Rethinking the Recycling Racket

Time Magazine breathlessly reports that America's recycling system is "broken" and badly in need of repair. But there's no indication that recycling advocates are prepared to confront the dirty little secrets of the racket, or to seriously rethink this economically- and ecologically-dubious concept.

Recyclists are doing what progressives always do when confronted with failure; they're doubling down on the dumb, while looking to shift the burden onto "business," which ultimately means . . . . consumers.

What "broke" America's sham recycling system? Two things, really.

First, with only a few exceptions to this rule, recycling doesn't make much economic or environmental sense. And it never has. But recycling is all about feeling good and virtue-signaling, so whether it works or not is irrelevant to green panacea-pushers. To pronounce American-style recycling "broken" presumes that it at some point worked. But you can't break something that's been broken from inception. 

The second thing that "broke" the system was China, which exposed this massive scam for what it was by abruptly declining to continue as a dumping ground -- out of sight, out of mind -- for America's "recyclables."

This system doesn't need "fixing." It needs rethinking, which has never been the strong suit of rabid recyclists.