Recycling Nazis strike San Francisco
City officials in San Francisco have voted to ban plastic shopping bags at all supermarkets in the city. No doubt this will have all of San Francisco’s ultra-liberal upper-middle class rushing out to supplement their canvas tote collection while basking in the warm glow of their own good feelings. After all, in our modern society, suggesting that one does not support recycling is enough to draw haughty glares of disdain from others, who will then tell you something about ‘doing your part’ to preserve ‘the future.’ Failure to comply demonstrates an individual’s selfish disregard for his fellow men and beasts.
Well, maybe. See, actual scientific data is much less one-sided in supporting recycling. Things such as aluminum cans, which are easy to recycle and re-work into useful aluminum, actually save energy, and by extension, reduce pollution and environmental damage. On the other hand, consider the procedure for recycling paper, which requires (as one of several steps) the use of Sodium dithionite, a ‘toxic’ chemical that bleaches out ink stains. When we consider the costs and energy associated with recycling paper, a crack starts to appear in the recycling facade.
Recycling as a concept is good. No matter what pundits may deny the environment’s recent decline, the fact is that we cannot hope to continue strip-mining virgin resources without end. But what about real recycling? Can we save on both energy and the financial burdens associated with recycling things like paper?
The answer is yes, on a grand scale with actual redemptive potential for the environment. The implementation of bioreactor landfills is one possibility that has already been put into practice in New Jersey and California. In a bioreactor landfill (featured on Penn and Teller’s show Bullshit), methane gas rising from the decomposing garbage is piped into a power plant, where it is burned (producing no toxic or environmentally dangerous by-products) to provide power for thousands of homes and businesses. Truly, this is recycling on a grand and effective scale. But it does nothing for the people who feel better about themselves because they separate their glass from their paper. Those people can only be happy when they tell other people how to be better human beings, a.k.a. San Franciscans.
And hey, in case you think I made up ‘Recycling Nazis,’ or am mis-applying it in this context, check the definition on UrbanDictionary.com
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