Is Recycling Actually Worth It?

I was in elementary school when the "Three R's" switched to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. I remember someone came into our classroom when I was in 1st grade and told us that the Ozone Layer was being destroyed. We all had to draw pictures afterwards. I drew a bull dozer lifting its bucket in the air and scraping the atmosphere away as if it were a floating pile of dirt.

This is pretty much how I still feel about most things related to the Three R's: Confused. Well, not totally. 'Reduce' and 'Reuse' are pretty easy. Buy in bulk to avoid over–packaging and reuse everything you can for whatever you can possibly think of. My Great Aunt Ree made pillows from old clothes and stuffed them with leftover plastic grocery bags, she is fabulous!

But 'Recycling' is sort of a hard process to grasp. For most of us, recycling means "lovingly" separating our recyclables and placing them in the proper container and carrying them down to the curb every week. That's easy, right? Sure, but what happens next? This is where I start to get confused, mainly because I trust that the people picking up garbage are going to take it where it will be recycled for future use.

I then hear the pessimists say that it's not actually recycled and I'm wasting my time. This makes me want to scream! But then again, I'm just taking my cans and bottles down to the road and waving goodbye. So what actually happens to all of our recyclables?

The short answer to "Is Recycling Actually Worth It?": Yes.

Why? Because I'm an optimist! Seriously, though, all systems take time to be fully adopted. With more research and public action, recycling can become very beneficial.

Take a look at this little chart:




How many people do you think use the least favored option?

This is the "Waste Hierarchy," which I found on Wikipedia while looking up information about recycling glass. Glass, for instance, is highly recyclable but it is even more beneficial to refill the bottles, rather than melting them down or manufacturing them from scratch. For glass, the waste hierarchy shows that it is most beneficial to refill, then recycle and least favorable to make from scratch.

But glass is generally not as big a problem as the dreaded Plastic!

In the next coming days I'll have more information, myths and proper practices for dealing with reducing, reusing and recycling your 'stuff', including a commentary on the Junk Boat.