If you love this planet

If you love this planet, you’ll put your glass straight into the garbage, not the recycling bin. Well, this may apply to Manitoba only.

I’d heard a few years ago that recycled glass was just being ground up and used for building roads at landfills. This was confirmed by a report I heard on CBC radio this morning. In addition, it turns out that “recyling” is more expensive than simply placing the glass in the landfill and bringing in gravel for the road. Also, glass does no environmental damage in a landfill. It’s totally inert.

So why do the recycling depots accept glass in the first place? Because there is a 2 cent levy on bottled beverages, including glass, and that levy funds the recyclers. In order to receive the funding, they must recycle all the packaging that is levied. Even if it is more environmentally damaging than not recycling it.

So, if you do have glass, it’s better to throw it in the trash, and have it transported straight to the dump, rather than to to the recycling plant, through the grinder, and then to the dump. Or even better, don’t buy stuff in glass bottles. Somebody bring back Pick-A-Pop, the real recycler!

[Update: OK, after I posted this, there were quite a few comments pointing out how I was full of shit, which were largely accurate. However, the comments were tragically destroyed in a database accident (honest!), so everyone will just have to figure out for themselves why I'm wrong.]