Recycle Now ! ! ! ? ? ?

One day I was home from work sick and looked out the window as the garbage truck came by. They took the “recycle” containers and tossed the contents in the back of the truck, then tossed the regular garbage in the back of the truck, and every few houses compressed it all together.

Apparently the Chicago does it much better; there was an expose a few years ago. The recycle trucks and regular trucks picked up their separate loads and dropped them in the same dump. (Which is much better than the people who bribed the alderman to dump it anywhere, many of these individuals ended up as long-term guests of the Bureau of Prisons. I hope this is deterrent to others.).

Scott Kirwin of Deans World has a report from the bay area where they do process the recycling separately. He is wondering how much pollution the recycling process causes.

Disposing of waste is a serious issue. There are a number of things to be considered including whether the consequences of a given method are better or worse than the problem. In WWII tin and other things were collected from each house as part of the war effort. It was leaned later that most of this was unnecessary. Some may have been poor estimates at the beginning but most was an ”educational” program to get the home front involved in the war effort. Supporting recycling as an educational program to teach environmental awareness, does not protect the environment, and leaves people with a incorrect awareness of how to protect the environment.

Some one said serious work on understanding the environment cannot be done if you do not know differential calculus. (Differential calculus is used to solve problems with many interconnected variables which describes all but the simpelist environmental questions.) It would be better to insist that math be taught up to ones aptitude so there are people who can do serious work on the enviroment. The less talented will have enough ability to evaluate the question and act as resposible citizens. Environmental awareness should be taught by studying simpler problems that can be done with age appropriate math, not political indoctrination.


PERSONAL NOTE: What little calculus I needed in school I self-taught and forgoten, so I do not know differential calculus, I get to sit on the sidelines and complain rather than do serious work on the issue.