Green Initiatives Flounder
It turns out that efforts to recycle plastic are a waste of time and energy. The environmental advocacy group
Greenpeace issued a report showing that “mechanical and chemical recycling of plastic waste has largely failed
and will always fail because plastic waste is: (1) extremely difficult to collect, (2) virtually impossible to sort
for recycling, (3) environmentally harmful to reprocess, (4) often made of and contaminated by toxic materials,
and (5) not economical to recycle.”
Lisa Ramsden, a senior plastics campaigner at Greenpeace USA and one of the authors of the report, said "most
plastic is not being recycled in the United States. American households produced about 51 million tons of
plastic last year, and only 2.4 million of those tons were actually recycled. The plastics that households are
collecting and sending to be recycled are mostly just sitting in recycling facilities across the country not being
recycled. They’re being incinerated or sent to landfills instead. "Washing the plastics before putting them into
recycle bins probably has a net negative consequence of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the
hot water used is mostly heated by burning coal.
Given the dismal results of recycling plastics, Greenpeace is now lobbying for a total ban on disposable plastic.
The prognosis for this option are not good. The banning of plastic bags in supermarkets in some states has
added carbon to the atmosphere by shifting to the use of paper bags and cloth tote bags that require more energy
to manufacture and transport. The paper and cloth bags take up more space in landfills and generate more
greenhouse emissions as they decompose. The cloth tote bags aren’t reused nearly often enough to offset their
initial carbon footprint, and they’re breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses because they’re rarely washed
properly.
On another front, wind energy may actually contribute to more global warming. A study by ArcVera
Renewables shows that the wind turbines inhibit precipitation in their area and increase the temperature. Both
can lead to a drought. The overturning of natural temperature layers in the vicinity of the wind farms studied
causes higher average temperatures and lower soil moisture. So, rather than being an aid to combating global
warming, wind power may be helping accelerate it. The minimal and unreliable contributions to meeting energy
demand offered by wind turbines don’t appear to be offset by any environmental benefits. Nevertheless,
President Biden Biden just announced that he will be closing coal plants in order to fund more wind and solar
power sites.
