term... Instead of just fighting over whether or not that crumbling wreck on Main Street should get Heritage Building status or bicker for an entire evening on whether or not to allow Mr. Jenkins to put a second story on his house.
- CedEx, on 11/18/2008, -1/+10Products used to be made with quality and longevity in mind. Now, they are made cheaply and designed to become obsolete the second the warranty expires.
For instance, my vacuum cleaner is made with metal. The canister style that I have uses a strong rubber hose attached to a metal extension tube. These days, those particular parts are made with thin plastics and pvc which crack under regular use.
Quality goods are hard to find now. - plaguepony, on 11/18/2008, -8/+17You can thank capitalism for dragging us kicking and screaming into better living conditions, they rights of man, and almost every other advance society at large has made.
- Kyora, on 11/18/2008, -1/+9My family used to recycle everything, until they started charging us for recycling services. Seriously?
- zbeast, on 11/18/2008, -2/+10It's a time thing, it's a money thing. I don't have the time to Recycle. I gain nothing form Recycling and it does is take.
If I Recycle my computer hardware its costs me money.
If I Recycle paper it cost me time.
If I Recycle soda cans the time I spend waiting in line to drop the stupid things off is better spend elsewhere.
If its electronics, no one wants your old ones and the cost of repairing old stuff is not worth the time because you now
have old fixed stuff when you could have had new working stuff.
At the macro scale the economics of recycling does not work. Just dump it buy something new. - ybotoby, on 11/18/2008, -4/+12Soylent Green is people!
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -0/+8Funny thing, plastic is recyclable.
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -1/+9"Now we throw everything away - and most of it still works! We replace perfectly fine household electronics because ours is not the “new” kind, we buy new cell phones every few months, we only keep cars for a few years..."
*****! When was the last time you saw a functional car sitting in a landfill? Never. Even junk cars are stripped of usable parts and the rest is typically sold for scrap metal. I don't know anyone who throws away household electronics. Garage sales, eBay and Salvation Army is where these things end up. Old clothes, shoes, eye glasses, furniture, books, dishes etc., etc., etc. all get reused. This ***** can rail against consumerism, but they totally miss the boat when arguing for recycling. I, for one, don't throw anything out. I'm a ***** pack rat. - pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -7/+15how sad is it that people get their "science" from a couple of hack magicians.
- Coffeedemon, on 11/18/2008, -1/+9Actually this is an issue. Here in Ottawa they've seriously cut back on what they will accept for recycling. To the point that only a few of the plastic types will be accepted. Most times they don't notice but other times they'll leave your box on the curb. All this nonsense does is turn people off from recycling.
I shouldn't need to know PVC from Polyethylene to do my recycling... take it all and employ someone who needs the job to sort it at the depot. Otherwise a lot of people will just dump the works of it in a landfill. - sodade, on 11/18/2008, -2/+10At some point, post-modern culture decided "***** it - we're going to nuke ourselves anyway. Who cares what we do to our environment?"
- pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -2/+9but many more get their science from IPCC and NASA.
- ohearn, on 11/18/2008, -0/+7Yes because there are several materials, that can be recycled, but it costs them more to recycle it than they can sell it for afterwards, so they charge you to make up the difference. #1 ans 2 plastics, aluminum, and copper tend to be worth enough to make recycling them profitable, that's about it as far as things typically considered recyclable.
- skipdog172, on 11/18/2008, -3/+10Their arguments make a lot of sense on this issue. But of course it is a lot easier to laugh and call them magicians than actually refute any of their points they made on the recycling episode.
- pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -4/+11the internet was created by the government for defense, not the magical free market. capitalism does what is profitable, not what is right. sometimes those two overlap, often they don't.
- aaronhoffmeyer, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6Recycling is open-ended. Currently most trash processing plants recycle everything of value possible. Still, a lot still goes into the landfills. But before they did sort and extract the metals, plastics and other recyclables from the trash (like for most of the last few hundred years), those materials did go into the ground. Today, a lot of it still ends up in the ground (a relatively small percentage, but still a lot).
Those materials are not going anywhere, and at some point, it will become economically feasible or necessary to digg that stuff back up. Think about it, when the raw oil is gone, and we still need plastics, and plastics become expensive, it would pay to build a recycling plant right on/next to a landfill that contains hundreds of thousands of tons of the stuff, and process it that way.
Unless trash is burned, almost everything that does not decay can still be recycled, even thousands of years later.
So, don't say that those materials are wasted ... they might be a great resource for people in the future. - j0hn, on 11/18/2008, -13/+19People started watching Penn & Teller.
- StrawberryFrog, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6No we didn't recycle everything. Look up "midden"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden
Archaeologists love them, they say a lot about ancient people. - aaronhoffmeyer, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6Funny, many communities determined it was cheaper and more efficient to sort at the plant than to have people do it in their homes ... mostly because a lot of the recyclable stuff was still thrown away in the regular trash, 40% of the stuff people set aside for recycling still ended up in the landfills (it was not recyclable), and they were still having to sort both types of materials (regular trash and recyclable trash) anyway.
The additional overhead of picking up the recyclables and processing them separately did not add up financially, so a lot of communities cancelled their curbside recycling, whether it was sorted by the "people" or not.
Many of the communities that spent the money on the infrastructure to manage curbside recycling are still doing it, but almost no more communities are starting new recycling programs.
The US EPA still recommends it for a variety of reasons, mostly related to the impact on greenhouse gas emissions. To date, recycling has been a human social experiment with mixed results. - tgc1, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6Not all types of plastic are recyclable. Or are too costly to recycle.
Polycarbonate for one. - AndrewMoyer, on 11/18/2008, -0/+6Reduce, reuse, recycle, and recapture (in that order.)
Subaru operates a "zero-landfill" assembly plant in Indiana, and it has both saved them money and improved their public image.
As an example, the brass lugs that are used to ship alloy wheels... they used to just throw them away, but now they send them back to the wheel plant and reuse them several times, and then they are melted down and recast after they've seen enough wear.
They try to reduce sources of waste up front, like using dishes instead of Styrofoam plates. Whatever they can't reuse, goes to a recycling plant if possible. What's left goes to a trash-burning power generating facility to recapture the last bit of energy out of the waste. About the only waste they're generating is emissions from power generation, but don't forget, they manufacture gasoline automobiles. - dar0za, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5Buried because my high school history teacher taught me any paper opening with "since the dawn of man..." should be trashed
- inactive, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5Easy to answer:
1. Spend! It is good for the economy.
2. Internet: You need the new fad.
3. China. Everything made is crap, throw it away. With that mind set, you use more and need to pitch more.
4. Credit. Don't wait to get something, but charge and get everything you want now.
5. republicans. "Recycling isn't effective"
6. Debt. Cities have income problems, so they don't push recycling as much. Some cities make it a bitch, you must sort, clean items and use special bags i.e. Chicago. Other cities, they take care of it i.e. Austin.
7. Inflation. It isn't worth your time to collect cans/bottles for the cash. Yes, people use to "dumpster dive" for cans. Do you think anyone would do that today?
That is what has been taught to our kids, and down the spiral we go. All the above point to bad fiscal policy by consumers and our government. - reeftool, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5I have recycled for many years. Long ago I was called cheap. In Upstate NY it is survival getting through our long cold winters and for many the seasonal reduced income. I never trade in cars as they have 1/4 million miles and rusted away to nothing by the time i'm done. Save everything as long as its usable. If it will burn it can heat your house. Keep your crap long enough and summer tourists call it antiques and buy it. I have never purchased a lawnmower, snowblower, wheelbarrow, etc, just fixed up what others had discarded. I did buy a new chainsaw about 30 years ago...still got it, still works.
- pintomp3, on 11/18/2008, -2/+7"The myth-busting website De-Fact-O has criticized Penn & Teller's source on paper recycling (Daniel K. Benjamin, "Eight Great Myths of Recycling"), saying that Benjamin relied on outdated studies to make some of his claims"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*****%21#Recycling
once again, try getting your information from sources other than hack magicians. just because they agree with your anti-intellectual view doesn't make them right. you might as well get your medical information from david copperfield. the true magic of penn and teller is getting idiots like you to believe them. - smotpoker, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5Hundreds of corporations spend billions every year brainwashing your stupid ass into thinking just that.
Only a moron would think worry/awareness alone or spending an extra 30 seconds per day at the recycle bin when you throw ***** away and waiting until something actually stops working before you trash it and replace has any sort of real economic impact - Myxllamatosis, on 11/18/2008, -1/+6btw...I still recycle I was just offering a smarmy reason why some people don't recycle. :)
- Testiculese, on 11/18/2008, -0/+5Yep, see "Planned Obsolescence"
- scoottie, on 11/18/2008, -3/+8its true
- cathpah, on 11/18/2008, -5/+9and that's TOTALLY africa's fault....not that the rest of the world that ***** on them and doesn't even give them a chance to keep up economically/socially/governmentally/etc.
Those darn poor people! why don't they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps! (because they don't even have ***** bootstraps on that entire damn continent....so stop being a selfish, well-off, arrogant ***** looking down on Africa)
oh, and seems like you're chock full of "original ideas and progress" too, with all your africa hating.
lastly, "ImTheDuke"....which Duke are you? David Duke? -
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