do you recycle for sure absolutely
absolutely everything I possibly can for
decades we've been told recycle
America don't just throw it
all because recycling will save the
planet you're saving the Earth and
that's what people believe we have to do
it for the kids for the Next Generation
this will all be back on the Shelf as a
cracker or cereal box in about four to
five weeks this recycling company is run
by Lynn Hoffman if we're not using Rec
reced paper and cardboard were're
cutting down more trees recycling paper
and cardboard does save trees recycling
aluminum does save energy but most of
the other stuff is Impractical to
recycle that's right this is material
that came in to the recycling facility
from people's recycling carts and is
going to leave as trash huge amounts of
what people send to her recycling plant
will never be recycled the worst is
plastic which for years has been marked
with the recycling symbol we see stuff
like this all the time recycling arrows
on it please recycle it's not recyclable
even worse plastic bags clog the
recycling machines you have to climb in
for a couple hours every day and cut
them out with the box cutter but people
think most of our plastic is recycled
yeah I do think so is it not you're
going to tell me it's not that's what
that's the trick the reality is that the
amount of plastic actually recycled is
around 5% wow I figured it was something
called coming but I'm I'm I'm shocked
right now I didn't know it's
sad all my life I've heard about how
important it is to recycle it's not
science writer John Tierney debunked
recycling claims years ago his New York
Times magazine story recycling is
garbage set a record for times hate mail
and yet what you said is still true it's
even more true today in fact the
economics have just gotten worse now my
city would save more than $300 million a
year if it just stops recycling
recycling is an industry that's using
increasingly expensive labor to produce
materials that are worth less and less
because it's not worth recycling here
much is shipped overseas to countries
like Malaysia where it's just piled up a
vast field of plastic two stories high
some of it from America see if we can
look on the back here Maryville Ohio
look Walmart bag they just dumb here and
then they burn it that pollutes even
more and what they don't burn they
sometimes dump in the ocean one garbage
truck of plastic is dumped in the sea
every minute barely any of that plastic
comes from American Shores
so if you care about saving flipper you
should put your plastic bottle in the
garbage the garbage but then it would go
to a landfill and aren't we running out
of space for landfills I'm sure we are
people believe that because for years
the media said we've about run out of
places to throw away our
throwaways they think that because years
ago there was so much publicity about
this barge a symbol of this country's
growing problems with trash the barge
traveled thousands of miles looking for
a place to dump its load but it wasn't
because there wasn't room States turned
this barge away because alarmist media
scared people about what it contained
there could be infectious ways dripping
Brown ooze of Poss possibly infectious
material we don't know what kind of
tropical Vermin is in that garbage the
EPA later found it was normal garbage
and landfills had plenty of room for it
today they have more space than we'll
ever need if you think of the United
States as a football field all the
garbage that we will generate in the
next 1,000 years would fit inside a tiny
fraction of the one in line really oh
that's surprising on top of that today's
landfills are not the polluters they
once were some sensible regulations make
sure they don't pollute eventually
landfills are turned into ski hills
parks and golf courses putting garbage
here is much cheaper than recycling so
why do towns keep pushing recycling they
do it because people demand it it's a
sacrament of the green religion I rinse
my cans I take my labels off if there's
plastic on that something that's paper I
take the plastic piece off of it that's
fine if they want to do it voluntarily
but we shouldn't mandate that it's not
my religion I don't want to perform that
Sacrament I don't want to either it's
timec consuming and complicated my city
orders us follow all these rules and
that's one of the reason recycling fails
is because it's so complicated people
never learn the rules and why should
they be spending their free time
learning these rules worse lots of what
we do is pointless if you rinse a
plastic bottle in hot water the net
result is more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere than if you threw it in the
garbage even Green Piece said most
plastic simply cannot be recycled so
what's Green piece's Solution let's stop
producing it you're saying don't use
plastic at all ban plastic I think
that's where we're headed no more
plastic but plastic often creates less
emissions than Alternatives
environmental groups rarely mention that
or how they misled us about recycling
for years it's appalling that after
telling people for three decades to
recycle they don't even apologize for
all the time and money that they've
wasted instead they have an even worse
proposal that will make life even worse
and will be even more expensive one
timec consuming dream of theirs is a
circular economy where everything is
reused if you're running out a laundry
detergent you could take your jug back
to the store and fill it up instead of
buying another one that's really the
goal but people don't want to you're
you're you're asking them to do things
they don't want to do people also don't
want insurance rates going up because
catastrophic weather catastrophic
weather increases because someone
doesn't recycle sure because of climate
change give me a break recycling is no
climate savior when Los Angeles mandated
recycling they added 400 polluting
garbage trucks but environmentalist
still demand we pick through our trash
switch from plastic to paper bags that
rip California even ban small plastic
shampoo bottles they still things why do
you want to make life more difficult for
travelers some of these rules are just
so arbitrary and silly it's simply a way
I think for greens and for some
politicians to pretend that they're
saving the planet and it's AB to feels
like they're doing something right and I
think they get a charge out of telling
people what to
do I will never tell you what to do but
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