Penn & Teller TV - The New York Times - United States Environmental Protection Agency - Neil Seldman - Daniel Benjamin - M H Huesemann - P H Brunner - Dirty Business: What Really Happens to Your Recycling TV - The Secret World of Your Rubbish TV - Recycling: Is It a Con? TV - Trailer Park Boys - Panorama TV - The Story of Stuff TV - Dispatches TV -
Just plain bullshit. Penn & Teller Bullshit! s2e5: Recycling, Showtime 2004
It just seems like the thing to do. ibid.
Does it save energy? No ... Sorting, storing and cleaning ... It takes more energy to recycle a plastic bottle than to make a new one. ibid.
It costs you eight billion dollars a year. ibid.
Cans ... There is real money in aluminium. ibid.
Recycling paper is bad for the environment. Recycling is a manufacturing process. ibid.
Americans make about 200 million tons of rubbish a year. ibid.
We have three times more trees today than we did in 1920. ibid.
Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America. A waste of time and money, a waste of human and natural resources. The New York Times
cf.
The Solid Waste Dilemma: An Agenda For Action ... Recycling is absolutely vital. United States Environmental Protection Agency
People feel good when they recycle. Neil Seldman, president Institute for Self-Reliance
Recycling does not save trees. Professor Daniel Benjamin
Most of what makes people feel good about recycling is based on misinformation. Daniel Benjamin
They are wasting resources when they recycle. Daniel Benjamin
It is more expensive to recycle than it is to landfill. Daniel Benjamin
Complete recycling is impossible from a practical standpoint. In summary, substitution and recycling strategies only delay the depletion of non-renewable stocks and therefore may buy time in the transition to true or strong sustainability, which ultimately is only guaranteed in an economy based on renewable resources. M H Huesemann, The Limits to Sustainable Development
Every year, millions of tons of materials are being exploited from the earth's crust, and processed into consumer and capital goods. After decades to centuries, most of these materials are ‘lost’. With the exception of some pieces of art or religious relics, they are no longer engaged in the consumption process. Where are they? Recycling is only an intermediate solution for such materials, although it does prolong the residence time in the anthroposphere. For thermodynamic reasons, however, recycling cannot prevent the final need for an ultimate sink. P H Brunner, In Search of the Final Sink
Hong Kong: This is absolutely astonishing. I never thought we would see this. It’s sitting here doing nothing … People have put this in their recycling bins; they thought it was going to be recycled and yet it’s just stuck in this log-jam. Dirty Business: What Really Happens to Your Recycling, Sky News 2018
We produce twenty times more plastic today than we did fifty years ago. ibid.
A system that pushes the problem off our shores. The end result: plastic piling up and it isn’t going away. ibid.
China: whole villages grew dedicated to sorting through the world’s dirty plastic. ibid.
In July 2017 China rocked the recycling world by announcing it would impose tough restrictions on the import of foreign waste. They called it National Sword. ibid.
Globally we dump a colossal two billion tons of rubbish every year. But what we chuck away has got to go somewhere. The Secret World of Your Rubbish s1e1, Channel 5 2019
In our capital city thousands of dustbins go out every day of the working week to collect around three million bin-bags full of rubbish. ibid.
Now a tightly regulated industry. ibid.
Landfill waste is bursting at the seems. ibid.
We recycle less than half of our household waste. ibid.
We send around seven million old mattresses to landfill every year. ibid.
Air Salvage International – a company that recycles on an epic scale. ibid.
Underground fires can last for up to twenty years. And are almost impossible to put out. ibid.
All too often they [Crapper & Sons] find stuff that should never have been thrown out in the first place. The Secret World of Your Rubbish s1e2
We dispose of over fifty-two million tons of rubbish in landfill every year. ibid.
The need for more and better recycling is more urgent than ever. Not least because Britain is due to run out of landfill space by 2024. ibid.
We uncover vast hidden world of waste. And we meet the army of workers on the front line clearing up after us day in day out from everyday scraps to radical recycling. The war against our trash never ends. The Secret World of Your Rubbish s1e3
Britain is due to run out of landfill space by 2024. ibid.
There are over forty energy-from-waste facilities in the UK, a fifty per cent rise in the last five years. ibid.
The British waste industry turn over £9 billion a year and employs 70,000 people. But work on the tugboats is not for the fainthearted. ibid.
Globally, we throw about two billion tons of rubbish every year. And we in the UK are all responsible for sustaining this tsunami of trash. Our endless consumption means the average British family creates over one ton of junk a year. But it’s not just the stuff that we buy that’s the problem; everything we do creates a rubbish footprint. The Secret World of Your Rubbish s2e1, Channel 5 2020
The Government’s taxes are also putting pressure on the family’s business. It’s increasingly expensive for local authorities and companies to have their rubbish buried. And they want cheaper and greener alternatives. ibid.
Next door to Twickenham’s iconic rugby stadium, Mogden sewage treatment works is one of the UK’s largest. ibid.
Every time we switch on an appliance or light, we have a hand in creating the most dangerous rubbish on Earth. About 21% of the electricity we use in the UK comes from nuclear power stations. But nuclear power produces nuclear waste. The Secret World of Your Rubbish s2e2
Nuclear waste is just one of the many streams of rubbish we all generate without realising it. ibid.
Every year the average Brit personally generates four hundreds kilograms in rubbish … enough to fill the Albert Hall every two hours. Currently, around 12% of our waste ends up in landfill, but landfill use is in decline due to the increased landfill taxes and environmental concerns. The Secret World of Your Rubbish s2e3
There are 48 operational energy-and-waste facilities in the UK and 10 more currently under construction. ibid.
In the UK we now burn more waste than we recycle or send to landfill. ibid.
Many of the clothes we trash are perfectly wearable. ibid.
‘Eventually we’re going to be in a sea of rubbish, aren’t we?’ ibid. e-rubbish recycler
London’s underground sewer network stretches for an incredible 109,000 kilometres. ibid.
87% of Brits believe we should take responsibility for recycling. The Secret World of Your Rubbish s2e4
Glass: it never loses its quality or purity no matter how many times it’s recycled. The average UK family uses 500 glass bottles and jars every year. And we manage to recycle 67% of it. ibid.
We Brits generate over one and half million tons of plastic waste, much of which ends up buried in landfill or being burned from energy and waste plants. ibid.
Every year more than twenty-eight billion glass bottles and jars end up in the nation’s landfills. ibid.