Reduce, Reuse, RECONSIDER: It's Time to Throw Out Old Habits

 PART ONE: Background & Launch into What the Deal Is

In 1987, propaganda forced our nation into a program on which we’d come to spend billions of tax dollars every year, a program that we’d grow to never question, a program whose moral justification is always assumed. I was pulled along in this feel-good scheme with everyone else. Earlier this year, I created a power-point presentation for my previously assumed non-green parents to convince them to let our family finally get a recycling bin. Because my power-point ensured my devotion and unfortunately single-minded goal, in addition to my nerdy ambition, they allowed me to bring the bin into our home, but with the aid of many facts about recycling that I had never known nor had I thought that they had. This brings me back to a better story of greater relevance, a story that answers; what created this whole recycling thing?

The Mobro 4000. In March 1987, a barge left a port in Islip, New York with 3,168 tons of trash, heading for Morehead City, North Carolina, where the trash would be turned into methane. Unfortunately, when news channels began reports on its arrival, a bedpan was viewed in a background shot of the barge, and rumors spread of the risk of hospital waste. North Carolina officials then rejected the drop-off of the garbage, and the barge had to head toward a new destination. After being rejected in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Mexico, and Belize (Katz, Jane), the barge was finally ordered to be allowed entry back into New York to be incinerated in Brooklyn. Although this event was purely a money-making arrangement constructed by a mob boss who works with waste management, it burst the country into an environmentalist frenzy.

(The video shows tells the story of the Mobro 4000 featuring the masterminds who created it all, connecting it to the mass-recycling launch (Voyage of the Mobro 4000).)

Before the barge incident, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in December 1970 in response to recently increased concern over pollution of our nation and in interests of maintaining and creating a "cleaner, healthier environment for the American people (EPA History)." After the Mobro 4000, the EPA became one of the governments most popular agencies. Presidents, such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, began including environmental priorities in their presidential campaigns and recycling reached its thriving point (shown in graph below). Some cities enforced new regulations charging people for recyclable materials in their garbage cans (Langston, Jennifer) and recycling availability was made increasingly easy, with recycling bins costing close to nothing and the doubling of the boisterous and clunky Monday morning pick-up from one truck to two. "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" wasn't just a catch-phrase, it was an anthem. An anthem that promoted what was humane, what was just, what was right.

Municipal Solid Waste Recycling rate increase over past 50 years (Municipal Solid Waste)

In hindsight, this activism is nice to think about. What person wouldn't support a nation truly working as a whole with the intentions of making this world better for the generations to come? However, we must lower our high-heads and never cease our self-checking in order to maintain the correct executions of what are truly good intentions.

So, why are landfills so profoundly disgusting and discouraged by the human population? There are the obvious answers: they're ugly, gross, smelly, and all the other elementary insults. But the main concerns are that they bring our garbage into contact with our underground minerals; that they release harmful toxins into our atmosphere; that landfills are solely detrimental to our environment. False. Don’t get me wrong, these are all justifiable concerns, but there is a solution intact for every one.

Lots of qualifications must be obtained before a landfill can be properly constructed, let alone, be used. Questions about the area of land for the landfill, surrounding environment and possible impacts, the underlying bedrock and soil composition, the flow of surface water over the site, or the historical value of the area must all be answered with no harmful consequences pertaining to the landfill’s creation(Freudenrich, Ph.D. Craig). In addition, seven different layers for protection and drainage must be made below the old and new cells of garbage in a landfill to protect minerals underground (Freudenrich, Ph.D. Craig). Although the Earth below our landfills is well off, the upper atmosphere must be addressed as well. The anaerobic breakdown in landfills does in fact release gases during its process, and these gases contain approximately 50% methane. This methane is harmful to breathe and is also identified as a greenhouse gas, making it an unfortunate contributor to global warming. But, methane is also able to be broken down to create energy(Facts about Landfill Gas), which happened to be the primary cause of the Mobro 4000s travels back in 1987. These techniques demonstrated by innovative waste collectors to collect and create energy from methane gases are spreading to more landfills each year.

So how does the energy-efficiency of recycling factories compare? It's well-known that the recycling of aluminum is extraordinarily productive, as breaking down and reproducing an aluminum can takes about 5% of the energy it takes to make an original one from bauxite ore (Kazmeyer, Milton), but are these rates just as high for other materials, such as plastic? We aren't paying a deposit to bring plastic bottles back in, so why glass & aluminum? In order to properly evaluate the effectiveness of these recycling organizations, one must see if this re-creation process for materials, such as plastic, costs more money and energy than it would've been to make these products from scratch.

As for the problem of landfill space, there isn't one. The EPA has made several notes of the decreasing amount of landfills in our country but makes no hints at what is most important: their capacity (Facts About America’s Landfills). The landfills that we have have the space estimated to last hundreds, if not thousands of years altogether. And hopefully by then, we will have more efficient and productive recycling programs. Up until that point, more education is necessary for the proper constructive habits in the "saving" of the Earth before we are forced to save it from ourselves. Las Vegas comedians Penn & Teller produce a Mythbusters-esque tv show, called "Bullshit,"

in which they provide the facts behind commonly accepted beliefs and habits, and they recently came out with one on recycling (shown above). I plan to expand on many of their key concepts in coming posts, including the role of tree farms, the unknown redundancy taking place in recycling factories, and the plentitude of time and money wasted on recycling that should instead be out towards creating a new hobby for the American population.

Works Cited

“EPA History." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-history.

"The Facts About America's Landfills." Postcom: Association for Postal Commerce. Postcom, n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://postcom.org/eco/facts.about.landfills.htm.

"Facts About Landfill Gas." Www.dem.ri.gov. Environmental Protection Agency, Jan. 2000. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://www.dem.ri.gov/programs/benviron/waste/central/lfgfact.pdf.

Freudenrich, Ph.D. Craig. "How Landfills Work." HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks.com, 16 Oct. 2000. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/landfill.htm.

Katz, Jane. "What a Waste - Boston Fed." What a Waste - Boston Fed. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 2002. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. https://www.bostonfed.org/economic/nerr/rr2002/q1/waste.htm.

Kazmeyer, Milton. "How Much Energy Does Recycling Save?." Home Guides. SF Gate, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. http://homeguides.sfgate.com/much-energy-recycling-save-79720.html.

Langston, Jennifer. "Mandatory Recycling Program Working Well." Seattlepi.com. Seattle PI, 14 Mar. 2006. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Mandatory-recycling-program-working-well-1198413.php.

"Municipal Solid Waste." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. http://www.epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/.

"Voyage of the Mobro 4000." Retro Report RSS. Retro Report, 6 May 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. http://retroreport.org/voyage-of-the-mobro-4000/.