DOSC TWiki snapshot as of mid-2005
Why don't we all recycle stuff more?
Actually, the reason why I created this node is because I was wondering about recycling. The thing is that in order to recycle something, we usually have to expend a certain amount of effort. Now, in certain applications such as metalwork, scraps of fine metals are saved and melted down because they are worth quite a significant amount. But the average Dartmouth student doesn't want to take the time to take the metal cap off their bottle of SmirnoffIce? and put it in metal recycling (or SmirnoffIceTripleBlack? -- that's what I'm drinking right now... :-). To then have to go and then go put the glass bottle in glass recycling is just way too much effort for them. They want to mix in the party, grid against other nubile persons and.... well, you get the picture. So really, recycling can be seen as detrimental to one's social life, which is why it's not happening so much... But what I've been wondering about is WasteProcessing?. Like when you throw out a trashcan full of garbage, and then they take it away. How do we recycle that? Indeed, in California, IIRC, all of the recyclables go in a trash can ... all mixed together. They can separate the different items in many ways (just think back to high-school chemistry and physics). What seems important for the future -- something that potentially we could try at Dartmouth -- is the use of waste separation processes. No one wants to have three or five or eight bins in every room on campus, and especially in a corporate setting it is just not "cool" to tell Suits to put their pop cans in the recycling can, not in the trash. But we can change that: if we work on new methods to separate these cast-off products, then I think that we could make a lot of headway in recycling. Because of the wide array of things that people do throw out, these processes would have to be carefully crafted so that we don't further harm the environment by releasing harmful gasses and chemicals or wasting immense quantities of power.