Recycling: What Our Government Is Not Telling Us

What You Should Know About Recycling

Do you practice recycling?

Are you a conscientious individual that always makes sure to segregate yours and your family’s recyclable and non-recyclable trash?

If you answer yes to both question then great. You are a superb individual that is conscientious on making our environment clean and fit to live in for the next generation… Or are you?

 How much do you know about recycling? Are you aware how much of our recyclable trash was actually being recycled?

My questions might raise some eyebrows but there is actually a reason for it so I suggest you keep reading.

Recycling is the process of re-using materials such as glass, metal, paper, and plastic so as to conserve energy and natural resources. The method of recycling was invented to reduce the impact of humanity’s consumption of our world’s natural resources. It’s a noble goal to be sure… if not for the fact that the amount of materials being recycled was just a portion of our trash.

For example, are you aware that only 10% of the collected recyclable plastic was being recycled?

Yes, just a measly 10% of recyclable plastic was deemed worthy to be recycled and re-use. What about the remaining 90% of recyclable plastic, you ask? Well, they were either incinerated, or thrown away somewhere…

This one of the things about recycling that our government won’t tell us. Why you ask? It was because a lot of money was involved in it. And when money was involved, you could expect corruption.

If you’re not aware, crude oil could be made into plastic products through the polymerization process. So not only is crude oil one of the main source of air pollution it is also one of the main source of plastic trash that is polluting our environment and clogging our oceans and rivers.

It was for this reason why oil companies are taking a lot of rap from the public. So as to minimize the anger of the public as much as possible and to ensure that their oils would sell, oil companies would pay our politicians in congress to introduce and enact bills that are beneficial to the petroleum sectors.

The oil industry is usually governed at the highest political levels, and corruption tends to involve representatives at this level. These actors have different opportunities to benefit from corruption as compared to, for example, civil servants. They will not necessarily bend rules in secret, but will rather alter the rules of the game quite openly, or decide on significant exemptions from written regulations. The benefits they obtain through some form of corruption may be far more than a personal bribe, and may be tied to development aid, macroeconomic loans, party contributions, various political and diplomatic quid pro quos, intricate arrangements to increase revenues controlled by incumbents, or support of industries where politicians have personal stakes. – Al-Kasim et al. (2008).

Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars goes to pockets of our politicians in the US alone. So if you are wondering why our politicians won’t introduce bill that would ban oil for good, then you have your answer. Of course besides the aforementioned reason, there’s also the economic impact that needed to be considered. But it’s neither here nor there.

Anyways, that’s just the political sides of things. Another reason why only 10% of our plastic trashes were being recycled was because the recycling process itself was very expensive. Yes it has something to do with money again but this time it was not because of corruption but because the cost of recycling is too high to justify doing it.

You see. Unlike glass, metal, and paper; plastic could not be perfectly recycled and re-used. And more often than not, making new plastic products is a lot cheaper than recycling plastic to be used again. Moreover, unlike glass, and metal; paper and plastic degrades every time they were recycled but unlike plastic though, paper was biodegradable which makes it more environmentally friendly.

So it is no wonder that plastic manufacturer would just rather buy new raw plastic materials than buy recycled plastic materials. Not only is it cheaper, it is also of better quality.

Is Recycling Useless?

Saying that recycling is useless is going too far. No, it is not useless… far from it. Despite the flaw(s) I’ve mentioned, recycling is still a good practice and should therefore be continued, and even taught.

As I’ve mentioned previously, glass and metal can be perfectly recycled, and re-used. And although only 10% of recyclable plastic are being recycled due to the high cost involved, it is still a lot better than doing nothing.

Moreover, recycling can help reduce the risk of non-biodegradable plastic from reaching our sources of water like lakes and rivers, and of course, our oceans. Certainly, seeing 90% of recyclable plastic simply being incinerated is regrettable, but the immense help of recycling in keeping plastic out of our waters and preventing marine animals from being accidentally harmed could not be denied.

Fumes produced when incinerating plastic is of course still a problem but recycling plants actually have better incinerators that not only reduce toxic fumes being released in the environment greatly, but also produce energy and heat that could power our local grid. So compared to burning our trash by ourselves, sending them to recycling plants to be recycled or incinerated is still a much better option

Another reason why you should continue to recycle is because of a reason we should all be familiar with by now – we could earn money through recycling.

Sure, the amount of money that we could earn through recycling is just a fraction of the material’s original cost and could be said to be negligible but it doesn’t change the fact that we are getting something from our trash. So even if it is for this single reason alone, recycling is still worth doing.

That being said, instead of recycling, the best way of helping save our planet is to stop using plastic once and for all. Unfortunately, living completely plastic-free is almost impossible with our current technology, not to mention that it is extremely difficult to get away from plastic considering that a good majority of products in the market are packaged using plastic. But even if we could not avoid using plastic, we could at least reduce our exposure to it.

Anyways, government cover up and corruption aside, recycling is not useless and is actually worth our time and effort. So if possible, we should continue to recycle our trash for the sake of the environment.

Thank you for reading.

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All images use in this article are downloaded from Pixabay

My other articles: https://read.cash/@beastion