Residential recycling is a hoax, a fraud perpetrated by well-intentioned petty dictators who equate inconvenience and annoyance with doing good. Witness the ban on plastic straws, for instance, or, on a broader scale, recycling paper and plastics, all of which end up in landfills or incinerators because there’s no market for either.
This is well known, and has been known since the first Earth Day in 1970. The Atlantic admits it, even NPR acknowledges that recycling plastic is bogus (a fraud perpetrated by “Big Oil”, they say, but never mind, their conclusion is sound: plastics aren’t recycled or recyclable.)
Writing for the New York Times Sunday Magazine all the way back in 1996, John Tierney completely debunked the recycling movement: “Recycling is Garbage”, and his article still holds the record for generating the most angry letters to the editor, ever. Times readers don’t like to have their faith challenged or even questioned.
Yet knowing this, recycling programs persist, and are even growing (composting, anyone?) as costs soar and the truth about the fate of all this garbage leaks out. Some residents probably engage in this expensive, useless process because they’re compelled to but most, I suspect, do so out of a vague belief that they’re being virtuous. Not too virtuous, mind you: even back when cardboard had value as a recyclable material it was common to see take-out pizza boxes in the bins. One dirty article of cardboard contaminates the entire load, but most homeowners aren’t willing to sort clean cardboard from dirty, and assume that Mother Gia will know which are hers. These days it doesn’t matter, because even the most innocent of waste is headed for Hell or its modern equivelent, the incinerator.
So what’s the connection between engaging in a useless exercise like filling landfills by first washing, sorting and binning garbage before transfering it to the dump, and voting for Democrats? Both rely on magic, magic that tells low-information voters that anything is possible if they’ll only believe. Free health care, paid for by billionaires? Sure! A petroleum-free future, with iPhones, cars, even pharmaceuticals, all produced from hemp? That’ll be mellow, Bro. A steady, uninterrupted electrical supply that heats our homes, powers our factories and cars, all courtesy of the wind and stars? And that doesn’t require ugly transmission lines crossing the pristine Sierra Madres? Why not, if that’s what we want? Free college tuition that will pay for itself because all those new graduates with degrees in psychology and modern dance will earn far more than they’d have made as plumbers? Yeah, that’s cool, but don’t forget, no one’s gonna have to pay taxes on that extra income, ‘cause the billionaires will do it for us.
The list of risible, impossible things promised to and by Democrats is endless, as is the gullibility of their voters. Do you believe in magic? Of course you do.
So keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars, you dreamers you! (But don’t worry too much about that ground stuff — that was just Casey Kasem being a Debby Downer, man).
And of course, follow the science! Or not.
