Recycling – a Scam of Epic Proportions...

Penn and Teller, in an episode of Bullshit! below, do a nice takedown on the recycling scam.


I was introduced to the recycling scam myself about 15 years ago when we lived in Chula Vista.  I accidentally discovered that the vast majority of the trash I so carefully sorted and placed into recycling bins on the curb was simply loaded onto trucks and taken to landfills.  At that time, the only trash that was actually recycled was the aluminum cans.  The carefully sorted plastics, glass, paper, etc.?  To the landfill.

The problem was that there were no customers to buy the recyclable materials – and there were no customers because despite all the environmentalist hype, there weren't enough profitable ways to use all that material.  My understanding (confirmed by Penn and Teller) is that today the situation is even worse.  That is, the ratio of the available recyclables to the market for those recyclables is even higher now.

To add to the idiocy, all that sorted “recyclable” trash was simply dumped into the same trucks with all the other trash, too.  All those bins, all that forced labor to do the sorting – all for nothing but show.  Oh, and a great deal of money for the city and the unions...