Environmental damage by Meme

[AWPrime]

Which Memes or types of Memes promote damaging ones own environment (example: desertification)?

[YoPopa]

Which Memes or types of Memes promote damaging ones own environment (example: desertification)?I often argue with my close friends that their strict obedience to the god of recycling has an overall negative impact on the environment.

The most extreme example is a friend who has been known to save her newspapers at the summer residence in Maine and then add them to her car's load to drive them to the winter place in Florida. The Maine residence doesn't have an easy paper recycling program and the Florida residence does. What she burns in extra fuel alone should be an obvious killer for this but she can't see it.

Paper recycling in general is counter-productive, IMHO, to the goal of sequestering carbon. It would make more sense to me to bury the paper in local landfills.

Is this what you are thinking about?

[kevin]

Paper recycling in general is counter-productive, IMHO, to the goal of sequestering carbon. It would make more sense to me to bury the paper in local landfills.

This would depend on the energy consumed in producing new paper (and landfilling) vs. energy consumed in recycling (and transporting to recycler).

[YoPopa]

This would depend on the energy consumed in producing new paper (and landfilling) vs. energy consumed in recycling (and transporting to recycler).Perhaps I should have added the word "usually" or "often" as in "It would often make more sense to bury the paper in local landfills."

Of course the total energy equation needs to be considered. The easiest way for a lay person to evaluate the total equation is to look at the bottom line financially. We were promised years ago that if recycling became commonplace then the recycling companies would become cost competitive. That has not happened for many recycling programs.