the wastelands

Well this situation really makes me think. With the research that I've done, I know that there are plastic bottle recycling facilities in this country but I don't doubt for a minute that Norfolk bottles have been going to Hong Kong to get recycled. If this is the case, what is the principle here? Do we recycle the bottles (which in itself uses energy for transportation and processing, wherever it is done)? Or do we allow landfills to overflow because it is energy inefficient to send them across the globe? Should we be insisting that we have a local plant that can cope with the demand or is it that we should be looking at our buying habits a little more closely and only purchase glass bottles?

Although the volume of the bottles must be huge, this must be reduced by crushing and the weight will be relatively small. I don't think this method is either green or cost effective but seems to be the only option we have at the moment and I would rather the bottles were recycled and maybe even at a cost until a more permanent solution is found.

With solutions, there always arises a new set of problems. For example, if we switch all our bottles to glass, what environmental cost will there be in the rise of fuel expenditure due to the extra weight? *sigh!*