This is sad. Ft. Worth has a great recycling program. The city gives us a very large recycling bin (trash can) and we don't have to sort any of the recycled items. (cans, glass, plastic, cardboard). The city bases its trash pickup fees on the size of the trash can you use, so the more you recycle, the less your water/trash bill is. With the exception of the diapers (we have 2 kids in diapers), we're recycling about 75% of our trash. Before we had our kids, our trash can was about 1/3 of the size of our recycle bin. We had to move up to the medium size trash can (which is still smaller than the recycling bin) when we started buying diapers.
Recycling isn't this huge windfall for sure, but I understood it was always plastics that was the inefficient part of recycling - the other types were usual efficient even when you strip out externalities (such as reduced air pollution, CO2 emissions, leakage from landfill, etc)... I don't think it's a big deal that Houston doesn't recycle to be honest. At least not right now. Recycling is still in experimental phase, and it's more important in places where landfill space is tight such as the north east, and where there is the density to make it efficient - such as densely packed areas like new york.
The problem with that logic is that plastics are the most harmful to the environment if not recycled. They last forever. Even after being broken down to the molecular level. Google "the great pacific garbage patch" and prepare to be deeply concerned. The worst part? There really is no good way to clean it up. None.
The Garbage Patch Pacific, and, in general, oceans. Spending billions cleaning up the oceans >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> spending trillions tearing down power plants and putting up windmills.
Ah I see... allow me to amend... billions cleaning up oceans > trillions revamping power infrastructure > trillions on useless wars I'm not an advocate of complete overhaul of the power system like Gore - it has to be more gradual than 10 years, for example. But at a minimum, we can start forcing coal plants to actually get up to current code (the supreme court did finally enforce this) and provide significant barriers to non-renewable energy plants in the future. Nuclear would be ok, but has the opposite problem. We need to deregulate in order to not drown in nuclear waste.
