Is Recycling a Good Environmental Practice?

The concept sounds good. Recycle and save the environment and our natural resources. Glass can be reused over and over again. Recycle paper and save trees from being cut down. Get the plastic out of the environment. Recycle metals.

Glass has been the focus of reuse for as long as there has been glass. Even 50 years ago there was redemption on beer bottles. Back then, the bottling companies would sterilize and refill them. Soda companies actually delivered cases to your door and picked up your cases of empties. Same with the milkman. Companies had a vested interest in themselves.

Hey, we hated having to shovel out the remains of our barrels and outdoor fireplaces after burning the trash. The ashes went on the lawn and the hard stuff got picked up once a month. Everyone had a garbage pail in the ground near the back door to put food waste in. Once a week the pig farmer collected it to feed the pigs.

Somewhere along the line it became bad to burn the trash at home. It was now collected once a week and taken to the dump where it was burned. Go figure. This added more sanitation worker jobs. No ash on the lawn opened up an opportunity for lawn care products, namely fertilizer.

It became bad to have the garbage pail as local pig farmers dwindled. No one liked living down wind. Pork hasn’t tasted the same since.

So now that government has taken over the tasks of how we get rid of all our wastes, we now are asked to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Isn’t that what we used to do? But we can’t go back to the way it was, we have to do it their way.

Our increased taxes pay for the recycle pickups and buy the recycle bins to house our tin cans, glass, plastics, and paper. The municipalities in turn hired a whole department of people and equipment to handle, sort, and sell our valuable trash resources to add to the coffers. This income is supposed to lower our taxes and the price of goods.

Money has been spent to inform us about the 3 Rs through TV, radio, school programs, etc. Yet only around 28% of the population is actually using those bins. So, recycle pickup is now done every two weeks instead of one to save money. Well, the 28% of us are a little annoyed at spending our money to wash out our garbage and finding room to store the crap in four different containers. On top of that, if more people don’t get with the program to make this pay off, they’re talking about charging us for pickup. What gives?