Chasing the Sun

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You know, I'm all for conservation. But within reason, and until now.

In Oregon, trash recycling is optional. But if you chose to recycle, you must follow some instructions first. All recyclable material must first be separated from general household waste. But first, empty bottles, jars, and cans must be rinsed. Clean paper, most cardboard, and the cans and glass are collected by the rubbish company and sold for a profit, which they keep. In other words, we do most of the sorting, spend our own money to rinse the cans and glass, all so that someone can keep the revenue.

Aluminum cans and plastic drink bottles bought in Oregon, can be brought to a can crushing location and redeemed for the deposit paid. However, the cans and bottles must be clean and in good enough condition for a scanner to read the bar code to verify it was purchased in Oregon. That means the ones that are dented, scratched, or otherwise, that can not be scanned, are rejected and the only option is to send them to the landfill. That includes the ones brought into Oregon from another state.

It seems that the recycling program is all about profit. Don't you think?

So, the same holds true for a whole lot of other government funded programs. Like funding for the auto makers to produce electric vehicles. Did you know that for every electric vehicle sold in America, is cost taxpayers spent 240 Thousand dollars in money for research and development, fueling stations, and rebates to those willing to purchase a car? Someone making money at the taxpayer's expense.

The same can be said for government funded medical research. Billions are funneled to those companies to discover treatments, and new drugs. Yet the medical and drug companies reap and retain huge rewards from their discoveries, which the taxpayers paid for.

Such can be also said for green energy such as solar, wind, nuclear, and oil exploration. Solyndra goes broke, we pay the price. Oil companies make huge of profits on oil that we paid them to discover. These grants are all over us and are costing us big. And on top of that, President Obama has refused to allow oil drilling in the areas that we paid the companies to find.

Enough is enough. I'm done with spending my time and money recycling trash only for someone else to make money. Since it is still optional here, I'm opting out and will let my elected officials and others know about it. I will not support any government funded program that leads to the profit making of someone else rather than being returned to the taxpayers.

I've had enough.
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