Re:The Recycling Myth
by marknutter on Thursday November 12, 2009 @08:57AM
(#937742)
I've never understood why we recycle glass. It doesn't seem like the materials to make glass are in short supply. Is it just much more costly to gather them new than to melt down existing glass containers?
At least in some areas, the glass can be plainly reused, instead of going through a full recycling process. In Canada, the brown glass beer bottles can be washed and refilled over a dozen times before failing quality checks and needing to be ground and remelted.
Re:The Recycling Myth
by marknutter on Thursday November 12, 2009 @05:27PM
(#938921)
So that's why Canadian beer tastes so terrible :-p
That said, I read an article many years ago by the head of our environmental protection agency, and he rightfully pointed out the externalizing of the cost of sorting on the population, but most importantly he pointed out that recycling of some materials is completely negative, i.e. it is cheaper and uses less energy to create fresh material than recycle the old.
The materials that did make sense to recycle though was glass, newspaper and aluminium cans. By not recycling milk cartons or plastic containers, you're doing more for the environment than if you recycle them.
The lesson learned is of course that you should always have science to back up your viewpoint, only by making a lifecycle analysis can you find out if a certain activity really is good for the environment, or if it's only good for your conscience.