I’ve come to the conclusion that recycling programs are intended solely to make us think we’re saving the planet rather than to actually save the planet. This has been bugging me for a long time.

My no-longer-so-little town has “single stream” recycling. It makes it so simple. You chunk bottles, cans, plastic, paper, etc. in the blue trash recycling bin and all the actual trash in the green bin. (BTW shouldn’t the green one be for recycling? Just sayin’…)

My family has always been good about using it properly. For example, you’re not supposed to put pizza boxes or stable matter in the blue bin, so we toss the boxes with the cheese inside the cover and our spent uranium and plutonium in the green bin.

I’ve wondered what a pain it must be to sort all that crap out. Great for us but sucks for the person (robot?) who has to to separate the glass from the cans from the plastic from the paper. Then three years ago I came across this NYT piece that really made me wonder. I knew one of the local city council members and sent it to her.

We’re still using the blue bin. Another NYT piece came out this week that’s interesting, even if you ignore the liberal bias about evil big business (though there’s probably some truth to it).

There are loads of links in the article and it makes some good points: food for thought if nothing else. It’s become evident to me that recycling programs like this are done more than anything else to make us feel good about ourselves. It’s kind of a passive approach to the nonsense of buying carbon credits.

Have you ever thought about this? What’s your opinion?

As long as I’m on the topic hahaha, here are a few other scraps for you.

Bill Nelson’s defense: leaking, not lying

WaPo gets it, but NBC is bending over backwards to help Nelson out.

More Russian collusion in 2016?

Was Bill Kristol’s hate for Trump this high? It seems at least plausible.

Lots more Russian collusion

This Federalist piece highlights several examples of various Obama folks – who all seemed to be in the news this week as people Trump wants to revoke the security clearances of – working to defeat Trump.

Was evidence destroyed in New Mexico?

While everyone focused on the release of the animals, it seems the site was getting a bit of a makeover.

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