Ok, let me preface this with saying I do recycle as much as I can and am not against it. Are there any books about the cost, efficacy and total overall picture of recycling? I've read some journal articles and internet blogs (taken with a grain of salt). I've heard that aluminum makes sense to recycle. I've also heard that plastics, paper, and others cost more money, more energy and more resources to make recycled versions than to make new ones.
Are there any exhaustive studies or books that have been publised to anyone's knowledge that cover the cost of trasportation, labor, and materials compared to the ultimate gain for our environment and possible eventual cost of fixing damage of not recycling? For instance it takes a lot of money to collect, sort, and clean all the recycleables. Then it takes a lot of energy, labor, and even raw material (as most recycled products have some percentage of raw material in them) just to get it back to pre-manufacture form. Then all the same amounts of cost for labor and energy go into making and shipping the recycled product as that for a brand new one. I've also heard that most paper comes from paper farms, essentially forests made to harvest paper, not exotic and endangered forests; so there aren't any really nonrenewable materials being wasted either. Please let me know if I'm way off here.
Also, my friend is an engineer for a development company and he says (this is hard to believe) that old landfills, once intricately sealed and treated (not just covered with dirt here) are impossible to detect to average people. He builds kids parks on them with no said hazards (again I looked at him skeptically on this, but he is a smart guy and builds heavily regulated sites; and i trust people I went to combat with). He told me they can just rezone it, make a man made thousand foot hill and build a luxurious town-type neighborhood on it and nobody is the wiser. I know there has to be something out there that explores these questions and it would be awesome if someone can lead me to it.
Thank You
Are there any exhaustive studies or books that have been publised to anyone's knowledge that cover the cost of trasportation, labor, and materials compared to the ultimate gain for our environment and possible eventual cost of fixing damage of not recycling? For instance it takes a lot of money to collect, sort, and clean all the recycleables. Then it takes a lot of energy, labor, and even raw material (as most recycled products have some percentage of raw material in them) just to get it back to pre-manufacture form. Then all the same amounts of cost for labor and energy go into making and shipping the recycled product as that for a brand new one. I've also heard that most paper comes from paper farms, essentially forests made to harvest paper, not exotic and endangered forests; so there aren't any really nonrenewable materials being wasted either. Please let me know if I'm way off here.
Also, my friend is an engineer for a development company and he says (this is hard to believe) that old landfills, once intricately sealed and treated (not just covered with dirt here) are impossible to detect to average people. He builds kids parks on them with no said hazards (again I looked at him skeptically on this, but he is a smart guy and builds heavily regulated sites; and i trust people I went to combat with). He told me they can just rezone it, make a man made thousand foot hill and build a luxurious town-type neighborhood on it and nobody is the wiser. I know there has to be something out there that explores these questions and it would be awesome if someone can lead me to it.
Thank You