Reduce, Reuse....Recycle?

Someone should really say this, it may as well be me. "Recycling is a sham!"

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about it. Think about that magic triangle that we all of us under 30 learned in school..."Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". Which one gets the most press? "Recycle" does of course. Why is that? Economics, that's why.

Reducing is bad for our economy. If people use less they spend less money, there is less need for manufactured goods and there is less of a need for jobs. The government will never support reducing in America. We could reduce solid waste, carbon output and oil dependency just to name a few by reducing how much we consume.

Almost as bad for the economy is reusing. Rather than buying that shiny new Toyota Prius why not buy a used Carolla? Think about all of the raw materials we could save by using a car until it is completely exhausted. When you calculate the effect that disposing of a car has it might make that Prius look less shiny.

Obviously, someone has to support the technology to keep it going, but really all it would take is to demand it. Consumers always have the power in the economic equation. The prime objective of a business is to make money, in order to do so they must make a product worth buying. If we (as a society) demanded an electric car and settled for nothing less (as in didn't purchase) there would be electric cars that worked well. Think about it, Hummers were not commercially available until there was public demand.

Back to the point, our government has chosen to advertise the benefits of Recycling. Why wouldn't they? It creates jobs, makes a need for new factories and facilities and the end result is new products that can be made from recycled materials. All of this helps kick start our economy and makes everyone feel better about buying more stuff. Printing a ton on recycled paper (which often times is less than 100% recycled) is WAY better than printing on regular paper....isn't it?

There is my rant...next time you go to the store don't buy Recycled, buy less....instead of buying cans of beer, buy returnable glass bottles. (They can clean em' with soap rather than melting them down and releasing ugly chemicals) Most of all, don't buy into the fact that recycling is going to save the world. It will help, but it is far from the easiest way.