Right Simply Because It’s Right - Part II

Recycling

Most would identify recycling with the left side of the continuum. Not so. It is neither left or right, conservative or liberal. It is simply the right thing to do, it is simply common sense. We as a people do in fact, have a very large waste issue. It is not as large as some would have us think, but it is large enough to support a thriving industry, if the powers that be would just get out of the way.

As I see it, there is nothing that we use today that could not be recycled. Let’s start with the house we live in. It is made of concrete, wood, tin, wire, steel, porcelain, glass, other man made products and plastic. Concrete can be ground up and used for a variety of products. So can the wood. Steel and tin can be melted down and remanufactured. Wire can be stripped and the copper re-used, the wire insulation, mostly plastic, goes into the plastic category. Glass, porcelain and cultured marble get ground up and used for abrasives, if nothing else. Insulation causes the most difficulty, but even it can, theoretically, be washed and reused as insulation. Even the roofing. mostly tar, could be used as, well, re-manufactured roofing.

The automobile is no different, steel, wire, fabric, glass, synthetic rubber and plastic. Household waste, mostly the same products as above can be similarly recycled. Former unregulated dumpsites as well as the new highly regulated sites produce methane gas that is a source to be tapped as a source of energy. I’m not a scientist so I can’t say for sure that it pollutes more or less than fossil fuels. What I do know is that it is escaping into the atmosphere anyway and it seems only logical to get some use of it while on its way.

Finally, the very sensitive subject of the use of human waste. For centuries we have been using animal waste as fertilizer for our farm produce and while I am not suggesting that we do the same with human waste, I am reminded that in the Eastern part of the world and in the Orient the same was used to grow rice under the name of “night soil”. Years ago I had the opportunity to discuss the purity of human waste water returned to the creeks after processing as well as the use of solid waste processed at a local sanitation plant. The answers I received did not surprised me. The wastewater returned to the creeks was 98% pure and cleaner than standard drinking water. The solid waste after treatment was free of dangerous biohazards and used in the landscaping of some of our road projects.

So the question is, if my logic is correct and this is all possible and would help with our energy difficulties, relieve the pressure of the waste problem and promote new businesses, then why are we not full throttle into it? I suggest several possible answers; government interference, environmental organizational interference, over-regulation from both of the above and the failure of recycling programs in the past, again because of the above. In my opinion neither the government nor the so-called environmentalists have ever solved a problem. Rather they have both stood in the way of solutions by the entrepreneurial spirit of this great nation. It is time for us to stand up to both and reinstate common sense to the solutions of the issues of our time. It’s right simply because it’s right.