Do You Recycle?

Before the afternoon lull kicks in, I’ll share my tale with all of you.

Personally, I hate recycling.

I recall recycling came about in my hometown around 1992, around the time most of you were born. The airwaves (not internet) were flooded with the slogan, “Recycle, reduce, and reuse! And close the loop” which left the viewer with the triangle of arrows in a continuous process.

Anyways, schools demanded that we recycle and I was young and bought into it. I separated my moms garbage into aluminum, tin, and plastic so the recycling truck could take them.

At this time, all of this made sense. A for profit company took waste and recycled selling the old raw materials to refiners whom could reuse it.

Sometime later, I was a young pup in the rustiest hacksaw college and our economics professor shared an article with us about recycling. Apparently, it became too successful that the refiners could not use all that was available. Think about it, there are only a select few things you put this secondary raw material into. This was around Y2K. At this time, recycling was booming with nearly a dozen bins for materials next to the trash. In some cases, people disposing trash would be penalized against and made to go to a siloed location.

I now live in NYC and pay for my own utilities, trash, water, and recycling!? I personally called the city personnel responsible for the recycling bill and was told it’s a mandatory fee so that items left for recycling can be picked up. The trucks use a lot of gas ya know.

Me - “Whoa whoa whoa, back the truck up, doesn’t recycling make money since the raw materials are sold to refiners?”

Them - “Yes, but that is not the point, you must pay the recycling fee.”

Me – “Cool story brah, guess what, I no longer wish to recycle, I’ll toss all my empty 40 bottles in the trash, please do not send another bill.”

Them – “It’s a mandated fee. If you do not pay it, it will be an assessment on your property tax statement.”

Me – “…(WTF)…”

There ya have it folks. This whole notion of ‘recycling’ is just another propaganda program by the government to keep people employed when it’s a dying overdone process. Certain raw materials (copper, gold, etc) can be recycled easily and still carry real value. Does anywhere accept a bag of cans anymore like the good ol days for money?

I’d be interested to learn more about recycling and what the outputs of those secondary resources are. I really doubt that it’s all that efficient where everything put in a recycling bin can be used. I’m thinking ~40% of it is usable with the rest going to the trash.

To top it off, I was hard at work yesterday and tossed my soda can in the trash by my desk. Some marketing bimbo walked by and was aghast, interrupted my modeling to Biggie, to tell me to take my can to the recycling bin in the break room. She got mean mugged and then walked away.