Should We Recycle?

From the time when you were a small child, you were probably taught the virtues of recycling: paper, plastic, aluminum; you did your part to save the Earth. But a growing number of voices are concerned that recycling may harm the environment by expending more resources than simple trash. Before you decide whether to toss that plastic bottle in the blue bin, what should you consider?

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Regarding Argument

Landfills Pose Minimal Risks, Despite Claims to the Contrary

- From CEI

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Misdirection ...

Certainly, many consumers fear the health risks of our landfills, however, health risk is only a minor consideration in the issue of recycling. The primary issue is the reuse of finite resources. Even if the landfills were 100% safe to the environment, the issue of dwindling finite resources would remain.

I believe most consumers are concerned about the raping of what beauty is left of our natural environment for the sake of their own lives and the lives of their children.

No one I've spoke to on the issues of recycling and the environment are primarily concerned over the health risks of landfills. This argument is misdirection.

- Naumadd September 12, 2008 4:12PM

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In the first instance...

I am disinclined to agree with an EPA assessment (from 1990 no less) simply because they are heavily invested in the landfill approval process. Second, the risk associated with landfills is not the cancer exposure they present. It is the contamination of underground aquifers rendering drinking water unpotable. Landfill membranes all leak eventually. Landfills are nothing less than mine tailings left to poison the future.

And yes, they are a wealth of resources buried. When future anthropologists of the next species colonizing the Earth dig up our landfill they will conclude that we were a frivolous race indeed to destroy our own water supply with buried wealth caches that we could not longer recover, especially when they were needed to save our species from extinction.

- fire1 September 14, 2008 5:43PM

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Haven't you heard of Love Canal?

Minimal risks? Read about the tragedy of Love Canal at

http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/lovecanal/01.htm

Read even more about it at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal

There was no 'minimal risk' for the former residents of Love Canal. The cost to the public has been enormous.

- Michael Glass November 15, 2008 5:59AM

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Related Debates

Experts on "Yes" Side

California Department of Conservation
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Experts on "No" Side

CEI
From Economy to Ecology See arguments

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