Hi Daniel and thanks for your comment.
Perhaps I could have been clearer, but my thought is that even in today’s mixed economy, there’s no reason to consider recycling as a whole, nor to have an opinion on it as a separate and distinct category of action. I think you should weigh and evaluate each potential act of recycling just as you would any other economic decision, i.e. according to whether it is to your benefit or not. There is no point forming a principle “I should always recycle” or “I should never recycle” since there is nothing peculiar to recycling which makes it universally good or universally bad. For example, in most cases, you probably should resell your cars and houses rather than throwing them away, while on the other hand, if you have to travel 50 miles to return bottle caps to a recycling center, you’re probably better off not to recycle them and simply throw them away.
So as I see it, the only principles you need are those which you already have viz. if a given exchange or action is worthwhile to you, you should pursue it, if not you shouldn’t. Whether or not the action or exchange is subsumed under the term “recycling” won’t help you make the decision, so I maintain that there is no point or validity to having a global “position” on recycling, even in today’s society.
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Posted by Amit Ghate to Thrutch at 8/27/2005 03:39:36 PM
Perhaps I could have been clearer, but my thought is that even in today’s mixed economy, there’s no reason to consider recycling as a whole, nor to have an opinion on it as a separate and distinct category of action. I think you should weigh and evaluate each potential act of recycling just as you would any other economic decision, i.e. according to whether it is to your benefit or not. There is no point forming a principle “I should always recycle” or “I should never recycle” since there is nothing peculiar to recycling which makes it universally good or universally bad. For example, in most cases, you probably should resell your cars and houses rather than throwing them away, while on the other hand, if you have to travel 50 miles to return bottle caps to a recycling center, you’re probably better off not to recycle them and simply throw them away.
So as I see it, the only principles you need are those which you already have viz. if a given exchange or action is worthwhile to you, you should pursue it, if not you shouldn’t. Whether or not the action or exchange is subsumed under the term “recycling” won’t help you make the decision, so I maintain that there is no point or validity to having a global “position” on recycling, even in today’s society.
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Posted by Amit Ghate to Thrutch at 8/27/2005 03:39:36 PM
posted by Amit Ghate | 3:41 PM
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