COLUMN: Recyling helps to not trash planet
My sweetie and I may live together in sin, but boy can we recycle. That’s right, instead of throwing everything in the garbage when we’re finished with it, we set some of it aside to be used again. In fact, it takes us a whole month to fill our trash can enough to make the trip to the curb worthwhile.
Call it our small contribution to the revolution. Currently, our civilization views the earth’s resources as disposable: Dig it up or cut it down, make it into a product, use it, then let the trash trucks haul it off to wherever it is those trucks go.
This model is linear, not unlike the Bible story: A beginning, a turning point and then Armageddon. You only get one chance to sip on that Mountain Dew bottle before it’s deep-sixed for all eternity. A fleeting moment of use followed by the landfill grave. Unless God intervenes of course.
While this model may (or may not) explain our reason for existence, it’s a poor basis for an economy. Why throw away a perfectly good item? Doesn’t it make more sense to use it over again?
It takes a lot of energy to produce an aluminum can. Raw ore must be mined and processed which uses much in the way of electricity, gasoline and water, not to mention the big gaping hole in the earth. Then the aluminum must be shipped to the can factory and processed yet again, which uses still more electricity, gasoline and water, plus wear and tear on our highway system.
In the end, we get a round canister full of watered down beer, conveniently shipped to the corner store. Party on dude. But next time you beer bong a can of the King of Beers and thoughtlessly toss it away, think of the big picture.
That empty can has already been mined and processed. It is a finished product, the sum total of the mining, shipping and canning industries. Why do it all over again? Recycling aluminum takes 95 percent less energy than producing new aluminum from ore. This maxim applies to most of the products we consume every day. Paper, glass, plastic, steel, tin, cardboard and even food waste can all be easily recycled or reused.
Call it the pagan model of economics, one based on a circle rather than a line. When the maple leaves fall to the Earth each October, they aren’t shipped off to the dump and buried. Instead, they are recycled by the planet, becoming rich topsoil and ensuring that the host tree will continue to thrive for years to come.
A statistic: Americans throw away enough steel every year to build all the cars built in America. The tomato soup cans Americans tossed away in 2001 could have built thousands of Chevy Suburbans – enough to haul even the most extended of Utah families safely to work and school. Why not reuse those cans and avoid strip mines and smelters?
Another: If all U.S. morning newspapers were recycled, 41 thousand trees would be saved daily, and 6 million tons of waste would never end up in landfills. Oh yeah, 20 percent of superfund sites (America’s most hazardous and contaminated places) are former landfills, aka dumps. Out of sight and out of mind does not mean safe and secure.
Face it folks, the planet isn’t doing so well these days. Despite our intelligence and ability to self-reflect, we bipeds and our opposable thumbs have somehow managed to sully the very matrix in which we exist. Toxic waste, deforestation and acid rain are just a few examples of the mess we’ve made in our own beds.
If there’s one thing to learn from scandals like Enron and the Bush presidency in general, it’s that corporations and government aren’t going to save us from ecological disaster. We the people must lead by example, and recycling is a perfect place to start.
Two boxes, that’s all. Place all your junk mail, newspaper, cardboard, cereal boxes and computer paper in one. Place your empty plastic soda bottles, soup and pop cans, shampoo containers, milk jugs, whiskey bottles and tofu containers in the other.
When the boxes are full, take them to the recycling center (there’s one by Smith’s), separate the loot by category and place it in the proper bins. If you don’t have a car, then look in the yellow pages under “recycling.” For just $6 per month someone will come and haul away your recyclable items for you.
So quit trashing the planet folks and start recycling. It’s easy, it’s fun and darn it, it’s good for the soul.