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Comment by treis | Hacker News Reader

>while recycling is worthwhile,

I'm not sure it's that worthwhile for most things. Glass is made of sand, which we have plenty of. Cardboard is trees which are renewable. Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it. Metal is rarer and some of that is worthwhile to recycle but again not like we're running out of iron ore. We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in.

The thing we should focus on is carbon footprint. Reducing that is an immediate need and has long term benefits. We should not be burning more carbon to conserve the things we have plenty of.

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It appears your comment about sand is somewhat misguided. Sand is consumed a lot nowadays. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...

> Glass is made of sand, which we have plenty of.

On this point specifically, glass is made of a specific type of sand that is high in silica, which we are running out of: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191108-why-the-world-is...

Sure, I'm not arguing that we shouldn't recycle things when it makes economic sense. I just don't think it should be a goal in of itself. Or at least we should not be spending truly scare resources (mostly carbon capacity of the atmosphere) to conserve resources that aren't.

And recycling can be one strategy to reduce carbon footprint. E.g. it takes almost double the energy to turn sand+X into glass than re-melting and re-using existing glass (while also not needing to dig up more landscape to get sand, and covering more landscape in old glass).

It is a similar story for aluminum. It takes much less energy to re-use recycled aluminum than to manufacture new. [0, about 2/3 of the way down the page].

[0] https://www.aluminum.org/aluminum-advantage/facts-glance

Also the aluminum association is a trade organization so they are obviously promoting the use of aluminum. But still some of the facts are quite interesting.

The process of smelting ore has a significant carbon footprint that can be skipped entirely if you start with nearly-pure iron scrap.

It's a shame your comment has basically no replies, I'd like to read a counterpoint.

> Plastic is petroleum and it's probably better that we use it and bury it then burn it.

> We also have plenty of land to bury stuff in.

> The thing we should focus on is carbon footprint.

Is this a joke?

... No. Which part do you disagree with?

I'm finding a huge disparity with your ideas. Saying that we need not worry about using too much glass, paper, or plastic because we have plenty of sand, trees, and land to bury waste, then saying we need to reduce our carbon footprint doesn't make sense.

Do you not think creating waste and dumping it in landfills, in oceans, in nature, is part of our carbon footprint? Do you not think the processes to make and transport and dispose of these materials is part of our carbon footprint? Even if trees are renewable, we in no way are using them in a sustainable way. Another commenter also linked an article about running out of sand.

Recycling is not a good answer, even doing more harm than good, but that doesn't mean to give up on reducing and reusing. And I don't mean (only) at a consumer level. We need large scale industrial and societal changes in how manufacture, consume, and dispose of goods.

Carbon footprint refers to atmospheric carbon, typically combustion products. Burying carbon, assuming it stays buried, does not contribute to carbon footprint. It is in fact how fossil fuels were formed in the first place.

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