Alethiometry Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 I'm currently writing a long research paper criticizing government-mandated recycling. Right now, I'm looking for sources that prove recycling is impractical due to it's high cost and the ability of the free market to recycle goods when it's profitable. I was wondering if you all could share your anti-recycling resources from books, articles, or academic journals with me. I figure these resources would also be interesting to other users. I'm particularly interested in finding the study that Penn and Teller based their anti-recycling episode of Bullsh*t! on. While I've been looking for resources intently, it's been a huge drain to wade through many articles that are pro-recycling in my search. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D'kian Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 Try looking into the steel and glass industries. They both make extensive use of recycling because scraps fit into manufacturing processes easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JASKN Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 You might try e-mailing the Bullshit! studio directly, asking for general information or any specific info they would be willing to pass on to you. Many times, a simple e-mail works wonders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnargtharst Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 Apologies, I don't have a source, and I dont' mean to be glib, but there is the obvious inference that if recycling a particular material in a particular location were profitable, it wouldn't have to be mandated by the government. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matus1976 Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 It's also important to emphasize that recylcing is about resources, not about energy, and that most recylcing actually takes more energy (and thus contributes more to global warming if you consider that to be a problem) as far as economies of scale go, there is almost no scenario where collecting small amounts of a processed and diffuse resource, bring it all back to a central location, and then processing it again, and then re-distributing it - is going to compete on an energy criteria with starting out with a centralized location of a high concentration of a resource, and then processing and distributing it. In some rare instances it might be worth it, like aluminum, because the initialy bauxite electrolysis process is so energy intensive. Even so, 10% of the earths crust is aluminum, so I wouldnt particular care for 'conserving aluming' as that amounts to some hundreds of billions of tons of aluminum for every person on the planet. Hardly anything we would be running out of anytime soon. And I wonder if those calculations for aluminum include the big diesel garbage trucks that pick up volumnous cans of aluminum that are 99% air and drive them for miles back to a collection center. Usually that part is government mandated and thus subsidized by the refuse collector. I personally do aluminum casting and I don't even find it worthwhile to melt aluminum cans, there is hardly in aluminum, and there is more ink and dye on them then there is aluminum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenure Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 I'm looking for sources that prove recycling is impractical due to it's high cost and the ability of the free market to recycle goods when it's profitable. Ha ha, if you want a great source in that, look into this woman, Zhang Yin, owner of 'Nine Dragons Paper Holdings', which made its fortune in recycling paper. Her estimated net worth is $3.05 billion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 I'm currently writing a long research paper criticizing government-mandated recycling. Right now, I'm looking for sources that prove recycling is impractical due to it's high cost and the ability of the free market to recycle goods when it's profitable. There's a small contradiction here that you might wanna resolve. If recycling is impractical, then it is impractical whether mandated by the government or not. And if it is impractical, then it isn't profitable. So it's not really clear to me what you have in mind showing. For starters, there are a number of governmental involvements in recycling. Government is generally involved in waste-disposal to start with, and recycling is in part derivative of waste disposal. In Seattle, it costs the user more to throw out the trash than it does to dispose of less trash and recycle the rest, so this is government encouragement (not a mandate). Columbus on the other hand has (for a little while longer) a small soon-to-evaporate subsidy to a private recycler who then charges $8 / month to take our recycling as opposed to you throwing it out for free -- but they are vastly better at accepting stuff than Seattle is. NYC has actual hardcore recycling laws although I don't know what the penalty is for throwing away a bottle. There are mandatory-deposit laws in states like CT which basically fine you a dime for not 'recycling' a drink can in the proper fashion. So more exactly, what kind of government involvement are you addressing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott_Connery Posted July 25, 2008 Report Share Posted July 25, 2008 Check out the balance statements of the publicly held waste management/recycling companies. Their income to debt ratios will startle you. This has a treasure trove of good articles: http://www.google.com/custom?domains=JunkS...D%3A1&hl=en This one is especially good: http://www.junkscience.com/mar02/wsj-recycling.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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