Recycling is Bullshit; Make Nov. 15 Zero Waste Day, not America Recycles Day

Now that's what I am talking about!

Pretty aggressive but I'm on board. I'll go get a growler on Nov 15th to celebrate ($4 deposit on those!). Our milk comes in refillable glass bottles too but its still about impossible to avoid disposable containers. I don't think recycling is all bad but its not the end all be all. Still it beats the dump (for a little while anyway).

Great article!

One of the things that I've recently considered about recycling is the amount of energy it consumes. How much hot water do we use to wash out a peanut butter jar so it is shiny shiny clean for the green truck? A lot of grocery stores in my area offer bulk Squish-Yer-Own-Peanuts peanut butter - maybe we should be using that more?

Of course, I still need to wash out the container before I bring it back, unless I want to risk a lifelong buildup of PB on the bottom of my perpetual jar.

Such a great article, and it's so true.

I've always recycled everything possible, but have never realized what I'm actually doing.

Really informative stuff here.

you can always do more, but it's not wise to alienate people from good behaviors. and recycling is good, but it ain't perfect. nor is reuse.

as an example, i buy milk in reusable bottles which i return. cartons are recyclable and they weigh less. am i certain that my solution is really the best one? it must use more fuel to carry heavy bottles than light cardboard. is that better or worse when it comes to my footprint?

i am a huge fan of cradle to cradle design, but calling recycling bullshit is bullshit. it would be nice to hear calls for "zero waste" that aren't so combative.

Sounds good. We don't as a rule buy drinks in anything smaller than a gallon jug, but I'd sure love to see more of those be reusable. I know glass is a lot heavier, but I think it's a much better choice than plastic. Much more reusable, and generally recyclable when it does break.

Wow, talk about a double edged sword.

Should I tell my peers to stop recycling paper? How about used aluminum sheets?
Should Tim Horton’s use this article to help its no-refund cups?
How about old batteries, printer cartridges and CFLs?
This is the kind of thing that pushes greens into a corner and makes them look bad. I agree with many parts of the article, but calling the whole recycling system a fraud/sham is extremely dangerous.
Should all of North America dump their recycling bins into their trash cans?
Remember it is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Maybe we should change that to:
Remember, Reduce, Reuse, REPAIR, Recycle but keep recycle in there.

The co-op in a nearby town has a lot of bulk goods besides the usual rice and granola. You can fill your own containers with soy sauce, molasses, local honey and maple syrup as well as dish and laundry soap, shampoo and hand lotion. They weigh the container before you fill it so you only pay for what you decant. So far the prices work out to be more than the cheapest supermarket junk but less than equivalent green products.

Thank you for addressing the REAL issue here. In Germany, the bottle is built into the cost of the beverage and it's taken as a given that bottles will be returned and reused. It's simply illogical to throw them out and make new ones!

Only works if the bottler close trip from your beverage store.

How far is your favorite brewer. States away you say?

____ is as ___ does.

Point taken. However generalizing to a blanket statement like "recycling is bullshit" is going the opposite. The not so smart will just use that as an excuse to go back to single use behaviors. They don't understand subtlety. If recycling is bullshit then let's not ever do it ever, and the easy alternative is the dump.

The real issue here is single-use packaging and the lack of producer responsibility. Recycling still has its merits, though I agree it gets too much emphasis as only the 3rd R.

I think that this article is missing a very important point: the dependency of the people on big business.

Do you REALLY need that soda? How about that over-priced plastic bottle of filtered tap water with a clever name to induce necessity? Why don't you just tap your own water into a reusable bottle and carry that with you? I won't even go into how bad soda is for you. That's another article all together. And next time you want a beer, tap a keg. It's cheaper, better and you can use your own glass to drink it.

This is the best article I have ever read on Treehugger. Need more like this!!!

Holy cow, Lloyd. That was a manifesto. I am totally going to rip you off for a column.

Wow -- great, concise timeline (and pictorial essay) of recycling and how we got to our present system. I agree, however, that the title of the article, while thought-provoking, is ultimately alienating and just the kind of soundbite that quickly goes viral and could become an excuse. I still (and I now live in Austin - a "green" city) hear people quoting an article from the 80s (I think it was in the NY Times) about how recycling was a sham and that most of what people had sorted out went to the landfills anyway. As I recall, the article was just an expose on a somewhat bumpy transition.

All that said, I do my best to design packaging for my products that is as easy as possible to re-use - which means compostable labeling that doesn't require adhesive (because how many times do we finally give up trying to scrape stuff off?), and using glass or tin containers. Yes, it's more expensive and takes some ingenuity, but I'm with you on the bandwagon that companies should be held responsible for not just where things come from, but where they go as well. I don't think the Cradle to Cradle approach can be overlooked either in the whole recycling conversation.

So, perhaps a title like "Recycling beverage bottles is bullshit" is a better thing to say -- we've made some progress on banishing the water bottle stupidity, so let's make hay for glass and deposits!

Then can we kill the plastic clamshell?

This is a good point made, if only with the intent to get the real polluters to face the music. Municipalities should be pressing manufacturers to reduce waste at its source, or pay to have it trucked away.

You might as well say that riding the bus is bullshit- I mean, you're still using fuel! You should be riding a bike everywhere, right?

Why can't you just say "Recycling is good, but not creating waste in the first place is better. Try to create less."

These are the kind of ridiculous statements that make environmentalists look bad.

"And next time you want a beer, tap a keg. It's cheaper, better and you can use your own glass to drink it."\

Uh.. what do we do when we don't want to purchase enough beer for 40 people at once?

One more point.. recycling aluminum uses only 5% as much energy (and releases only 5% of the CO2 emissions) as mining and processing new aluminum.

So by getting somebody to recycle their aluminum can instead of throwing it away, you have gotten them to reduce their carbon footprint for that beverage by 95%.

Is that bullshit?

TreeHugger's on fire - I love it.

Very interesting. While I agree in many ways I wonder what you are asking for here?

More re-useables? That is a great idea. It used to be, when I was a kid, (not that long ago I am only 39) that you could get your milk delivered in a glass bottle and when they brought new, they picked up old for re-use. Coke too. We took our bottles back to the store. However I stopped drinking soda 15 years ago.

Stop recycling? This is a problem. I have a lot of anti green people in my life that will use this as a way to mock us on one more thing. "You recycle?!? How bogus! What a waste, you know big business is making you clean up their mess." Some will take this as a reason to just stop recycling now. Not good.....

I like the idea of more neighborhood markets. More opps for unpackaged goods carefully wrapped in butcher paper for the trip home. Loaf of bread at Romina's bakery, coffee at Earth Goods and meat from the neighborhood butcher. How nice would that be. Buy your produce and don't use those plastics bags.....

We are getting back to many of these things, but we can't scare people off of recycling. We need recycling for now.

Before you criticize this article, remember who the audience is. People who read Treehugger generally already do the minimum (recycle) and are looking for ways to do more. Given that backdrop, I think this article is rightly provocative.

I realized this problem about a year ago -- ultimately we need to cut down on packaging, but we have few options to do so. I had no idea so many other countries use refillable bottles! I would love it if I could go to the store and refill my shampoo, soap, soda, and beer bottles, as well as my pasta sauce jars and other things. Sure, you have to wash the bottles in some cases, but that's no different than doing dishes.

I wish we could develop sufficient consumer outcry to change the status quo, but I'm cynical about people's abilities to change without a push. That's why I think we should reform our taxation system to tax the things that are bad instead of the things that are good. Why are families being taxed for working to put food on the table, but big corporations are not taxed for generating so much waste? I think there should be a "waste" tax, and every corporation should be taxed according to their volume of packaging and disposable materials. Clothing manufacturers should also be taxed for selling "dry clean only" clothes, since dry cleaners are so, so bad for the environment.

In Fight Club (the book), isn't there a line that says something like, "Recycling is like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound?" or something like that?

Recycling is certainly useful in some cases, but a lot people I know use "I recycle" as an excuse to be wasteful in different ways.

"Did you just drive two blocks to buy beer?"
"Stfu, I recycle."
Etc.

:^)

I think it would be wise and prudent to expand recycling to the global level. A good point to make would be for the USA and Mexico to adopt the Canadian national bottle bill. Have the same laws for the North American Hemisphere. Perhpas it could be extentted to cover all of Central and South America as well. Keep in mind it is a global economy and many containers are shipped across state and and national borders. By putting the cost of disposal into all containers, we get the producers in the ball game. This state by state effort is a choke. Please write an article covering the Canadian bottle bill. My experieince from ttaveling into Canada is that beer in returnable quarts is a very cost effect proposition for the consumer. That is how my grandfather always bought his beer before we ionvented the disposable. One last thought! I used to run barefooted everywhere as a kid never fearing broken glass . Every bottle I ever saw I picked up and got my 2 cents!

Interesting theory, but I think the genie is long out of the bottle on convenience packaging for consumers. Much as we might like to dream, it would be nearly impossible to wean consumers from the notion of single serve bottles, snack-paks of chips, Starbucks cups, and all of the convenience items that make modern life what it is.

So what's the answer? Of course producer responsibility is important an we all should be demanding that, and voting with our wallets.

But we shouldn't throw "individual responsibility" out with the bathwater either. We treehuggers are the enlightened 10%...it's the other 90% that we need to reach. Ultimately, consumers are the ones who decide what to buy, and how they dispose of it. Litter is not a myth. Look at the roadsides. It's a reality. We can fight an uphill battle against consumer culture (and it would be a long, hard and unwinnable fight), or we can educate them (us) about proper consumption and disposal and hope that, little by little, they adopt sustainable behaviors.

Recycling remains an important part of that hands-on, real-world education that consumers need drummed home.

Our recycling system is in need of improvement, that is certain, and many things could and should be done to ensure companies take responsibility for the eventual reuse and recycling/disposal of their products.

But recycling, the process of reclaiming used materials which can no longer be reused in their current form, is most certainly not bullshit. How, exactly, do you attain zero waste without it? You can't. We need better and smarter recycling, not less.

"So cities have to go out and buy fancy trucks to keep it all separate"

According to the local paper, our county (Anne Arundel) actually makes a profit on the recycling. A million dollars in 2007. Obviously there was some up front capital needed though. They don't need the fancy trucks because it automatically is sorted later. They use standard looking trash trucks.

Big business consistently claims that packaging is used to keep shoplifters at bay. So, now they have overbulked packaging plus electronic trackers. We are at fault, as well, for not reminding them of this. Now would be a perfect time to let them know that they can cut costs by cutting packaging.
Thank you for the kick in the a**. I bought junk food on the way back from the auto shop when I could have been eating a home-canned breakfast out of that ever-popular recyclable, the Mason jar.

you might raise interesting points about inefficientcies, but to say that recycling in bullshit shows a total misconception of laws of thermo dynamics. bullshit, and any other type need to be recycled. the only way to create a sustainable system, is to find ways to close the circles of all material goods we use.
i realize we are just starting out and many things dont work, the main thing is not to make waste,
but after you hold up your shit for a day because you dont want to create waste and you dont want to recycle, you might feel diffirently.

Just wanted to mention there is a good simple breakdown of recycling in this months Popular Mechanics, 12/08. They tend to focus on cost efficiencies and not philososphies. I did learn a few new things. I agree completely with your ideas on zero waste and less consumption. However, aluminum recycling and some others are very cost efficient and can reduce land mining. Other recyclables obviously can be a scam. Asked my teenagers to read it so that we could act as a family and found it helpful. They want to save the earth but hate to agree with us old people on how to do it. My wife and kids have finally kicked the plastic bottle habit and they've joined me using aluminum bottles. I also use Europe as a better example of buying local, minimizing frozen foods and packaging by buying fresh. People get that pretty quickly and it's cultural not political which seems to help get the message across with old school thinkers that grew up on frozen dinners.

There are a lot of good points being made here. That gives me hope that people care enough to make a difference. A must read for everyone is "Cradle to Cradle." I

While I agree that the corporates have to play a larger role in managing this problem I think its a little off the mark to say Recycling is bull.

Here in Ireland we introduced a plastic bag tax of €0.15 per bag, its truly amazing the difference that was made with this measure- an overall reduction of over 90%.
When the figures of the number of bags being used increased the tax was increased now to 22c.
The tax itself is then used for other environmental initiatives.

We could have left it as it was and have to deal with the waste but the solution, so blindingly simply is an example of how government can help resolve some of the issues we face.

The EPA planned to have 35% of all waste recycled by 2013 in Ireland, however this target was met eight years in advance, in 2005. Now over 90% of Irish household recycle.

Another European wide measure was the e-waste initiative where all manufactures of electronic waste are responsible for its disposal at end-of-life, now you can bring items back to the point of sale.

yeah. i agree with some comments. bottles are more expensive to ship than carton. unless we have a wide net of local milk/softdrink providers. which requires change in the entire industry and infrastructure. it'd be debatilbe whether or not bottles are more green than cartons.

i dont' think bottles are ansewrs to everything based on its weight. but perhaps industry should come up with a material that's resueable , w/o too much additional processing power. and that's also light weight.

they can start by coming up with a decomposiable trash bag. i always think about this everytime i take out my trash. i don't want to just dump raw trash in the big can b/c then i'll use up alot of water to wash/clean it every week. but i also don't want to use the plastic trash bag.

it's a dilemma!

yeah. i agree with some comments. bottles are more expensive to ship than carton. unless we have a wide net of local milk/softdrink providers. which requires change in the entire industry and infrastructure. it'd be debatilbe whether or not bottles are more green than cartons.

i dont' think bottles are ansewrs to everything based on its weight. but perhaps industry should come up with a material that's resueable , w/o too much additional processing power. and that's also light weight.

they can start by coming up with a decomposiable trash bag. i always think about this everytime i take out my trash. i don't want to just dump raw trash in the big can b/c then i'll use up alot of water to wash/clean it every week. but i also don't want to use the plastic trash bag.

it's a dilemma!

Can't remember if I've posted this before, but will now anyway, for advocates of 'reducing' (as opposed to reusing & recycling):

http://www.workersoftheworldrelax.org

This is the companion film of the book by the same name, by the Work Less Party (no it's not a joke - they're a pretty impressive group actually).

Good advice. I'm going to stop recycling and pass on the good news to all the other fools who are recycling.
Maybe I should start smoking again while I'm at it!

Numbers and statistics are useless without sources. Give a proper reference to a peer reviewed publication or stop babbling. It's not that I doubt what you say, but I need a solid basis for arguments.

Don't agree, man!

I remember the days of glass bottles. They sat in peoples' basements, garages, porches...they got put into the trash. People did not care. For the most part, people do not care.

We have trash pick-up by Waste Management twice a week. One time is for recycling, which we do not have to sort. Maybe they are lying to use, but they say they are recycling, saving trees, etc. This is the way to go.

Perhaps some of it bs, for the most part I think you are full of it.

Why should we post intelligent civil comments, when your headlines are offensive, btw?

Bravo, Lloyd! I'm paraphrasing (and linking back) to this post for my company's sustainability tip this week.

And Ides, if you can't play nice, get the hell out of the sandbox.

Amazing that we were doing reuse well in the 40s!

As a designer I'm a huge advocate for cradle to cradle design. Design it so it can be reused, taken apart, repurposed, and as a last resort recycled. We can get off the waste cycle and the neurosis caused by everyone telling us to reduce, reduce. The weight of this change is on brilliant designers to develop. But the catalyst is on the consumer to pressure the companies with their dollars.

Anyone want to start a resource recovery center, hire lobbyists, and pressure government to give the recovery responsibility back to the corporations who produce the products?

Agreed. Reduce (the holy grail) and reuse are the keys, but calling recycling BS is a real setback. The never-greens will use headline mantras like this to rationalize doing nothing. Sad. This is very dangerous. And, "repair"-- that's part of the concept behind reuse.

Someone I know that refuses to recycle sent me this as proof he shouldn't recycle. What am I supposed to do with old batteries, smart guy? Many people agree we should be using refillable items and most of us do at out local co-op. This blanket statement article is very irresponsible and doesn't tell even part of the picture of the necessity of recycling.

One thing we might be overlooking is to just not use the store beverages in the first place. Take a glass and get a drink of water from the tap (clean and filtered ) and save the environment while living a healther liftstyle. All the ads we see are designed to convince us to buy more items that we don't need.
That just leaves a few milk cartons and for that we push for the reusable glass bottles just like we used 100 years ago.