Apparently the little green zealots missed this June 30, 1996 NYT article titled Recycling Is Garbage:

Mandatory recycling programs aren't good for posterity. They offer mainly short-term benefits to a few groups -- politicians, public relations consultants, environmental organizations, waste-handling corporations -- while diverting money from genuine social and environmental problems. Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America: a waste of time and money, a waste of human and natural resources

Thanks
JK

Wasteful or not it what makes the zelots feel good that counts. But would the money really be better spent on social or environmental problems in as much as all the problems are caused by over human population in the first place?

What overpopulation? Evidence please!

Note that most natural resources are in increased supply compared to the time that the Club of Rome's alarmist report, Limits to Growth, was published.

We have less world poverty than ever and more food production (at least until the climate turns cold again!)

And the earth's human fertility rate and its population growth rate has been declining declining for decades, - it is only some money grubbing international corporations that are spreading the false alarm of over population, primarily to get donations from people who don't do fact checking. (Have you noticed that a lot of fund raising is based on scare stories - give us money to save the world from this or that threat!)

See the facts at http://www.portlandfacts.com/worldpopulation.html

Thanks
JK

JK-
You can cite an antiquated article, a famous author, a radio talk show host, or some schmuck off the street to state "recycling is stooopid!". But you merely posted someone's casual opinion on it. Got anything else?

I can understand your skepticism on a number of 'green' issues, but you'll have a hard time convincing most people (conservative or liberal) that recycling materials doesn't make sense. Especially those who lived through the Depression or WWII.

I can attest to the recycling efforts during WWII. We lived in Cicero,IL with it's plethora of alley ways and once a week or so, a recycler came through the alleys, hollering for metal, paper, and other scraps...in a wagon pulled by a horse.

Recycling, ration cards, blackouts. Air raid drills, and the guy in his horse drawn wagon.

Today it's RFID. I pr4edict brisk sales in devices to neuter these chips.

TKrueg: JK-
You can cite an antiquated article, a famous author, a radio talk show host, or some schmuck off the street to state "recycling is stooopid!". But you merely posted someone's casual opinion on it. Got anything else?
JK: Just a little item: I asked sustainable Susan about that & she evaded a direct answer.
You bring up a number of red herrings like “famous author, a radio talk show host, or some schmuck off the street”, but offer no evidence. Why don’t you rebut the story?

TKrueg: I can understand your skepticism on a number of 'green' issues, but you'll have a hard time convincing most people (conservative or liberal) that recycling materials doesn't make sense.
JK: The majority is often wrong - they generally just repeat propaganda, instead of looking at the facts.

TKrueg: Especially those who lived through the Depression or WWII.
JK: The public was sucked in by the propaganda. Of all the things collected, it appears that only ferrous metals were really recycled. Unlike you , I bothered to use Google and found this:
President Roosevelt urged Americans to turn in "old tires, old rubber raincoats, old garden hose, rubber shoes, bathing caps, gloves," and so on at their local service stations. Just one problem: there wasn't (and still isn't) an efficient way of recycling rubber products. Rubber's complex chemistry and the variety of formulations in use made recycling slow and expensive and the resultant material inferior to virgin rubber. Although the rubber recycling industry did produce a fair amount of material throughout the war, the rubber scrap drive didn't significantly boost its output. The real solution to the rubber shortage was development of synthetic rubber and conservation--gas rationing was primarily meant to save tires, not gas.

Many of the other materials collected couldn't readily be recycled either. Many who lived through the war remember collecting old newspapers, but apart from using them as packing material and such there was little to be done with them. A 1941 aluminum-scrap drive to help the plucky Brits pulled in 70,000 tons of aluminum pots and pans, but only virgin aluminum could be used to manufacture aircraft.
From: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2395/were-wwii-scrap-drives-just-a-ploy-to-boost-morale
(I’ll leave it to you to perform the typical ad hominem on this source.)

Thanks
JK, helping to educate Portland’s progressives

heh, Wonder how many will find the chip and attach it to the garbage can.

heh, Wonder how many will find the chip and attach it to the garbage can.
I was thinking more of frying them with a tiny little EMP type of pulse making thingie. Should be easy to make and sell for under $50. (Or $20 if made in you know where.)

Thanks
JK

But hey, sorting garbage....isn't that a "bio tech" job?
I would try to disable the chip thingie with an ordinary magnet, just on principle.
We need to spend the money on schools before we start hi-teching the garbage cans!
And we recycle in our household too, BTW.

portland native - yep a nice strong magnet ought to degauss the RFID

It's likely non magnetic, but an RFID chip.

And JK, that collector took anything metal, car bumpers with chrome was especially desirable. I remember my dad and the neighbors sorting through their stuff.

They are just copying Europe as usual. London has been doing this for years. Over there they even fine you if you don't sort your recyclables properly.

This one caught my attention...

infractions include citations for people who put out their trash too early or fail to bring in their garbage cans from the curb in a timely manner.

Thats just stupid.

By all means, JK... throw those tin cans in the trash. Stick it to 'the man'.

Most interesting read are:

The comments from the Cleveland people.
Looks like they are as upset as we are.
$2.5 million for high-tech carts for 25,000 households, yet no money for teachers, public safety, etc.

Are there any cities in USA today that run smoothly, are financially accountable, and are for the public interest?

If people cooked and ate real, fresh, seasonal food, and not the endless crap that comes in a box, shrink wrapped plastic, or stored in contaminated cans there would be less trash.

It's an RFID chip, but nothing that a nice speaker magnet can't deal with. They are passive, but the data can be scrambled.

Here's an interesting take on recycling:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1444391672891013193#

I hate to say this, but this is probably only a hint of what's likely come about in the name of 'saving the planet'. The crimes and atrocities of Der Dritte Reich will look like practice.