Magicians Penn and Teller are whizzes when it comes to performing offbeat, weird, funny and gross sleights of hand and other tricks. But they’re neither scientists nor fair and objective journalists (not that many of today’s so-called “mainstream” journalists are either). So it pays to view their scam- and myth-debunking efforts with a healthy dose of critical thinking.
Case in point: their Showtime channel program, “Bullshit!” I’ve watched most of the early episodes, and they’re highly entertaining, because that’s what Penn and Teller are: entertainers. But their fact-checking and analyses can leave much to be desired, as when — for example — they “debunk” global warming with the help of libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute ,.. without turning to real scientific sources like say, oh, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Their 2004 episode slamming recycling has been garnering big Internet traffic and lots of social networking hits … presumably because a lot of people take glee in seeing enviro-minded hippies put in their place. There are a few problems with the episode, though:
Recycling is B.S. … Except When It’s Not
After spending about 15 minutes making the case against recycling — it’s unnecessary, we’re not running out of resources, it costs more than it’s worth, it creates pollution — Penn and Teller acknowledge, yeah, it makes sense to recycle aluminum cans and other metals. So recycling isn’t entirely B.S., even in their eyes.
(The photo accompanying this post, by the way, is of cow dung cakes drying in the sun. In places like Punjab, India, where this picture was taken, even B.S., apparently, is not B.S. but a valuable source of fuel and fertilizer.)
Everything is Relative
At one point in the recycling episode, Penn and Teller rail on about the pointlessness of recycling plastics, which they say will make sense only when “there’ll be money for street people in picking up plastic.” You know what? There is … in the poorest slums of India, Bangladesh and other developing countries. It’s not that there’s no money in recyclables … it’s that a couple of pennies doesn’t make much difference to the average U.S. resident, which that amount could mean the difference between eating or not for a seven-year-old rag-picker in Mumbai.
The Times, They Are a’Changing
To bolster their arguments, Penn and Teller cite a 2004 study on recycling myths by Clemson University economist Daniel K. Benjamin. Benjamin identifies myth number five as this: “We squander irreplaceable resources when we don’t recycle.” And then, he continues, “What about non-renewable resources such as fossil fuel? Here, too, there is no reason to fear that we will run out. Despite repeated forecasts by the federal government and others that we shall soon run out of oil, it hasn’t happened. Indeed, as we continue to use more oil, the standard measures of proven oil reserves get larger, not smaller.”
Reading that today, in mid-2008, does any part of that paragraph strike you as, um, a bit off? (Hint: $147 a barrel crude.)
So maybe oil’s the exception, right? Except, maybe not. Also making the news for their increasing scarcity are gallium, indium, hafnium, platinum, helium, zinc, copper and, oh, water.
Recycling is Just One Piece of the Puzzle
Finally, I’ll grant the magical duo this: “recycling” alone isn’t the answer to our environmental and resource challenges. “Reduce” and “reuse” are also critical. By making plastic bottles that are thinner and lighter, for example, beverage companies could use 30 percent less resin and save about $1.5 billion on year on raw materials. And if the U.S. could start imitating some parts of Europe, we wouldn’t need to recycle … we could simply refill.
Of course, there will still always be some people who think refilling, reducing and reusing are B.S. too. Sigh.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Shirley Siluk Gregory
Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism. After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era. Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning. Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.
7 Responses to Recycling is B.S.? B.S.!
Click on a tab to select how you'd like to leave your comment
Recycling is incredibly important, today more than before. It makes me happy to discover resources such as this on the net today offering free information for the public. I really wish there were more individuals making such positive contributions to the net. Thanks for the article.
Oil is flat-priced (or there abouts) in real terms. The problem is the Dollar, not its scarcity, even though it ultimately is scarce.
Of course the saddest part is that way too many people believe the last paragraph, and all the junk that gets spewed by those who only care about themselves and the present.
Well, of course scarce resources mean nothing to us in America…until it strikes our wallets.
Kendra: LOL!!!!
My friends were just in Las Vegas and met Penn & Teller. Penn was in a bad mood. Maybe he read this post.
I think they had a very good point when it came to paper, it’s a renewable resource that is really easy for us to break down and return to the ecosystem. The majority of our paper is harvested from trees grown for that specific purpose.
There are a lot of grey areas, like plastics, which isn’t economical to be recycled now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we are digging it out of the dumps in a few years.
Metals make a ton of sense to recycle, they are fairly easy to melt down and turn into other things.
Either way they set out to make a show which argues a point, and they generally do it in a way that is entertaining. I appreciate the view that is not commonly held, and I appreciate that someone takes it.
Their latest episode on NASA is really good and I think you should take a look at it.