GayandRight

My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam. I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Is this the end of recycling????

Landfills are making more and more sense....
Mountains of used plastics, paper, metals and cardboard are piling up in the warehouses and yards of recycling companies across the US. Some contractors are negotiating to rent old military hangars and abandoned railway depots because they have run out of storage space for the glut of suddenly unwanted rubbish.

The collapse in the recycling market is a direct by-product of the financial crisis, as demand has slumped for material to be converted into everything from boxes for electronics to car parts and house fittings.

Householders have long been able to feel virtuous about their impact on the environment by sorting out their rubbish each week. But now the great trash market crash has even raised the environmentally alarming spectre that some waste intended for recycling may end up in landfills.

"The crash is all the more dramatic because as recently as mid-October the prices for recyclables stood at record highs," said Bruce Parker, president of the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA).

Newsprint is now fetching less than $60 (£40) a ton, down from $160; corrugated boxing has slumped from $50 a ton to $10; while tin fetches $5 a pound compared to about $25.

Other materials are performing even worse, Mr Parker said. His members are now having to pay for the removal of low-grade mixed paper that two months ago was bringing in $120 a ton. "And plastics, you cannot even give them away," he added with a sigh.

The previous surge in prices had largely been driven by soaring demand from China and India. The emerging economic powerhouses were swallowing up rubbish as soon Americans were discarding it - often to turn into goods and packing that were then sold back to the US.

But the demand from Asia has now collapsed as the economic crisis has spread around the globe. "We truly live in a global economy where what happens at one end of the earth directly affects business at the other end," said Mr Parker.

The impact is devastating commercially - and not just for recycling businesses. Already confronting crippling budget shortfalls, local and state authorities have now seen a lucrative source of income dry up as recycling centres are no longer paying for their rubbish.

Some towns have even suspended their recycling operations, although in much of the country those programmes are required by law.
Actually, most recycling never made any sense - it just made people feel good. Modern-day landfills are safe and can actually generate electricity.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

No, it's not the end of recycling. With the scam of man made global warming being outed on an almost daily basis, the social engineers will need a new scare tactic. The hue and cry from the societal levelers will be for the taxpayer to throw huge subsidies at the recycling enterprises to keep them afloat. It won't be at the homeowner level that the new subsidies will be distributed. (you'll still be forced to endure these idiotic green container, blue box, purple bag, odd day pickup, odd week inspection, ad infinitum nonsense with higher taxes piled on)It will be in the form of support paid to the collectors and premiums paid to the end users to take the stuff and melt it down.
A year from now, when global warming has blessedly gone the way of the DoDo, you can bet Elizabeth May will be on her soap box proclaiming the end of civilization within weeks if we don't throw tons of money at the problem.

10:10 AM  
Blogger philosoraptor said...

Oh wouldn't that be glorious! We could return to the wasteful centuries of just burning all of our throwaways, or storing them in massive landfill sites! Oh, beautiful, beautiful world! Imagine: we can return to our unsustainable, wasteful and inefficient practices again!!

What happened to conservatives?

2:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How you ever been to active face of a landfill? Not pretty.

The market for recycling will come back up eventually- no point in being premature about this.

Landfills are never a great option-a much better option are incinoraters. Use less enegry then recycling and much better for the environment then landfills.

And Powell why is the green container 'idiotic'. City run compost pickup is a great idea. First is cuts down dramatically on landfill waste and it can be turned into something useful for local farmers. So instead of paying to ship your potatoe peelings to Michigan, the City makes money off selling the compost- keeping your taxes down. Extremely little is being asked of you- I can't understand why you are whining about this.

7:02 PM  

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