I guess it doesn’t matter how “Cash For Clunkers” programs are set up, they seem to run into problems. But what could anybody expect from a government-run program.

I know I’ve written about this subject before, this time I want to point out some additional proof that sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to recycle. In this article, there is a big push to recycle glass, with the glass manufacturers getting in on the show as well. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the push is going to be in the cities where there is a glass production plant. Why would that be? As committed to glass recycling as this group may be, even they recognize that if you’re not near a plant, the economic and environmental costs are too high to recycle glass.

There is also potentially an unintended consequence to their education plan. Their focus is children (which I have always encouraged due to the success of seatbelt education) who will become avid glass recyclers and will some day move to another area away from a glass manufacturing plant. Their passion will cause them to spend energy and money getting a government facility up and running just to have it fail. Hopefully, their education initiative will include a bit about when it doesn’t make sense to recycle glass.

There has been a lot of pressure applied lately to begin the extinction of plastic grocery bags. A wide variety of bills and ordinances have come up across the nation as cities, counties and states have decided to try and do their part in plastic bag elimination. Of course, it wasn’t shocking at all to learn that Seattle, Washington was one of the first, passing a city ordinance imposing a $0.20 tax per bag. What is somewhat shocking is the recent vote to repeal this ordinance. It seems residents are more interested in recycling bags than doing away with them. It just goes to show how truly diverse opinions are about this subject. So where do you sit – get rid of the bags, recycle them, make them biodegradable?

I have asserted before that convenience is one of the most important things to getting people to recycle. This makes it difficult to implement any long-term recycling program that works because convenience costs money. The biggest factor causing this necessity for convenience is the ease of getting what we want when we want it. We have become so used to convenience in everything we do, it has bred a sort of “laziness” in us all so that even when faced with obvious good decisions such as recycling or not being wasteful, we only make the “best” decision when it is convenient or if we get something in return right now. And if you think the rising generation is more in tune with issues of conservation of resources, read this article. If we could just get most people to stop looking at every action with the “what’s in it for me” syndrome, I think we could finally take huge leaps forward in reducing waste, poverty, illness, greed, etc.

This article does a pretty good job of describing some of the difficulties plastics recyclers have faced over the past several months. It also points out how much plastic scrap goes to India. Which raises the question of whether it is environmentally sound to send so much plastic so far away. Let’s hope so.