Penn and Teller have a series on Showtime called "Bullshit." It is actually quite entertaining, and the hosts make some pretty astute observations sometimes. (As long as you can keep from surrendering your critical thinking skills, I do recommend that you check it out.) But, the name of the show is definitely an appropriate description of their opinions about recycling, BULLSHIT!
Penn and Teller conclude that recycling is a waste of time and money. One reason is that they believe "it increases energy use in transport, sorting, storing, and cleaning." As an example, they state that, "It takes more energy to recycle a plastic bottle than to make a new one."
I don’t know whether it really takes more energy to recycle plastics than to manufacture them from scratch. But, it is definitely fiction that it takes more energy to recycle paper than to produce it from wood (and the same goes for aluminum.) Penn and Teller argue that we waste a great deal of energy transporting recycled paper around. Well, actually it takes just as much or more energy to transport wood from the remote areas where it is logged to paper mills, than it takes to collect paper and transport it to be recycled (especially if it’s collected along with trash, as it should be.) And, it costs real money and scarce landfill space to transport paper that is thrown away with the garbage.
It also takes extreme amounts of energy for mills to make pulp by separating cellulose fibers from the wood during the manufacturing process. Since recycled paper has already been processed, it actually takes much less energy to get it back to a reusable form.
Penn and Teller also declare that, "Today, most paper is made from trees grown specifically for the production of paper. You follow that? Paper comes from trees, so we grow trees to make paper, like we grow potatoes to make yummy french fries," and that, "We have three times more trees today than we did in 1920."
These statements may be completely factual. But they miss the point, and they mislead. The rest of the story is that in some places tree farms used for paper production are still replacing natural forests. Let’s be clear, a pine plantation is not a forest. It ceases to be an ecosystem or a place that supports biodiversity; most other forest plants and animals just can’t live in pine plantations. They also lose their aesthetic beauty; they just don’t look the same.
So, just because there are more trees, this does not mean there are necessarily more forests. Experts and environmentalists do agree that the use of pine plantations for paper production is a good idea. They can actually provide much more paper per acre than a forest does anyway. But, to be responsible, we should continue to recycle and avoid replacing forests with tree farms. It won’t hurt to continue to communicate using websites, email, and blogs either.
