U.S. Economy In Recession; Women, Minorities, and Bullshit Artists Hardest Hit [Vinnie]

I'm the evilest of evil Conservatives. I recycle nothing. Not a single can, plastic bottle, nor newspaper goes into our recycle bin. As a matter of fact, ever since our city put out recycle bins, ours has sat at the side of the house, doing nothing, because the whole recycling thing is one big scam. The only thing that would make me more evil would be clubbing baby Harp seals for their fur. If any moron wants to pony up the dough for a trip up north, though, I'm there.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Norm Steenstra's budgeting worries mount with each new load of cardboard, aluminum cans and plastics jugs dumped at West Virginia's largest county recycling center.

Faced with a dramatic slump in the recycling market, the director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority has cut 20 of his 24 employees' work week to four days from five, shuttered six of the authority's drop-off stations and is urging residents to hoard their recyclables after informing municipalities with curbside recycling programs that the center will accept only paper until further notice.

"The market is just not there anymore," Steenstra said.

Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables.

Why isn't there a market there? Because recycling is an expensive amount of utter bullshit foisted upon us by the EPA. Penn and Teller do a nice job of exposing this bullshit in their episode of, well, Bullshit. All three parts below the fold.

See you next Open Blog.

posted by xgenghisx at 12:29 AM

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