Should recycling be an official law? We know all the benifits from recycling yet it isnt a law yet. Thats just silly. Or is it a law? If it is, how can we enforce this law and make it more efficient?

I had more words but its 3am, gotta keep it short and sweet.

My apartment complex doesn't think it important enough to include a recycling bin, or even a service that comes by to pick up said recyclables.

Sad face.

The problem is convenience, the dumpster is right there, in order to recycle crap apartment dwellers of my kind would have to load cars full of garbage and drive to a plant.

Certain materials take more energy to recycle (thus more carbon emission; take Styrofoam for example), then just making more of it.
Sure recycling helps reduce landfill sizes; but sometimes recycling a certain material is worse for the environment then throwing it out.

Not environment related, but recycling is also more expensive.

Sure they could make recycling a law, but if they don't so much as enforce littering laws, how can you expect them to enforce recycling?

Styrofoam when they fill up the landfills they do not decompose, thus just causing damage to the earth even more. Same for plastics.

The cost shouldnt even matter, if you expect future generations to survive then cost should never be a issue.

I was just giving the money excuse for as to why Badwong's apartment wouldn't have a recycling bin, or why some governments aren't backing recycling all the way. Doesn't mean I support the reasoning.

Plastics do decompose, only very, very slowly.
Just recently, a kid discovered an algae that can decompose plastic bags within 10 years, that kid's going to get massive money out of that discovery; possibly a Nobel Prize.

But that said, ban plastic, that's a lot easier then forcing recycling.

And I don't mean ban plastic outright, I mean the small stuff that can be easily, and readily replaced. Such as plastic bags. Plastic bottles can easily be changed into glass. But will you as consumers be willing to pay extra for the more environmentally friendly alternative? Because to keep profits at the same level companies would have to raise prices since glass is more expensive.
Or all drinks could be in tin. But that wouldn't go over too well, people like being able to close their drinks after opening them.
So yes, money has a lot to do with the environment.

If people cared at all about the environment they'd be backing research for it.
What happened to the electric car? Not profitable enough?
Now it is, cause people are becoming less and less willing o pay for fuel. I'd expect electrical cars becoming readily available within a couple years.

All boils down to money...

I say ban plasitic bags. At Wal-Mart, for instance, they use a lot more bags than nessecary. Even if you just have a Wii Points card, they will put in in a plastic bag. Now I just say forget the bag.

my city has a recycling program. we're given these blue trash cans where we dump all recyclable stuff into it.

rawr mentioned switching to glass bottles and tins, but why? theres nothing wring with aluminum cans and plastic bottles. those are a couple of the items that can be thrown into the recycling bin. the only plastic items that they wont take are the ones that dont have the recycling numbers 1 or 2.

enforcing the manufacturers to go more green would be easier than to fine a household for not recycling.

Aluminum cans are tin. (At least, that's what I meant)
Or so I thought.. I'm fairly sure the only aluminum part of an "aluminum can" is the tab.
And plastic takes more energy to re-process then to create. So in fact, you may be lowering the amount of waste in the landfills, but you're inputting more CO2 into the atmosphere.

So in the end, recycling plastic bottles is just a way to make people feel like they're contributing to the environment, when in fact you're just choosing which poison.

Plastics have got to go if you're worrying about the environment.
But that's not realistic since it's a lot more expensive to use recycled glass then brand new plastic.
Or they could use recycled cardboard..then there'd be an outcry from the consumers.

Do not infringe on my freedoms!!! lol