"Tivo-ifies the web" Paul Kedrosky

Recycling is Bullshit

There are long tracts of glass in the Sahara, caused by meteorites skidding across the sand and melting it. Glass looks pretty and feels precious, but sand does not, and this is perhaps part of the reason why people perceive glass recycling to be a valuable exercise – something that is debatable at best.

I am actively against recycling non-metals, because I think it does nothing to aid consuming less, and may actually exacerbate the problem. In other words, I think it creates a net damage to the environment. It would be better that people had to pay directly for the removal trash which scrap merchants wouldn’t pay them for and for these people to be non-subsidized.

Showing up in a car to the bottle bank with Perrier bottles reminds me of Roman schoolboys who had slaves who would take a proxy beating for them when they did something wrong. Both are dubious ways of avoiding blame.

Recycling is about preventing people digging something out of the ground and burning fuel to make something from it. If it were truly viable, then people would be ransacking landfills to recycle them.

Reuse yes, recycle no. Penn and Teller make the point better than I ever could.

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