Recently, there has been whining from these pages about the flounderings of the Legislature to save the recycling program. I say: Let It Die! The recyclists agenda, made trendy by a constant barrage of lies, is nothing but large-scale, farcical waste. Let me explain.
Not all �recycling� is bad. The reusing of cars, buildings, clothing, household items, etc., all occurs spontaneously because it makes economic sense. Consider, on the other hand, glass recycling, which would not occur were it not for the draconian recycling laws.
You have a glass jar, made from the second most plentiful element on earth, sand. For all practical purposes, it costs nothing and is worth nothing. Now you take your valuable time to scrape the label off and rinse the jar. Put it in the Madison Pride bag and it is trucked to the sorting facility. From there it is trucked to suburban Chicago, and from there it�s finally trucked to the bottling or jarring plant. In the process, you have wasted enough petroleum to have made several hundred plastic two-liter bottles, and cost a lot of people a lot of money.
Cardboard goes to Missoula, Montana. Newspaper to Thunder Bay, Canada. Often times, the material in question, after getting taxied all across the continent, does not even get recycled because no manufacturer will take it. It�s simply put in a landfill with the other garbage. Which, of course, is where garbage belongs. But at least Madison garbage is sorted, right?
Many recycling advocates may be mildly surprised to know these facts, but I cannot believe that they will care. To them, the environment must be saved at all costs, no matter how brainless and deceitful the system is. The question is, does the environment need saving? An American produces about 4 pounds of waste per day. All U.S. solid waste produced in the 20th Century would fit in a square landfill nine miles a side and 100 yards high. That�s 81 measly sq. mi. out of 3.5 million sq. mi. in the U.S.
There are environmental problems in this country, but solid waste is not one of them.
I propose an action that will really make Madison a shining example for the nation. Citizens: stop participating! Don�t sort your garbage for them, don�t rinse your soup cans for them, and please, please, don�t throw away your money on �Madison Pride� bags. We are a free people. No one�s going to come prosecute you, or even notice. There�s no reason to continue wasting your time in this insane exercise.
I�ll say it again: Kill Recycling.
Kill It NOW.
John Wiltbank