Well, some of us have been wrong for many years according to Bullshit, myself included. I have for many years recycled paper, plastic and aluminum consistently and never really thought about anything at all, thinking that I'm doing my part by contributing to the cause. Now that I'm seeing this, I need to reconsider especially paper products and plastic. I'm seeing that it cost so much more to process these products than to just dump them and use them for other things such as methane gas for example. Aluminum in the other hand at least can get you a return for your efforts. It all comes down to, if it feels good, do it. I truly believe in our country and it's ability to solve problems effectively and sound.
In the movie Penn and Teller says that the fact is that it takes more energy and creates more pollution to recycle things than it does to place it in a landfill. Furthermore, modern technology has evolved to the point where landfills are actually helpful, as they serve as a source of natural gas power which is far cleaner than the fossil fuels more commonly in use. Perhaps they might be right, but I feel that i am giving to the community by recycling my trash, by doing what is supposed to be right. This episode is really hard for me to take a side. I do believe in recycling, but if it is worse to the environment than actually to just destroy it, than I stand to whatever is better for the environment, but before so, I have to do a better study on the subject, I do not like to change my opinion just because a movie said so.
What a shocker! If it's true. I always believed that recyling was good for me and good for the enviroment becuase thats what I was taught in school nearly every grade. Penn makes some pretty good points for his opposition to recycling and franklin I believe him because in school they never gave any evidence for their claims. We all bought it hook, line, and sinker. I had some issues with this episode that would keep me from believing their side without further evidence. Sure once the land fill is full they can cover it up and make another golfcourse or whatever but where do you go from there? There isn't an infinite amount of space where you can dig huge holes in the ground to bury trash. Also what about the trees I find it very hard to believe that we are able to grow trees faster than we cut them down. I'm sure as someone in class mentioned we have hybrids and can genetically engineer trees to grow faster but fast enough to meet the ever increasing demand? I dont think so.
I always knew that recycling take's more energy than just using virgin material from the get go. I figure if one day we do run out room for our trash we can either turn Alaska in a landfill or send all our trash on a one way trip to the sun. Honestly I try to recycle sometime but I'm really lazy.
One thing that I remember about recycling was how much it cost to produce aluminum compared to how much it cost to recycle it. It takes about 5% of the energy to recycle aluminum then it takes to produce it from alumni. The amount of electricity that an aluminum plant uses to produce aluminum can power a small city. That explains why you get more for recycling cans than paper. Paper and plastic on the other hand I normally don’t recycle. Plastic I probably should recycle because of the time it takes to decompose and paper I could do without.
So Bullshit thinks that recycling is a bunch of Bullshit. I'd have to disagree. Recycling is not just a bunch of busy work that government gives people jobs to do. Recycling is real beneficial, and the process does not consume more energy then in produces. Just in recycling one ton of paper you save on average 17 trees, over 6900 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, a little over 3 cubic yards of landfill space, and roughly 4200 KW/hours of energy. The show mentions that America is behind the curve as far as recycling goes, and most country's have already abandoned the old practice. Many Country's in Europe still recycle up to 40 percent of all the glass they use. Recycling gas only takes 25-30 percent of the energy it takes to produce it. Aluminum recycling saves tremendous amounts of energy. Aluminum can recycling saves 95% of the energy needed to make aluminum from bauxite ore. Energy savings in 2003 alone were enough to light a city the size of salt lake city for 9 years. Now saying recycling just doesn't add up, that sounds like "Bullshit" to me!
The process of recycling takes a lot more energy to perform then it provides. Recycling organizations fail to take into account all of the energy that is spent collecting, processing, and then redistributing the recycled goods. It takes an enormous amount of energy to do all this. Much more then it could ever produce. Landfills have for a long time been seen as a terrible thing, when in all reality they aren't so bad. Landfills produce methane when the trash is properly stored, and turned. This methane can then be used as fuel for many various things.
Recycling makes me feel good is the only reason off of Penn's list of reasons to recycle that doesn't get scratched out. Without sounding too much like a drug addict, that reason might be the only reason to do it. We live in a depressing world and if recycling helps make people feel like they can actually do something then maybe it is worth the energy.
Speaking of energy, according to the movie recycling uses a lot of energy, but if we are making old materials into usable materials then maybe we could stop making so many new materials and balance out the energy. I don't know if the numbers add up but it might be a good idea.
I think it was good to see both sides though. I am glad that landfills our being handled in such a way that if we don't all recycle our world won't implode.
I was proud to see those people in the show who would be willing to do so much to help out environment. I think having good people like that who will do anything good for something they believe in is what makes recycling worth it.
Pro Recycling is a great way for us to keep on using the materials we don't need to make new ones. This mindset is what is needed for our civilization to continue and prosper. As mentioned above aluminum is by far the best item we have to recycle saving 95% of the energy needed to use raw materials. This type of benefit is what will allow us to slow down the use of using natural resources, and allow us to continue to live lives that we are so used to.
Con: Not all of it is good. In the video they go in great detail to explain what most forget about recycling. The process and what happens in order for us to recycle items. They point out that the process now is for the most part worse for the environment than beneficial. This is why they need to rethink, not close the door, but rethink how we can re use the items we don't need without having to spend more energy to reprocess it. That is where I think they are trying to go in the film, they were trying to point out that it is at this current time not more beneficial for us to recycle everything. It is a field that needs to have some improvements and I am sure it will int he future. They also wanted to point out the how marketing yet again, played such a huge part in getting people to believe what they want. In all the films it is people trying to sell something that have a great way to make people believe something that has some truth, but might be stretched a little. I think it just shows us that we need to try and learn as much as we can and be informed consumers, instead of just going with the flow.
it's hard to believe that recycling is counter-productive. our whole lives people have told us to recycle, but to find out that it actually costs more for the recyclers to recycle these products was astonishing. i did not know about the landfills ability to turn methane into usable fuel. that was pretty cool to hear. landfills have always gotten such a bad wrap that it's good to know they are not just a "waste." now, just because in this movie they say recycling is bad, i dont believe i will stop. i think, overall, recycling is still a good idea. Aluminum is a great thing to recycle because you save 95% of the energy needed to use raw materials. this example still shows that recycling is still important and i believe will save us natural resources in the long run
Recycling bad for the environment? My whole world is upside down! We live our whole lives believing that we’re doing something good for our planet and to be honest I’ve never even took a second look at it. There is so much info about recycling on the web and it starts to get quite confusing. You have people on one side giving info as to why it’s a waste of time and money and then on the other side they say that it does save money and that we’re depleting our resources. There are so many sides and statistics it’s hard to tell what’s right and wrong. If anyone can find a site that seems to be unbiased about this issue please let me know in class. Some of the “facts” I found about recycling say that aluminum is the most lucrative and it does match up with the video’s claim. I also found that the whole claim that trucks are costing more money and waist to pick the trash up than is being saved is another good argument. This study I found on the popular mechanics web site states that it takes 10.4 million Btu to manufacture products from a ton of recyclables, compared to 23.3 million Btu for virgin materials. In contrast, the total energy for collecting, hauling and processing a ton of recyclables adds up to just 0.9 million Btu. So apparently it still cost about one half less. The list goes on its draining; what I decided to take away from this argument is that I’m going to do more reusing and less consuming that seems like the sure fire way decrease waist.
Pro&Con There is no doubt that recycle is not only bring us many benefits as the hole. But, it is bring sense of responsible citizen. instead, They are turn this recyclable land field to golf course!. The nature is bountiful and glorious.. after I can recycle most to the trashes. I still need to located landfill in safe environment. Some material product like plastic and not recyclable stuffs. We should rethink we can substitute in another area that recyclable and has to lowest cost as possible in terms of operation and economics benefits. We must promote to new innovation to the new recycling business. But to cost to still too high and unwilling of the people. This society still suffer for few bad citizen. If we don't act it now We might to started move to live in space where the Movie "Well-E" come to place... Seriously.
Out of all the episodes we saw this one was the most suprising to me. I never knew that recycling took up more money and energy than just throwing your things away in the regular garbage. Maybe I was suprised because I have always been told recycle! recylce! recycle!!! So that's what I've tried to do. The show does bring up a good point that when you recylce you do feel a sense of accomplishment and a good feeling that you're doing good for the enviornment.
After seeing the movie, I would like to say that I will never recycle another plastic container again. But that's not that case. I'm stuck in the mind set that recycling is good and I don't know if I fully beleive that recylcing is so bad as they make it seem.
However, I would never go to the extreme of accepting 10 different colored containers in order to recycle as the people in the movie did. These two characters are a great example how much we have been influenced by the media and the public how good it is for the enviornment to recycle.
Just as a side note: I never got why the lady in the movie that was for recycling was recycling and doing her house routines with a baby wrapped around her? Kind of weird. Maybe it was to portray that people who recycle are weird. not sure..
This episode seemed to effect me the most. Since seeing it I have doubted myself in washing out a plastic container just to put it in the recycle bin. Where in the past I have scolded family members for not recycling. I do it because it makes me feel better. Penn and Teller hit it right on the head! They make a good point about whats really worth recycling and the amount of money it takes to make a recycled product. However, I see recycling as a benefit to me as a person because then I feel like I am doing something out of the ordinary. Instead of taking the world and its resources for granted, I feel like I am saying thank you and giving back a small bit. Even if recycling is BULLSHIT, don't you think that it beats paying hundreds of dollars to some shrink to make you feel better? I do! So thats why I recycle and will continue to recycle.
This episode of Pen and Teller's "bullshit" was for me one of the most educational and eye opening things I had see in a long time. I, like most others had assumed that the vast majority of recycling efforts made by us was beneficial to the environment. After hearing that the processes, time, and methods used in recycling can and usually are bad for the environment I was amazed. Not only this but to see that the practice of recycling for the most part was financially unprofitable made it worse. The length people were willing to go to recycle also astounded me. Can you believe those people who were sorting piles of garbage into something like ten or more bins? I hope this was mainly due to the fact that they were being filmed and thought they might have a shot at being famous in some sense. Anyways I thought I would also mention another highly controversial subject that kind of relates to this in that it is related to the environmental movement and pollution. I am also taking a geography class at the collage and one of the topics covered is global climate change. If any of you are interested to here the other side of the man made global warming issue you should check out the movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle". I gave me a new perspective on the environmental movement as a whole. I'm not saying I completely accept all of its content but a lot of it makes perfect scientific sense and is delivered by real scientists. I think you can actually watch the whole thing if you go to video.google.com/videoplaydocid=288952680655100870. I guess I do still like the idea that creating a cleaner earth is in all our best interests but I think unnecessary extremes need to moderated.
Trash the planet. Why can't we just shoot all the nukes at the city dumps? Damn toxic-waste/fallout/whatever. I lived in Sacramento for a few months, and had the garbage can/recycling can... It did feel good to recycle. Felt like I was making a diference. What a fool I was/am.
If I have the option, I'll recycle. I believe that was a line from the show. Works for me, but damn!... Obama must be a busy man. Personally, I really really dislike politics, and think this class has been hella' political. I don't like all the documentary crapola.
There are many good aspects to recycling, reusing old products that can be reused, saving space from the landfills. The world is growing at an exponential rate! That means the trash will continue to grow also. If we don’t reuse materials it will catch up to us eventually. Keep in mind that these documentaries are very one sided and biased. The valid information that is against their standpoint is not stated... Be careful about believing every thing that is said.
If we are not really saving any energy or helping better life, except by bottles and tin cans to recycle then what is the benefit of recycling the other products all the time? It does not make sense. Do what ever is most convenient. Recycling is a hassle and if there is no real advantage from it… Forget about it.
I believed that recycling was good thing till I watched this one. What is the meaning of doing recycle if we are not saving any. In Japan, we have to separate quite a few things. So when I came here I was surprised that my husband was throwing away food and batteries in same garbage can. I think government or somebody should think about another way to recycle. So we are really saving something instead of spending extra money and wasting them. But it might be different here. US have a big country and still have lots of space. Japan is so small; I do not think there is not much space left. So in Japan recycling is maybe good things to save more land.
Recycling is a funny subject to me. When I was younger i always thought of recycling as a fun thing. We would always save up our soda cans and when we had enough, we would tak them to the recycling place, and cash them in. I would get to go out to lunch with my mom every time this happened. So to me, it was a fun and enjoyable process. Today, recycling to me means to reuse something for more than its 1 time use purpose. This doesnt mean that we have to collect cans and bottles and send them in. I like to reuse different bottles for water, weather its at the gym, just in the fridge so i can have cold water or whatever it may be. By filling that bottle up again and not just going to buy another one, I am saving money and using 1 less bottle every time I do it. Same goes with bags from the store, If you buy a canvas bag or something of the sort, every time you go to the store and use that. You are recycling in a way because its causing 1 less plastic or paper bag to be used.
As stated above, this is a very biased one sided argument and without looking at the other ways to recycle than the conventional gather up the goods and take them some where. We recycle on a daily basis more than we would think.
I don't mind recycling, I drink about two 12 packs of soda a week and I figure if I recycle that i'm in the clear as far as Recycling goes. And as much as I love mother earth I'm pretty sure we can't damage her too much. while I refuse to belive Penn and Teller on everything, (okay I belive them on everything) I have too have some moral ground I can't have sacrificed everything I think of as good about myself I think that whether or not it's bullshit it is your own choice so do what you want.
in my house we recycle i always though it was good for the earth. but Penn taught me other wise recycling is bull shit why i do it ? my mom gets mad if she see's plastic in the garbage. so just to keep my momma happy and ruin the world more than it already is il keep recycling. Jnickels made a good point i do the same thing i think recycling is as easy as using the same bottle for water everytime instead of going to the store and buying a different water bottle everyday. thats good recycling. but also when you do recycle When the plastic is melted, it creates Co2. Also, smoke gets into the air making slightly less polluted than if a company were to make new products. In addition, recycling use large amounts of energy to transport, clean, and it all has to go somewhere.
This topic is a difficult one even Penn and Teller thought that even if it was a waste they still had a hard time believing it. As for myself I still continue to recycle here and there but. I'm not gonna freak out if I just throw something away.
If all the landfills were similar to the one in the recycling episode of bullshit then whats the problem with that if we make energy out of the gases that our garbage puts out then we are basically recycling it in some sort of way.
I do hope that recycling is never forced upon us though. I think I would go postal if I got fined for throwing a glass bottle in the trash.
Recycling is bad? Watching this opened my eyes, as many other here, to the view that recycling is bad and that it is ineffective.
I look in my garage and see 3 bins. One dark green garbage container, one blue container, and one light green container. Ive always been taught that recycling paper, glass, plastic, and aluminum cans goes in the blue bin, the cut grass in the light green bin, and he rest of garbage goes in the dark green container. Will I continue to do this? Yes. Why? Because this episode alone will not change this habit.
Honestly, I do feel like Im doing good when I recycle. If the product gets reused, Ive done my part.
However, how much is needed to be done to recycle paper? Too much to even recuperate the power and cost over the effectiveness. Cutting down the trees in tree farms and growing them back is the way to go.
However, will I start throwing paper in the green bin? No. Why? Frankly, whether its thrown away or recycled, its being put to good use, whether as decomposing waste or next week's Salt Lake Tribune.
Its all fine and dandy to come out with a sense of humor and take charge at an issue like recycling its only for tree huggers and it doesn't do shit basically it just creates jobs and all it is for is creating jobs. well penn and teller i'm going to call BULLSHIT! by the way i love how they take a full charge at this topic and then just kind of throw in a by the way recycling cans is good once again where did they get there sources the whole purpose of this show is to make shit look like bull shit however, i'm going to take my numbers from experts in the field not two comedians or magicians or whatever you wana call those two. http://www.oberlin.edu/recycle/facts.html check that out very different than those twos take on it. they are very entertaining however i will believe this side of the argument until teller speaks!
Okay convincing argument if i didn't care to do a little research of my own i could believe that to be true after watching this show. They took a good stab at it by saying it takes more energy to power these recycling plants than to just produce new stuff and land fills not a problem we have plenty of room they can become golf courses for rich people nobody loses right?
Whens the last time you have seen a landfill become a golf course?
Interesting. I found myself in a catch twenty-two. Ok so almost everything will be broken down eventually through natural oxidation and corrosion, and the bugs eat the rest. So I’m not necessarily worry about a limited amount of land fill space.
Most of these objects are containers…There are a few things that only offer one use and then it is worthless matter taking up space… We are on a good start by taking our own canvas bags to the grocer to bring our groceries home. Here’s an idea. Why doesn’t the store hold more products in bulk storage? For example laundry detergent. We can lug our empty container to the store and refill it along with other products… that’s right we are all too lazy. Especially myself but no more than Al Gore and his SUV motor cage parading around, campaigning fuel efficiency… This guy received a Nobel what... Any way… It would be funny if all the stores quit bagging our products and left it up to us to get it home. I know that we would be less excessive.
I was surprised with the information Penn and Teller were stating when it came to recycling. I did not know that information at first because I had grown to the idea/fact that recycling is helping the environment intensely by reducing pollution; then only to find out that it takes more energy to produce the material again than just disposing of them. It still didn't make sense to me with all the 'evidence' that was brought up. I mean, agreeing with what someone else stated, by using more landfills and then covering them up to make golf courses seems more of a waste to me. That space could be used for more than just dumping it in and covering it up. Sounds like something my little brother does when cleaning his room. Instead of putting things away (recycling), he pushes them under his bed and covers them so they are out of sight and out of mind. Even before the landfills are covered, they're there and maybe, just maybe, they didn't have to be there.
This movie was just hilarious in my view! It got me thinking to know if there really is something worth recycling. My whole life I've been taught to recycle but in reality where is it all going? That one guy bringing in all those trash cans had a point. How many things are recycable? I can see about recycling things that we would use over again like cans but everything esle we recycle where does it go? Probably the trash. They just want us to recycle to make us feel better about ourselves!!
I don't think that recycling is bullshit. I felt as if they didn't have enough evidence to convince me to stop recycling. We've always been taught to recycle and have always had recycling bins in our schools and homes. It's really not that hard to recycle. If you can throw things away in the garbage, it's the same amount of energy to throw it in a recycling bin. Even if they are right that it doesn't help I think it's worth a try.
so recycling ya i think its great as long as something productive is going on or what i am donig is really helping out if not then there is really no point especially if it just costs more out of our pockets now it is a good thing that it has created jobs they said that they are horrible conditions and i can think of alot worse things then sorting through garbage and getting paid for it and it looks as they portray it that the dumps actually do a hell of a lot more good then the recycling does maybe we should just stick with the aluminum cans one that is actually profitable and makes a litte money know in the future maybe we will have processes that will actually be cost effective until then lets just stick with the cans
this movie opened my eyes towards recycling. i always just assumed that recycling was good for the planet and was saving our natural resources. but according to penn and teller it takes more energy to reuse plastic and paper than it takes to just make new plastic and paper products. recycling is still a good thing but only with materials such as soda cans and glass bottles.
This whole "go green" movement and all the hype about global warming are, in my opinion, crap. I find it interesting that the trend of global warming changes throughout the day based on the location of the giant ball of fire in the sky. We, as people, tend to get so caught up in these "save the planet" deals, that we don't actually learn all the facts, or even come up with effective ways to achieve the desired outcome. I will start worrying about the future for generations to come, when all the old farts stop using my money from social security. It is the cycle we are in, and our children and our children's children will have better advances is science to figure out the mess we leave for them.
recycling is once again a big issue. why? because of the pressure that the fanatics put on everyone. we note in the show that there are many people that recycle because they feel that they are helping. isn't this a basic instinct for your average "good" person? we all want to help in the ways that we can and separating our trash to help the environment isn't that hard, right? it isn't that hard till it becomes a law and if you don't like to separate and recycle all your trash you will be fined! it doesn't matter that this program is going to cost you 3 times as much as just tossing the stuff away like normal or that it takes more energy to recycle than to make the same item fresh, its good for the environment!!! so do it now!!!! this is what we are told by the emphatic people controlling these campaigns. we are not given the statistics in whole, we are not told the whole story. we are baby feed what they want us to feel and believe! is the earth important? yes. are we a polluting society? yes. does following half baked extremists create big problems? hell yes!!! i have gone off the point here, recycling the right items, aluminum cans for instance, is great and will help the environment. but blindly following someone or some group that wont provide the information in a truthful and balanced manner so that you can make your own decisions is usually going to end up in problems. so for now look at what is being done on both sides of the fence and lets make some intelligent decisions as to what we need to do with our trash for tomorrow.
first of all i would just like to say that those hybrid cars that everyone thinks are so energy efficiant is total horse shit. the energy it takes to build a hybrid car is so much that the car will have to be driven 500,000 miles in order to catch up to the energy wasted. So back to recycling. I was really suprised when i watched this. Using paper creates more trees? that seems contradictory but i have researched it an according to the sites i went to it is true. so don't recycle your paper, just throw it away! that is funny.
I have never been one to recycle. I guess that makes me heartless when it comes to polluting the earth. Thanks to Penn and Teller I now have an excuse why I don't. Whether it is true or not I still can make that argument, beings there is no clear truth. It was very entertaining to see all the bins lined up and they were still willing to recycle. In different circumstances I don't think they would have been so willing. Penn and Teller say that it is environmentally unfriendly to recyle. According to them I am actually not polutting the environment by not recycling.
Recycling makes me feel good. But do i recycle? I do but just in the blue garbage can the city gives me, i dont seperate all my different recyclable goods. I think recycling is good. Even the garbage dumps recycle when you go to take your trash they have you seperate all the different things that can be recycled. Yea it probably doesnt make us alot of money but it does save the earth and it does make people feel good so recycle and do us all a favor
Why not reuse plastic and card board? It might waste energy but we are still reusing that doesn't hurt anybody. We will have less trash even though we have room for trash. Reusing things couldn't hurt anyone. Even if it is cheaper to just creating new things we can help our environment by not killing everything and just planting to kill more. Some things don't decompose so we might as well use them over and over again. It is a good idea to recycle. We spend tons of money and stupid stuff anyway. We pay idiots to entertain us, millions and millions of dollars. We pay way too much money for gas and clothes, property, cars, things that Americans must have. Why not pay to reuse things too. That is a small price to keep more natural environment and not have too many unneeded golf courses.
While I have been aware of the disparity of costs in the recycling of different materials, I tend to make decisions about what to recycle based upon two criteria: whether it is cost effective/ecologically efficient to recycle a material (as in the case of metals) and how long those materials take to break down to original components in a landfill (glass and plastic). I will often recycle something that is perhaps not cost effective, but which will take a disproportionate amount of time to decompose in a landfill.
As recycling is relatively new to many parts of the Salt Lake valley, I used to regard the fanaticism with which my grandparents, aunts and uncles recycled in Southern California with a great deal of confusion. It has never been a moralistic issue simply because for so much of my life it simply wasn't an option available to me, with the exception of aluminum cans sold by weight. Rather than viewing environmental conscientiousness in terms of recycling materials I consume, I try to avoid wasteful consumption when possible. I was actually excited by the idea of solar panel shingles shown in Who Killed the Electric Car.
We have to remember that as we watch shows like this that they want us to think the way they do. They showed so many so called facts that recycling is bad that in our minds now it becomes truth. I mean if Penn and Teller say that it's bad then well hell it must be bad. But then again they wouldn't have had that show if they weren't getting us to beleive what they wanted us to believe. I understand that it takes energy to recycle, so what, it takes energy to do a lot of things, might as well be doing it for something that has potential to save our planet.
I liked to see the people who were so willing to recycle anything and everything and seperate them into rediculous categories and place them into about 10 different trash cans. However i believe that those people were just being nice and really in their minds they were just thinking please get the hell off my property.
I thought that this was differet. I would have to say that i like the fact of recycling and that it does help to keep the enivorment clean. I however never realized that it costs lots and lots of money. I think that with today technology and resources that we should be able to make it cleaner and less cost. I think that recycling should be enforced on people. I think that they should be encourage but not maditory. I think that people like to be rebels and if they are made to recycle then they will not do it just to prove a point. I thinke the more people see others recycling that it will catch on and more will join in.
whoa, this episode of bullshit was the most ive learned in a short time period, i learned so much about recycling that i never knew before. im one of those people that dont recycle much, if i have to go out of my way to recycle i wont do it, but if the recycling bin and trash can are next to each other i dont mind recycling. Even though i learned so much in this episode, i dont believe in ALL of it, it says recycling isn't worth it, i think differently. alot of studys show that recycling in FACT does help. in my opinion i dont care if people recycle, there is just as much pros and cons to recycling that it evens out to me. some material recycled will save alot of energy and some will just wasate energy. to me recycling is not a huge deal to me.
Wow I had no idea that recycling cost more money than it did to produce something new. I love to recycle makes me feel like I'm doing my little part to help save the world. However, after seeing this i feel like i'm creating more work than not. I wonder if we should all be for more landfills so that there can be more methane that can be converted to a power source. This episode should be shown to more people. However it might make people a little more sad if that is their only way to help make things better
I'm guilty I guess. I recycle like crazy. I get mad at my husband if he puts the paper or the plastic bottle in the garbage can. I never realized that it costs more to recycle than to just throw it away. It's amazing what people will believe when others are shouting that our land fills are running out of space, and it's amazing how many garbage cans they are willing to take and sort. I will still recycle. Why? because I'm asked to I guess. I will just not be so anal about it :)
This one actually surprised me a lot. i had no idea that it wasn't as beneficial as i'd been told. I am still a little skeptical of if its true or not... i'd have to do the research but not all recycling facilities are state operated are they? which means their a private company seeking a profit. If it weren't profitable they'd go out of business correct? once again either way recycling isn't going anywhere...
Obviously recycling is not cost effective. Anyone who recycles because they think they are saving money is foolish. The point to recycling is to not be wasteful. Like someone else said, a form of recycling includes reusing bottles for water, and other things like that. Its hard to pick a side when the recycling process causes pollution, and other nasty by-products, but overall I believe it is a good thing to do, regardless of if I do it or not.
Wow recycling isn't all what it was cracked up to be eh? I couldn't believe that. I thought that it was pretty amazing that penn and teller picked such an important topic to some people. All in all I believe that recycling certain things does help our country. I would have to do more research to really come to believe this video clip from penn and teller. I recycle and will continue to do so, if it was a bad thing I dont think our country would go so far to keep pushing us to do so.
I always knew I never liked recycling. I do believe that it has its benifits however. like the fact that people are willing to make our earth healthy again. but I do believe it is a bunch of bull shit. I think it is bsolutely rediculous that I can get fined just because I don't but out my blue bin on thursdays. it should be my choice and not the governments. if a person wants to recycle, go ahead and do it. but to tell people that our world is in a chrisis just because I don't separate paper from plastic is just rediculous.
Recycling, I think I'm kind use to do it if I got a chance. Recycling is an idea which we've been taught since we were kid. Sometimes it really feel annoying, sometimes it can be fun by separating junks just like provokes. "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" are telling us they think recycling is wasting time but just to make us feel better. Perhaps it is true, but not all the work on the recycling are died in vain. The Earth environment is getting worse because, so we must do somethings to save the Earth. And we should improve the work on recycling into much better way.
I've recycled for years on end thinking I'm doing something to help the environment but after watching it, I started to get a bit iffy about things. It seems like it just cost more for us to reproduce plastics and papers, but I still think that recycling keeps are environment well managed and with the technology and resources we have now a days, there are many possibilities for a better change. Recycling may not have sounded as great when I watched the show but I like to believe that I'm helping for a better cause just by recycling no matter what they say in the video. It truly makes me feel better knowing that I'm at least helping the environment just a little bit.
It's actually quite sad, by trying to help the earth's enviroment we're actually doing nothing. anything you get payed to recycle is good, but papers and plastic are not, so looks like we need to come up with a way to make recycling these effiecnet and worth the time to recycle.
In the past I had never looked into the whole recycling process so this was definitely a shock to see. While I agree that recycling some materials is good for the environment, if we are spending more on other resources, I would rather have that be optional. Not everyone wants to spend their tax money on something that they don’t truly believe in but there are others who wouldn’t mind, I think if we gave people the choice on the matter, the recycling companies wouldn’t take a big hit because there would still be people willing to recycle. I for one recycle when I can but now I will try to recycle only those resources that will actually cost less money to reuse.
This is a very hard argument for me, because for as long as I can remember, I've been told that recycling is good for the environment. Now that there's evidence against that, it's still hard to give up because it seems like the obviously right thing to do. I had no idea there was so many negative effects of recycling and that landfills actually produce energy and that using more paper actually gets more trees planted. All of this info was new to me and pretty amazing, but if these things are true, maybe we should tell people NOT to recycle anymore.
Well, some of us have been wrong for many years according to Bullshit, myself included. I have for many years recycled paper, plastic and aluminum consistently and never really thought about anything at all, thinking that I'm doing my part by contributing to the cause. Now that I'm seeing this, I need to reconsider especially paper products and plastic. I'm seeing that it cost so much more to process these products than to just dump them and use them for other things such as methane gas for example. Aluminum in the other hand at least can get you a return for your efforts. It all comes down to, if it feels good, do it. I truly believe in our country and it's ability to solve problems effectively and sound.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie Penn and Teller says that the fact is that it takes more energy and creates more pollution to recycle things than it does to place it in a landfill. Furthermore, modern technology has evolved to the point where landfills are actually helpful, as they serve as a source of natural gas power which is far cleaner than the fossil fuels more commonly in use.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they might be right, but I feel that i am giving to the community by recycling my trash, by doing what is supposed to be right. This episode is really hard for me to take a side. I do believe in recycling, but if it is worse to the environment than actually to just destroy it, than I stand to whatever is better for the environment, but before so, I have to do a better study on the subject, I do not like to change my opinion just because a movie said so.
What a shocker! If it's true. I always believed that recyling was good for me and good for the enviroment becuase thats what I was taught in school nearly every grade. Penn makes some pretty good points for his opposition to recycling and franklin I believe him because in school they never gave any evidence for their claims. We all bought it hook, line, and sinker. I had some issues with this episode that would keep me from believing their side without further evidence. Sure once the land fill is full they can cover it up and make another golfcourse or whatever but where do you go from there? There isn't an infinite amount of space where you can dig huge holes in the ground to bury trash. Also what about the trees I find it very hard to believe that we are able to grow trees faster than we cut them down. I'm sure as someone in class mentioned we have hybrids and can genetically engineer trees to grow faster but fast enough to meet the ever increasing demand? I dont think so.
ReplyDeleteI always knew that recycling take's more energy than just using virgin material from the get go. I figure if one day we do run out room for our trash we can either turn Alaska in a landfill or send all our trash on a one way trip to the sun. Honestly I try to recycle sometime but I'm really lazy.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I remember about recycling was how much it cost to produce aluminum compared to how much it cost to recycle it. It takes about 5% of the energy to recycle aluminum then it takes to produce it from alumni. The amount of electricity that an aluminum plant uses to produce aluminum can power a small city. That explains why you get more for recycling cans than paper. Paper and plastic on the other hand I normally don’t recycle. Plastic I probably should recycle because of the time it takes to decompose and paper I could do without.
ReplyDeletePro's of Recycling.
ReplyDeleteSo Bullshit thinks that recycling is a bunch of Bullshit. I'd have to disagree. Recycling is not just a bunch of busy work that government gives people jobs to do. Recycling is real beneficial, and the process does not consume more energy then in produces. Just in recycling one ton of paper you save on average 17 trees, over 6900 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, a little over 3 cubic yards of landfill space, and roughly 4200 KW/hours of energy. The show mentions that America is behind the curve as far as recycling goes, and most country's have already abandoned the old practice. Many Country's in Europe still recycle up to 40 percent of all the glass they use. Recycling gas only takes 25-30 percent of the energy it takes to produce it. Aluminum recycling saves tremendous amounts of energy. Aluminum can recycling saves 95% of the energy needed to make aluminum
from bauxite ore. Energy savings in 2003 alone were enough to light a city the
size of salt lake city for 9 years. Now saying recycling just doesn't add up, that sounds like "Bullshit" to me!
http://www.cityofinglewood.org/pdfs/pw/Recycling_Facts.pdf
The con's of recycling
The process of recycling takes a lot more energy to perform then it provides. Recycling organizations fail to take into account all of the energy that is spent collecting, processing, and then redistributing the recycled goods. It takes an enormous amount of energy to do all this. Much more then it could ever produce. Landfills have for a long time been seen as a terrible thing, when in all reality they aren't so bad. Landfills produce methane when the trash is properly stored, and turned. This methane can then be used as fuel for many various things.
http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2007/01/recycling_lies.html
Recycling makes me feel good is the only reason off of Penn's list of reasons to recycle that doesn't get scratched out. Without sounding too much like a drug addict, that reason might be the only reason to do it. We live in a depressing world and if recycling helps make people feel like they can actually do something then maybe it is worth the energy.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of energy, according to the movie recycling uses a lot of energy, but if we are making old materials into usable materials then maybe we could stop making so many new materials and balance out the energy. I don't know if the numbers add up but it might be a good idea.
I think it was good to see both sides though. I am glad that landfills our being handled in such a way that if we don't all recycle our world won't implode.
I was proud to see those people in the show who would be willing to do so much to help out environment. I think having good people like that who will do anything good for something they believe in is what makes recycling worth it.
Pro
ReplyDeleteRecycling is a great way for us to keep on using the materials we don't need to make new ones. This mindset is what is needed for our civilization to continue and prosper. As mentioned above aluminum is by far the best item we have to recycle saving 95% of the energy needed to use raw materials. This type of benefit is what will allow us to slow down the use of using natural resources, and allow us to continue to live lives that we are so used to.
Con:
Not all of it is good. In the video they go in great detail to explain what most forget about recycling. The process and what happens in order for us to recycle items. They point out that the process now is for the most part worse for the environment than beneficial. This is why they need to rethink, not close the door, but rethink how we can re use the items we don't need without having to spend more energy to reprocess it. That is where I think they are trying to go in the film, they were trying to point out that it is at this current time not more beneficial for us to recycle everything. It is a field that needs to have some improvements and I am sure it will int he future. They also wanted to point out the how marketing yet again, played such a huge part in getting people to believe what they want. In all the films it is people trying to sell something that have a great way to make people believe something that has some truth, but might be stretched a little. I think it just shows us that we need to try and learn as much as we can and be informed consumers, instead of just going with the flow.
it's hard to believe that recycling is counter-productive. our whole lives people have told us to recycle, but to find out that it actually costs more for the recyclers to recycle these products was astonishing. i did not know about the landfills ability to turn methane into usable fuel. that was pretty cool to hear. landfills have always gotten such a bad wrap that it's good to know they are not just a "waste." now, just because in this movie they say recycling is bad, i dont believe i will stop. i think, overall, recycling is still a good idea. Aluminum is a great thing to recycle because you save 95% of the energy needed to use raw materials. this example still shows that recycling is still important and i believe will save us natural resources in the long run
ReplyDeleteRecycling bad for the environment? My whole world is upside down! We live our whole lives believing that we’re doing something good for our planet and to be honest I’ve never even took a second look at it. There is so much info about recycling on the web and it starts to get quite confusing. You have people on one side giving info as to why it’s a waste of time and money and then on the other side they say that it does save money and that we’re depleting our resources. There are so many sides and statistics it’s hard to tell what’s right and wrong. If anyone can find a site that seems to be unbiased about this issue please let me know in class.
ReplyDeleteSome of the “facts” I found about recycling say that aluminum is the most lucrative and it does match up with the video’s claim. I also found that the whole claim that trucks are costing more money and waist to pick the trash up than is being saved is another good argument. This study I found on the popular mechanics web site states that it takes 10.4 million Btu to manufacture products from a ton of recyclables, compared to 23.3 million Btu for virgin materials. In contrast, the total energy for collecting, hauling and processing a ton of recyclables adds up to just 0.9 million Btu. So apparently it still cost about one half less. The list goes on its draining; what I decided to take away from this argument is that I’m going to do more reusing and less consuming that seems like the sure fire way decrease waist.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4290631
Pro&Con
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt that recycle is not only bring us many benefits as the hole. But, it is bring sense of responsible citizen. instead, They are turn this recyclable land field to golf course!. The nature is bountiful and glorious.. after I can recycle most to the trashes. I still need to located landfill in safe environment. Some material product like plastic and not recyclable stuffs. We should rethink we can substitute in another area that recyclable and has to lowest cost as possible in terms of operation and economics benefits. We must promote to new innovation to the new recycling business. But to cost to still too high and unwilling of the people. This society still suffer for few bad citizen. If we don't act it now We might to started move to live in space where the Movie "Well-E" come to place... Seriously.
Out of all the episodes we saw this one was the most suprising to me. I never knew that recycling took up more money and energy than just throwing your things away in the regular garbage. Maybe I was suprised because I have always been told recycle! recylce! recycle!!! So that's what I've tried to do. The show does bring up a good point that when you recylce you do feel a sense of accomplishment and a good feeling that you're doing good for the enviornment.
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing the movie, I would like to say that I will never recycle another plastic container again. But that's not that case. I'm stuck in the mind set that recycling is good and I don't know if I fully beleive that recylcing is so bad as they make it seem.
However, I would never go to the extreme of accepting 10 different colored containers in order to recycle as the people in the movie did. These two characters are a great example how much we have been influenced by the media and the public how good it is for the enviornment to recycle.
Just as a side note: I never got why the lady in the movie that was for recycling was recycling and doing her house routines with a baby wrapped around her? Kind of weird. Maybe it was to portray that people who recycle are weird. not sure..
This episode seemed to effect me the most. Since seeing it I have doubted myself in washing out a plastic container just to put it in the recycle bin. Where in the past I have scolded family members for not recycling. I do it because it makes me feel better. Penn and Teller hit it right on the head! They make a good point about whats really worth recycling and the amount of money it takes to make a recycled product. However, I see recycling as a benefit to me as a person because then I feel like I am doing something out of the ordinary. Instead of taking the world and its resources for granted, I feel like I am saying thank you and giving back a small bit. Even if recycling is BULLSHIT, don't you think that it beats paying hundreds of dollars to some shrink to make you feel better? I do! So thats why I recycle and will continue to recycle.
ReplyDeleteThis episode of Pen and Teller's "bullshit" was for me one of the most educational and eye opening things I had see in a long time. I, like most others had assumed that the vast majority of recycling efforts made by us was beneficial to the environment. After hearing that the processes, time, and methods used in recycling can and usually are bad for the environment I was amazed. Not only this but to see that the practice of recycling for the most part was financially unprofitable made it worse. The length people were willing to go to recycle also astounded me. Can you believe those people who were sorting piles of garbage into something like ten or more bins? I hope this was mainly due to the fact that they were being filmed and thought they might have a shot at being famous in some sense. Anyways I thought I would also mention another highly controversial subject that kind of relates to this in that it is related to the environmental movement and pollution. I am also taking a geography class at the collage and one of the topics covered is global climate change. If any of you are interested to here the other side of the man made global warming issue you should check out the movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle". I gave me a new perspective on the environmental movement as a whole. I'm not saying I completely accept all of its content but a lot of it makes perfect scientific sense and is delivered by real scientists. I think you can actually watch the whole thing if you go to video.google.com/videoplaydocid=288952680655100870. I guess I do still like the idea that creating a cleaner earth is in all our best interests but I think unnecessary extremes need to moderated.
ReplyDeleteTrash the planet. Why can't we just shoot all the nukes at the city dumps? Damn toxic-waste/fallout/whatever. I lived in Sacramento for a few months, and had the garbage can/recycling can... It did feel good to recycle. Felt like I was making a diference. What a fool I was/am.
ReplyDeleteIf I have the option, I'll recycle. I believe that was a line from the show. Works for me, but damn!... Obama must be a busy man.
Personally, I really really dislike politics, and think this class has been hella' political. I don't like all the documentary crapola.
There are many good aspects to recycling, reusing old products that can be reused, saving space from the landfills. The world is growing at an exponential rate! That means the trash will continue to grow also. If we don’t reuse materials it will catch up to us eventually. Keep in mind that these documentaries are very one sided and biased. The valid information that is against their standpoint is not stated... Be careful about believing every thing that is said.
ReplyDeleteIf we are not really saving any energy or helping better life, except by bottles and tin cans to recycle then what is the benefit of recycling the other products all the time? It does not make sense. Do what ever is most convenient. Recycling is a hassle and if there is no real advantage from it… Forget about it.
I believed that recycling was good thing till I watched this one. What is the meaning of doing recycle if we are not saving any.
ReplyDeleteIn Japan, we have to separate quite a few things. So when I came here I was surprised that my husband was throwing away food and batteries in same garbage can. I think government or somebody should think about another way to recycle. So we are really saving something instead of spending extra money and wasting them. But it might be different here. US have a big country and still have lots of space. Japan is so small; I do not think there is not much space left. So in Japan recycling is maybe good things to save more land.
Recycling is a funny subject to me. When I was younger i always thought of recycling as a fun thing. We would always save up our soda cans and when we had enough, we would tak them to the recycling place, and cash them in. I would get to go out to lunch with my mom every time this happened. So to me, it was a fun and enjoyable process. Today, recycling to me means to reuse something for more than its 1 time use purpose. This doesnt mean that we have to collect cans and bottles and send them in. I like to reuse different bottles for water, weather its at the gym, just in the fridge so i can have cold water or whatever it may be. By filling that bottle up again and not just going to buy another one, I am saving money and using 1 less bottle every time I do it. Same goes with bags from the store, If you buy a canvas bag or something of the sort, every time you go to the store and use that. You are recycling in a way because its causing 1 less plastic or paper bag to be used.
ReplyDeleteAs stated above, this is a very biased one sided argument and without looking at the other ways to recycle than the conventional gather up the goods and take them some where. We recycle on a daily basis more than we would think.
I don't mind recycling, I drink about two 12 packs of soda a week and I figure if I recycle that i'm in the clear as far as Recycling goes. And as much as I love mother earth I'm pretty sure we can't damage her too much. while I refuse to belive Penn and Teller on everything, (okay I belive them on everything) I have too have some moral ground I can't have sacrificed everything I think of as good about myself I think that whether or not it's bullshit it is your own choice so do what you want.
ReplyDeletein my house we recycle i always though it was good for the earth. but Penn taught me other wise recycling is bull shit why i do it ? my mom gets mad if she see's plastic in the garbage. so just to keep my momma happy and ruin the world more than it already is il keep recycling. Jnickels made a good point i do the same thing i think recycling is as easy as using the same bottle for water everytime instead of going to the store and buying a different water bottle everyday. thats good recycling. but also when you do recycle When the plastic is melted, it creates Co2. Also, smoke gets into the air making slightly less polluted than if a company were to make new products. In addition, recycling use large amounts of energy to transport, clean, and it all has to go somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThis topic is a difficult one even Penn and Teller thought that even if it was a waste they still had a hard time believing it. As for myself I still continue to recycle here and there but. I'm not gonna freak out if I just throw something away.
ReplyDeleteIf all the landfills were similar to the one in the recycling episode of bullshit then whats the problem with that if we make energy out of the gases that our garbage puts out then we are basically recycling it in some sort of way.
I do hope that recycling is never forced upon us though. I think I would go postal if I got fined for throwing a glass bottle in the trash.
Recycling is bad? Watching this opened my eyes, as many other here, to the view that recycling is bad and that it is ineffective.
ReplyDeleteI look in my garage and see 3 bins. One dark green garbage container, one blue container, and one light green container. Ive always been taught that recycling paper, glass, plastic, and aluminum cans goes in the blue bin, the cut grass in the light green bin, and he rest of garbage goes in the dark green container. Will I continue to do this? Yes. Why? Because this episode alone will not change this habit.
Honestly, I do feel like Im doing good when I recycle. If the product gets reused, Ive done my part.
However, how much is needed to be done to recycle paper? Too much to even recuperate the power and cost over the effectiveness. Cutting down the trees in tree farms and growing them back is the way to go.
However, will I start throwing paper in the green bin? No. Why? Frankly, whether its thrown away or recycled, its being put to good use, whether as decomposing waste or next week's Salt Lake Tribune.
Its all fine and dandy to come out with a sense of humor and take charge at an issue like recycling its only for tree huggers and it doesn't do shit basically it just creates jobs and all it is for is creating jobs. well penn and teller i'm going to call BULLSHIT! by the way i love how they take a full charge at this topic and then just kind of throw in a by the way recycling cans is good once again where did they get there sources the whole purpose of this show is to make shit look like bull shit however, i'm going to take my numbers from experts in the field not two comedians or magicians or whatever you wana call those two. http://www.oberlin.edu/recycle/facts.html
ReplyDeletecheck that out very different than those twos take on it. they are very entertaining however i will believe this side of the argument until teller speaks!
Okay convincing argument if i didn't care to do a little research of my own i could believe that to be true after watching this show. They took a good stab at it by saying it takes more energy to power these recycling plants than to just produce new stuff and land fills not a problem we have plenty of room they can become golf courses for rich people nobody loses right?
Whens the last time you have seen a landfill become a golf course?
Interesting. I found myself in a catch twenty-two. Ok so almost everything will be broken down eventually through natural oxidation and corrosion, and the bugs eat the rest. So I’m not necessarily worry about a limited amount of land fill space.
ReplyDeleteMost of these objects are containers…There are a few things that only offer one use and then it is worthless matter taking up space… We are on a good start by taking our own canvas bags to the grocer to bring our groceries home. Here’s an idea. Why doesn’t the store hold more products in bulk storage? For example laundry detergent. We can lug our empty container to the store and refill it along with other products… that’s right we are all too lazy. Especially myself but no more than Al Gore and his SUV motor cage parading around, campaigning fuel efficiency… This guy received a Nobel what... Any way… It would be funny if all the stores quit bagging our products and left it up to us to get it home. I know that we would be less excessive.
I was surprised with the information Penn and Teller were stating when it came to recycling. I did not know that information at first because I had grown to the idea/fact that recycling is helping the environment intensely by reducing pollution; then only to find out that it takes more energy to produce the material again than just disposing of them. It still didn't make sense to me with all the 'evidence' that was brought up. I mean, agreeing with what someone else stated, by using more landfills and then covering them up to make golf courses seems more of a waste to me. That space could be used for more than just dumping it in and covering it up. Sounds like something my little brother does when cleaning his room. Instead of putting things away (recycling), he pushes them under his bed and covers them so they are out of sight and out of mind. Even before the landfills are covered, they're there and maybe, just maybe, they didn't have to be there.
ReplyDeleteThis movie was just hilarious in my view! It got me thinking to know if there really is something worth recycling. My whole life I've been taught to recycle but in reality where is it all going? That one guy bringing in all those trash cans had a point. How many things are recycable? I can see about recycling things that we would use over again like cans but everything esle we recycle where does it go? Probably the trash. They just want us to recycle to make us feel better about ourselves!!
ReplyDeleteI don't think that recycling is bullshit. I felt as if they didn't have enough evidence to convince me to stop recycling. We've always been taught to recycle and have always had recycling bins in our schools and homes. It's really not that hard to recycle. If you can throw things away in the garbage, it's the same amount of energy to throw it in a recycling bin. Even if they are right that it doesn't help I think it's worth a try.
ReplyDeleteso recycling ya i think its great as long as something productive is going on or what i am donig is really helping out if not then there is really no point especially if it just costs more out of our pockets now it is a good thing that it has created jobs they said that they are horrible conditions and i can think of alot worse things then sorting through garbage and getting paid for it and it looks as they portray it that the dumps actually do a hell of a lot more good then the recycling does maybe we should just stick with the aluminum cans one that is actually profitable and makes a litte money know in the future maybe we will have processes that will actually be cost effective until then lets just stick with the cans
ReplyDeletethis movie opened my eyes towards recycling. i always just assumed that recycling was good for the planet and was saving our natural resources. but according to penn and teller it takes more energy to reuse plastic and paper than it takes to just make new plastic and paper products. recycling is still a good thing but only with materials such as soda cans and glass bottles.
ReplyDeleteThis whole "go green" movement and all the hype about global warming are, in my opinion, crap. I find it interesting that the trend of global warming changes throughout the day based on the location of the giant ball of fire in the sky. We, as people, tend to get so caught up in these "save the planet" deals, that we don't actually learn all the facts, or even come up with effective ways to achieve the desired outcome. I will start worrying about the future for generations to come, when all the old farts stop using my money from social security. It is the cycle we are in, and our children and our children's children will have better advances is science to figure out the mess we leave for them.
ReplyDeleterecycling is once again a big issue. why? because of the pressure that the fanatics put on everyone. we note in the show that there are many people that recycle because they feel that they are helping. isn't this a basic instinct for your average "good" person? we all want to help in the ways that we can and separating our trash to help the environment isn't that hard, right? it isn't that hard till it becomes a law and if you don't like to separate and recycle all your trash you will be fined! it doesn't matter that this program is going to cost you 3 times as much as just tossing the stuff away like normal or that it takes more energy to recycle than to make the same item fresh, its good for the environment!!! so do it now!!!!
ReplyDeletethis is what we are told by the emphatic people controlling these campaigns. we are not given the statistics in whole, we are not told the whole story. we are baby feed what they want us to feel and believe! is the earth important? yes. are we a polluting society? yes. does following half baked extremists create big problems? hell yes!!!
i have gone off the point here, recycling the right items, aluminum cans for instance, is great and will help the environment. but blindly following someone or some group that wont provide the information in a truthful and balanced manner so that you can make your own decisions is usually going to end up in problems. so for now look at what is being done on both sides of the fence and lets make some intelligent decisions as to what we need to do with our trash for tomorrow.
first of all i would just like to say that those hybrid cars that everyone thinks are so energy efficiant is total horse shit. the energy it takes to build a hybrid car is so much that the car will have to be driven 500,000 miles in order to catch up to the energy wasted. So back to recycling. I was really suprised when i watched this. Using paper creates more trees? that seems contradictory but i have researched it an according to the sites i went to it is true. so don't recycle your paper, just throw it away! that is funny.
ReplyDeleteI have never been one to recycle. I guess that makes me heartless when it comes to polluting the earth. Thanks to Penn and Teller I now have an excuse why I don't. Whether it is true or not I still can make that argument, beings there is no clear truth. It was very entertaining to see all the bins lined up and they were still willing to recycle. In different circumstances I don't think they would have been so willing. Penn and Teller say that it is environmentally unfriendly to recyle. According to them I am actually not polutting the environment by not recycling.
ReplyDeleteRecycling makes me feel good. But do i recycle? I do but just in the blue garbage can the city gives me, i dont seperate all my different recyclable goods. I think recycling is good. Even the garbage dumps recycle when you go to take your trash they have you seperate all the different things that can be recycled. Yea it probably doesnt make us alot of money but it does save the earth and it does make people feel good so recycle and do us all a favor
ReplyDeleteWhy not reuse plastic and card board? It might waste energy but we are still reusing that doesn't hurt anybody. We will have less trash even though we have room for trash. Reusing things couldn't hurt anyone. Even if it is cheaper to just creating new things we can help our environment by not killing everything and just planting to kill more. Some things don't decompose so we might as well use them over and over again. It is a good idea to recycle. We spend tons of money and stupid stuff anyway. We pay idiots to entertain us, millions and millions of dollars. We pay way too much money for gas and clothes, property, cars, things that Americans must have. Why not pay to reuse things too. That is a small price to keep more natural environment and not have too many unneeded golf courses.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have been aware of the disparity of costs in the recycling of different materials, I tend to make decisions about what to recycle based upon two criteria: whether it is cost effective/ecologically efficient to recycle a material (as in the case of metals) and how long those materials take to break down to original components in a landfill (glass and plastic). I will often recycle something that is perhaps not cost effective, but which will take a disproportionate amount of time to decompose in a landfill.
ReplyDeleteAs recycling is relatively new to many parts of the Salt Lake valley, I used to regard the fanaticism with which my grandparents, aunts and uncles recycled in Southern California with a great deal of confusion. It has never been a moralistic issue simply because for so much of my life it simply wasn't an option available to me, with the exception of aluminum cans sold by weight. Rather than viewing environmental conscientiousness in terms of recycling materials I consume, I try to avoid wasteful consumption when possible. I was actually excited by the idea of solar panel shingles shown in Who Killed the Electric Car.
We have to remember that as we watch shows like this that they want us to think the way they do. They showed so many so called facts that recycling is bad that in our minds now it becomes truth. I mean if Penn and Teller say that it's bad then well hell it must be bad. But then again they wouldn't have had that show if they weren't getting us to beleive what they wanted us to believe. I understand that it takes energy to recycle, so what, it takes energy to do a lot of things, might as well be doing it for something that has potential to save our planet.
ReplyDeleteI liked to see the people who were so willing to recycle anything and everything and seperate them into rediculous categories and place them into about 10 different trash cans. However i believe that those people were just being nice and really in their minds they were just thinking please get the hell off my property.
I thought that this was differet. I would have to say that i like the fact of recycling and that it does help to keep the enivorment clean. I however never realized that it costs lots and lots of money. I think that with today technology and resources that we should be able to make it cleaner and less cost. I think that recycling should be enforced on people. I think that they should be encourage but not maditory. I think that people like to be rebels and if they are made to recycle then they will not do it just to prove a point. I thinke the more people see others recycling that it will catch on and more will join in.
ReplyDeletewhoa, this episode of bullshit was the most ive learned in a short time period, i learned so much about recycling that i never knew before. im one of those people that dont recycle much, if i have to go out of my way to recycle i wont do it, but if the recycling bin and trash can are next to each other i dont mind recycling. Even though i learned so much in this episode, i dont believe in ALL of it, it says recycling isn't worth it, i think differently. alot of studys show that recycling in FACT does help. in my opinion i dont care if people recycle, there is just as much pros and cons to recycling that it evens out to me. some material recycled will save alot of energy and some will just wasate energy. to me recycling is not a huge deal to me.
ReplyDeleteWow I had no idea that recycling cost more money than it did to produce something new. I love to recycle makes me feel like I'm doing my little part to help save the world. However, after seeing this i feel like i'm creating more work than not. I wonder if we should all be for more landfills so that there can be more methane that can be converted to a power source. This episode should be shown to more people. However it might make people a little more sad if that is their only way to help make things better
ReplyDeleteI'm guilty I guess. I recycle like crazy. I get mad at my husband if he puts the paper or the plastic bottle in the garbage can. I never realized that it costs more to recycle than to just throw it away. It's amazing what people will believe when others are shouting that our land fills are running out of space, and it's amazing how many garbage cans they are willing to take and sort. I will still recycle. Why? because I'm asked to I guess. I will just not be so anal about it :)
ReplyDeleteErin Bitters Wilkin
This one actually surprised me a lot. i had no idea that it wasn't as beneficial as i'd been told. I am still a little skeptical of if its true or not... i'd have to do the research but not all recycling facilities are state operated are they? which means their a private company seeking a profit. If it weren't profitable they'd go out of business correct? once again either way recycling isn't going anywhere...
ReplyDeleteObviously recycling is not cost effective. Anyone who recycles because they think they are saving money is foolish. The point to recycling is to not be wasteful. Like someone else said, a form of recycling includes reusing bottles for water, and other things like that. Its hard to pick a side when the recycling process causes pollution, and other nasty by-products, but overall I believe it is a good thing to do, regardless of if I do it or not.
ReplyDeleteWow recycling isn't all what it was cracked up to be eh? I couldn't believe that. I thought that it was pretty amazing that penn and teller picked such an important topic to some people. All in all I believe that recycling certain things does help our country. I would have to do more research to really come to believe this video clip from penn and teller. I recycle and will continue to do so, if it was a bad thing I dont think our country would go so far to keep pushing us to do so.
ReplyDeleteI always knew I never liked recycling. I do believe that it has its benifits however. like the fact that people are willing to make our earth healthy again. but I do believe it is a bunch of bull shit. I think it is bsolutely rediculous that I can get fined just because I don't but out my blue bin on thursdays. it should be my choice and not the governments. if a person wants to recycle, go ahead and do it. but to tell people that our world is in a chrisis just because I don't separate paper from plastic is just rediculous.
ReplyDeleteRecycling, I think I'm kind use to do it if I got a chance. Recycling is an idea which we've been taught since we were kid. Sometimes it really feel annoying, sometimes it can be fun by separating junks just like provokes. "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" are telling us they think recycling is wasting time but just to make us feel better. Perhaps it is true, but not all the work on the recycling are died in vain. The Earth environment is getting worse because, so we must do somethings to save the Earth. And we should improve the work on recycling into much better way.
ReplyDeleteI've recycled for years on end thinking I'm doing something to help the environment but after watching it, I started to get a bit iffy about things. It seems like it just cost more for us to reproduce plastics and papers, but I still think that recycling keeps are environment well managed and with the technology and resources we have now a days, there are many possibilities for a better change. Recycling may not have sounded as great when I watched the show but I like to believe that I'm helping for a better cause just by recycling no matter what they say in the video. It truly makes me feel better knowing that I'm at least helping the environment just a little bit.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually quite sad, by trying to help the earth's enviroment we're actually doing nothing. anything you get payed to recycle is good, but papers and plastic are not, so looks like we need to come up with a way to make recycling these effiecnet and worth the time to recycle.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I had never looked into the whole recycling process so this was definitely a shock to see. While I agree that recycling some materials is good for the environment, if we are spending more on other resources, I would rather have that be optional. Not everyone wants to spend their tax money on something that they don’t truly believe in but there are others who wouldn’t mind, I think if we gave people the choice on the matter, the recycling companies wouldn’t take a big hit because there would still be people willing to recycle. I for one recycle when I can but now I will try to recycle only those resources that will actually cost less money to reuse.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very hard argument for me, because for as long as I can remember, I've been told that recycling is good for the environment. Now that there's evidence against that, it's still hard to give up because it seems like the obviously right thing to do. I had no idea there was so many negative effects of recycling and that landfills actually produce energy and that using more paper actually gets more trees planted. All of this info was new to me and pretty amazing, but if these things are true, maybe we should tell people NOT to recycle anymore.
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