England is screwed. We even have a label that says so.
But.... what the heck? Anyone want to play a little "Nine bins"?
All resources are either substitutable, or renewable, except.... ONE. Our time. That's the one thing we can't get more of. Yet the envirophiles want to waste all our time on religious ceremonies to worship Gaia.
(Nod to the NCM)
10 comments:
Life imitates Penn & Teller:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3CZBDz7Wg
What a great article. This is my favorite part:
Retired teacher Sylvia Butler is already being forced to follow the new rules.
She said: 'I'm all for recycling and used to help educate the kids about it during my geography classes but expecting us to cope with nine different bins and bags is asking too much.'
LOLZ. That is exactly what you get Ms. Butler. This should be a law: Abuse the educational process to indulge your whims and get put into 9 bin hell or its equivalent!
Ha, I immediately thought of the Penn & Teller skit as well.
It will be interesting to see how much "better" the world gets for everyone now that green religion is becoming the status quo.
Indeed, Angus. That is my favorite part as well. Perhaps the pro-recycling folks should be tapped to sort the trash for folks with something better to do.
The predictable result of this is much more illegal dumping. Starting in T-...
To Sylvia Butler I'll quote Fox Mulder from the X-files:
"You think you can call up the devil and ask him to behave?"
david...it's BECAUSE recycling has become the status quo that there are now 9 bins. If it's simple, it's not doing anything.
See how much I care? I'm using 12 bins!!
In a paper entitled “Examining the Justification for Residential Recycling,” under the section heading “Lessons for Policy,” Kinnaman (2006) develops a model that accounts for the cost of the recycling program in various localities, and subtracts that cost from:
"[A]ctive-use benefits to households [that] vary between $7.57 per household per month in Tempe, Arizona, to as low as $4.06 in Inglewood, California. If the net benefits of providing a curbside recycling program (the benefits to participating households minus the operating costs) are not positive for all communities, then curbside recycling is not beneficial in all municipalities (223)"
Earlier in the paper, Kinnaman relates that these “active-use benefits” consist of “primarily warm-glow utility gained by recycling households” (220).
So, the justification for wasting tax dollars is that households can have their spine unfused enough that they can kiss their own green asses. And, though this is not in Kinnaman, it follows that if you aren't doing *more* than the minimum, probably even more than your neighbor, you get a lower utility from your actions.
Ain't cost-benefit great?
"All resources are either substitutable, or renewable, except.... ONE. Our time. That's the one thing we can't get more of."
As far as I'm concerned, time = life expectancy, and that surely isn't fixed. Not that I'm saying that recycling is going to add more to my life expectancy than it costs. Just sayin'.
The push to recycle comes from a study which showed that the 2001 cost of dealing with domestic waste of £1.6 billion would rise to £3 billion or more by about now.
These complex recycling schemes cost a household 30 to 45 minutes a week in time. With 24 million households, 452 weeks in hte year, this is some 900 million hours. At min wage this is a cost of £5 billion or so.
Spending £5 billion to save £1.4 billion just isn't very sensible.
Tim says "Spending £5 billion to save £1.4 billion just isn't very sensible." Tim is wise, but he doesn't think like a bureaucrat (I know: redundant!).
GovThink: The £1.4 billion saved is coming from "my budget" -- important! The £5 billion is an additional tax on the people -- so what?
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