Hippies may recycle, but they smell like trash

This summer in Niagara Falls, working for Youthworks, Recycling and I forever had our relationship damaged. Its something about spending 40 minutes each night cleaning out black beans from the creases of tin cans just so to recycle a few of them, when to do so comes at the cost of much needed sleep that will finally push you over the edge. All the questions I have ever had about recycling finally came bursting out in my mind. Why do WE (If not us directly, then the government using our taxes) have to pay more to recycle then to trash something if recycling is so good and saves resources? Doesn't recycling use a lot of energy? What about when I DON'T clean out the beans in the can, who does that? How does the whole process work anyway?

Well apparently a lot of people have these questions, and it appears that recycling may not be so good after all. I would go into all the reasons why, but I don't think I can put it near as well as Pen and Teller can while using some choice words (ok, several) to emphasize the point. So I encourage you to watch and see for yourself!



If you made it this far and are still not convinced, here are a few more links.

New York Times
Here
Here
And Here

Of course, to be fair, I do have a googling bias. Apparently googling "Recycling is bad" doesn't send pro-recycling links to the top of the search results. Clearly, like pretty much everything, you can google sites that will attempt to totally debunk anything written in these articles. However, no site will debunk Pen and Teller, because they are quite obviously infallible.

My point is that, how many of YOU have actually LOOKED into recycling? Did you just assume it was good because people, such as your favorite celebrity, told you it was? Did you even think that their might be another side?

Whether or not it is truly more beneficial to recycle or not, I do not know. What I do know is that is more beneficial to reuse. So do that. Heres a site I just joined called freecycle that I love.

This post is dedicated to all the "The-world-is-going-to-end-if-you-throw-away-that-piece-of-paper" recylers who make me want to buy paper just to throw it away instead of recycling it.