Liz rang me at work today, while on her five-mile drive in her Land Cruiser to the paper-recycling centre. She gets this enormous daily newspaper delivered every day and then drives five miles to this recycle centre each week to recycle the paper. Surely recycling has its costs? What happens to all that ink? How much fuel does she burn? How do they turn the old paper into new paper? Do they use electricity? Do they use water? Do they use people?
She was giving herself quite a boost for her caring and responsible attitude. She asked me if I recycled my newspapers, and I told her no, I thought it was even more environmentally friendly not to buy them in the first place. She didn’t get that, I think because I don’t go to any trouble. She said I’m cynical. No. I’m not cynical, insulting Liz. I just have a finely tuned bullshit detector.
I suspect this recycling culture is counter-productive to our environment, as it makes people think they can buy as much crap inside as much packaging as they want, as long as they can cram what’s left over into the bin with the yellow lid and — problem solved. No — problem started. Stop buying so much crap in the first place. Let that be the message. And Liz, stop your organic compost heap from pumping all of that methane into the atmosphere. And, stop acting so greenie smug, as I suspect you are one of the more active inflictors of environmental damage on my planet, which is, of course, the best planet. (A bit of planetism there. Apologies if you are offended.) Also, can I put my vegetable scraps in the green bin if my vegetables weren’t “organically” grown? Will this dilute the organicity of any vegetables grown using my proffered compost? Will someone object? Will it make me a bad person?