8 Reasons Why I Don't Recycle

Top 10 Reasons why I don’t recycle:

I’m not lazy, I’m not an asshole and I’m not particularly stupid…so why don’t I do the right thing and recycle?

My answer is that we haven’t been exposed to the whole truth and the facts about recycling are misrepresented often in the media and by the government. I am not a conspiracy kind of guy, I just think in at least this case we are doing the opposite of help when we have all united to try to do some very real and pretty simple good. Others have written more and better articles on this topic and I encourage you to do your own research. This is just my reasoning for not partaking in this pretty big mistake.

1. Recycling most goods is wasteful and an inefficient energy-saver. What do you do with that toxic inky wastewater from the recycled paper? How do you justify separate trucks to transport recyclables? While there are typically a fair amount of energy savings on recycled goods, it’s hardly the best way to achieve that.
2. The Government spends millions of dollars subsidizing this fiasco. The plan was to sell the recycled goods to make a profit on recycling (good for taxpayers) or at least break even. That’s not quite how it worked out…on a good day, it will only cost the government about $40 to “sell” a ton of garbage to a recycling plant. To clarify, it COSTS money to get rid of this stuff. The cost per ton of recycling is about $200 more than garbage…wow.
3. We are NOT running out of landfill space. Economist, A. Clark Wiseman (you just have to trust that name) of Gonzaga University projected that in 1,000 years, at our current rate of waste, we would require just 1,225 square miles of landfill space for all of our garbage (assuming a 100yd. deep landfill). That’s .0003% of the total U.S. It would all fit comfortably within the confines of a tiny Rhode Island with room for New York City left over.
4. You know the rainforest? Yeah, the one that’s always on the news? Well putting your wastepaper in the office recycling bin ain’t helping out. The paper that we use comes from tree farms. These tree farms are specifically and wholly dedicated to growing trees for paper. They’re not old growth or heavily habitated. If you recycle too much, the tree farmer may have to turn to a developer and sell off the land for construction to make money. Not an ideal solution.
5. The jobs it creates are neither needed nor are they particularly desirable. I’d rather just give the employment money away rather than pay people to do an unnecessary job. The additional savings from giving up the PR campaigns and losses from a failing strategy could be used to support other necessary initiatives.
6. It’s exploiting people’s natural will to help. This one just hurts. I feel cheated and lied to. I expect that during war and election years, but this has just gone on too long. The nation’s children are being taught false information about recycling and the environment. And we’re the one’s teaching it to them. Nobody cries out because it makes logical sense on the surface and it also feels so damn good. We have no pictures of oil-covered birds, starving children or crying Native Americans (FYI: the guy in that commercial was actually Italian, not Native American) to support this cause. All we have is empty municipal pockets, and they don’t usually photograph well.
7. There are other things for us to worry about without fabricating problems. With so much actual need in the world, it just seems stupid, from a common sense standpoint, to waste so much time and energy on a problem that actually doesn’t exist. We’re spending money to solve a “problem” that the PR campaigns that we pay for are responsible for creating.
8. Landfills aren’t an environmental threat in any capacity and hey, you can turn them into parks when you’re done with them! The standards for landfill compliance are absurdly rigid. Even the old landfills that existed prior to heavy regulation are relatively safe. Part of that is because most of our waste is completely nontoxic anyhow; it’s mostly paper, yard waste and construction materials.

So go ahead and use the paper cup at the coffeeshop, get your food to go and take extra napkins and by golly if you drop your plastic fork...get a new one. Be liberated and sleep soundly for now you know the truth about recycling. But seriously, do the research for yourself and tell me what you think!

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