Continued.
"Recycling doesn’t save energy as compared to using virgin raw materials either. Most recycling websites talk about the benefits of recycling and claim that recycling saves lots of energy. The websites claim recycling aluminum requires 95 percent less energy than making brand new aluminum. Or that recycling paper saves 64 percent more energy than brand new paper. Or that recycling plastic saves up to 60 percent more energy than making brand new plastic. However, an Ohio State University fact sheet said, “The average saving … does not include added energy costs of collection and transportation.” When the energy of recycling collection is figured out, recycling actually uses more energy. Curbside collection of recycling materials uses lots of energy. One way that it uses lots of energy is in the making of recycling trucks, which are made out of steel, which consume lots of energy to make. And these trucks have limited life spans. After awhile the trucks are going to break and need to be replaced. Another way recycling uses lots more energy than disposal is the fuel used to run the trucks. For every trip to the landfill to haul plastic, paper, and aluminum as trash, it would take 5-10 trips to the recycling center. This is because when plastic, paper, and aluminum are put in a garbage truck, they are compacted together so that much garbage can be hauled in one load. But when recyclables are hauled in a recycling truck, they are not compacted together because when the recyclables get to a recycling center, material that is not recyclable has to be sorted and removed. Experts who study this matter know that it costs a lot more to recycle. One of these experts is Leland E. Teschler, the editor of an engineering website, who said in his paper “Save Energy: Don't Recycle,” “The issue has been closely examined by the Franklin Associates Div. of the Eastern Research Group. Franklin has for years prepared the national characterization of municipal solid waste published by U.S. EPA. It also has looked at the cost per ton of handling recyclables through curbside pickup. One of Franklin’s conclusions is that curbside recycling typically costs 55% more than simple disposal because it consumes huge amounts of capital and labor per pound of recycled material.” It is obvious that recycling costs more than disposing because if recycling were beneficial, citizens wouldn’t be charged for pick-up. (Most people are charged on their tax bills.) Plastic, paper, and aluminum companies buy raw materials, and if recyclables saved energy, then these companies could buy the recyclables cheaper than the raw materials, and cities or businesses could collect the recyclables and sell them to plastic, paper, and aluminum makers for less than the cost of typical raw materials.
The main reason why people think curbside recycling is important is because they think recycling keeps the planet cleaner and keeps material out of landfills and keeps it from being burned or otherwise becoming pollution. But the truth is all plastics and papers, which are the materials that most people consider to be pollutants, end up in the landfill, burned, or disposed of some other way anyway. This is because no plastic or paper can be recycled unlimited times. Plastics can only be recycled a couple of times. The Eureka recycling company wrote, “Plastic resin has limited ability to be recycled because its quality degrades every time it is reheated. When we collect and remanufacture plastic, we are only delaying its disposal. The final destination for all plastic is either an incinerator … or a landfill.” The Eureka company went on, “Most milk jugs, soda bottles, and water bottles are turned into lower-grade products such as fill, fleece, carpet, toys, or plastic lumber.” Then the plastic goes to the landfill or is burned. Even when plastic is recycled, it’s worth so little that it’s shipped over to China because the labor used to process it is so cheap there. And in China they have hardly any environmental rules, so when the plastic scraps are melted, the workers get poisoned. The Chinese also dump the recycling gunk all over the ground there. It isn’t put into proper landfills. The other main product that people are worried about causing pollution in our world is paper. But just like plastic, paper can’t keep being used again and again. John Klungness, a Forest Products Laboratory chemical engineer said, “Paper fibers lose strength with each recycling, and fail after seven cycles. As the overall recycling percentage rises, so does the proportion of fibers that have been recycled seven times.” So the paper products quickly end up being disposed of. And much paper never gets recycled seven times. Some of the best products to make using recycled paper are tissue paper, toilet paper, and paper towels, and those products obviously aren’t recycled. They are immediately disposed of.
My paper shows that much of what students learn in school is just plain wrong. Some people teach incorrect things because they don’t know any better, some people do it for personal reasons, and some people do it to make money. Students must always find things out for themselves if they want to know if the information they are learning is true or not."
