Forced Recycling Is A Scam

(This is a video presentation of the following analysis)

I wanted to make this report on the problems of the bottle deposit program but I first must make this fact clear:  In Connecticut, and many other places that have this program, you do not earn five cents for returning a can, bottle, or glass, you REDEEM five cents.  This means that you, or whoever bought the drink, had to pay an extra five cents for each bottle at the register, at the time of purchase, and only when you bring back your bottle do you get that five cents back.  It seems as if this is something that shouldn't have to be explained but you would be surprised at how many people still do not understand how this works.

Moving on, earlier this year there were reports that the state of Connecticut wanted to raise the bottle deposit up from five cents to ten cents.  Also this year in relation to the bottle deposit, a bill was introduced in the state legislature that would drop the deposit of five cents and replace it with a non redeemable tax of four cents, as well as a bill that would require beverage distributors to pay a higher handling fee to bottle redemption centers.  Instead of going over the intricacies of these proposals, I think it would be much better to simply explain how the bottle deposit program is just another revenue generating scam by the state.

First it needs to be understood that empty cans, plastic, and glass bottles don't really have any value.  If it was cheaper to create new bottles out of recycled bottles than it was to create them from scratch, bottle manufacturers would be paying you for the empty bottles.  In other words, if you could actually make something of value out of your used bottles, at a profit, the state wouldn't need to force you to recycle, there would be a market for them, people would be offering you money for your empty bottles.  As an example of this, the state doesn't need to force people to recycle copper, or other forms of scrap metal because the cost of recycling these things is currently cheaper than the cost of manufacturing them from scratch.  Because of this people will come and take the metal from a garbage pile on your sidewalk for free, or go into your house uninvited to steal your copper pipes.

The time and money that it takes to collect recycled bottles, truck them to a location, sort them, clean them, and actually begin the recycling process is highly inefficient and cannot be done at a cost that would make this process profitable.  A representative from the Coca Cola Company testifying against one of the proposed bottle bills briefly describes the problem his company faces:

"Though our industry sells tens of millions of dollars in bottle bill scrap from Connecticut, the revenue does not come close to balancing the inherent expense our industry faces in fuel, energy and handling fees … nor does it compensate for the sub-optimization of our delivery routes and warehouse space, as a lot of time and space is required to handle containers for processing."

Of course this is all done under the guise of protecting the environment but when you factor in the fossil fuel used to move these recyclables around, the energy used at these recycle facilities, the water used to clean the empty bottles, and other aspects of the process, it could leave a person questioning whether this is really helping the environment at all.  And while many environmentalists support these forced recycling projects and any project that has the stated goal to conserve resources, they seem to neglect the most important resource of all, the one that we can't make more of; time.  Every moment of the process, from you bringing your bottles to the redemption center to the recycled plastic being turned into something is time lost that could have been used to do something more productive or preferential.

The Problems with Connecticut Climate Change Policy - Part 3: The War on Cars

(This is a video presentation of the following analysis.)
(Click here for an .mp3 download of this presentation)

In the first two parts of this series we discussed the fallacy that man-made global warming is a fact, as well as how the methodologies that the state is using to calculate its supposed effects are not accurate.  We are now going to examine one of the proposals that is constantly offered by state officials as a combative action towards fighting man-made global warming; the reduction of private motor vehicles.

Regular readers of The Goodman Chronicle are already aware that the state of Connecticut has a policy of reducing private motor vehicle usage.  A recent example of this happened on December 3, 2014, when Connecticut state officials met with "transportation advocates" to discuss the future of transportation in Connecticut.  The discussion mainly focused on ways to further restrict private motor vehicle ownership, and usage, through measures such as an increase in the gasoline tax, toll roads, and more.

This analysis will show, using Connecticut climate change documents, how this anti-car philosophy in the state is derived from the idea that man-made global warming is a real and pressing issue in our society.

(It should be pointed out in the beginning of this analysis that this desire to reduce the amount of private motor vehicles is only one part of a much larger plan to concentrate people into highly regulated, dense neighborhoods, with public transportation being the main form of transportation.  This type of centralized planning is known as "smart growth", and will receive its own analysis in a later section of this multi-series report.)

The state believes that they need to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) by one million metric tons per year, over the next forty years.  According to their calculations this is equivalent to the emissions from over 190,000 passenger vehicles each year.

One option that the state has considered to deal with the GHG coming out of vehicles is to increase the taxes on cars that emit high levels of GHG, and offer tax breaks to consumers who purchased low GHG emitting vehicles.  This is known as a feebate program.  As a result of this policy, governments hope to encourage auto manufacturers to produce cars with less GHG emission.  Connecticut has yet to pursue this policy, however the federal government does have a similar program that offers tax incentives to consumers of "eco-friendly" cars.

Encouraging car manufacturers to make cars with less GHG emission is an option that the state continues to pursue, however they admit that this will not be enough to reach their target goal, in terms of passenger vehicle GHG emission:

"Connecticut’s increasingly cleaner cars will be overshadowed by the fact that we continue to drive more"

Because making cars "cleaner" will not be enough to reduce GHG emission to the level that the state would like, they pursue a policy of forcing people out of their cars and onto public transportation.  This is done by increasing the cost of driving:

"Implement a tax on driving (gasoline, toll, or mileage-based insurance) that would be channeled in its entirety to a dedicated fund to subsidize mass transit, walking, and bicycling."

Throughout the Connecticut climate change documents, there are various tactics recommended to state agencies in an effort to discourage the use of private motor vehicles.  One of these tactics includes adding tolls to roads.  Formulas have been developed to calculate how much of an increase in the cost of driving is needed to reduce private motor vehicle trips, as can be seen by this excerpt taken from a 2004 state document pertaining to climate change:

"A recent Connecticut report completed an analysis of travel demand mode shifts that would result from a value-pricing toll of $0.20 per mile in the southwest Connecticut corridor.  ConnDOT’s travel-demand model predicted that this pricing measure alone would create a 6 percent reduction in drive-alone trips, an increase in new rail trips of 72 percent, and an increase in bus use of 25 percent. The results are consistent with the results of the 1994 COMSIS Transportation Control Measure study, which indicated that a highway value toll of $0.10 per mile was expected to reduce VMT by 3.5 percent." 

The 2005 Connecticut Climate Change Action Plan states that getting us out of our cars will not only be good for the environment, but it will also improve our health as a society.  The idea seems to be that if the state can get people to use their bicycle or walk instead of taking their car, this will have health improvements for the individual.

"Health benefits from increased mobility. Auto­centric development patterns have  decreased mobility among adults and children, reducing opportunities for walking and  bike riding. The Surface Transportation Policy Project released a report this year  demonstrating a statistically significant correlation between sprawl, obesity, and  hypertension. Research suggests that people in compact, mixed­use areas reap benefits from increased opportunities to integrate walking and biking into their everyday  routines.  Smart growth seeks to encourage centralized, mixed­use communities with well­ developed pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Given the myriad health costs associated with inactivity, creating opportunities for increased mobility through smart  growth has a clear (although unquantified in this analysis) economic value."

Of course taking your bicycle, or walking, to the park, on a nice sunny day, instead of using your car sounds like a nice idea, but when it is raining, cold, or snowing, and you have to get work, school, appointments, etc., waiting around for public transportation would be a terrible scenario, and in many cases, unfeasible.  The many positive benefits of having your own private motor vehicle is never stressed in these documents.

The possible list of quotes and citations from these Connecticut climate change documents pertaining to the reduction of private motor vehicles is nearly endless.  We could go on, but you get the point.  The state of Connecticut has taken the position that the Earth is warming, humans are causing the warming, and reducing the number of cars on the road will help stop the warming.

In the next analysis we will take an inquisitive look into the groups behind the creation of these policies and their curious connection with Rockefeller family-related organizations.

Previous reports on Connecticut climate change:

• The Problems with Connecticut Climate Change Policy - Part 1: Is Man-Made Global Warming Real?
• The Problems with Connecticut Climate Change Policy - Part 2: Inaccurate Data