RECYCLING: A "WASTE" OF TIME?

Clare: Not to sound dramatic, but there is nothing more terrifying than an educated individual who claims he doesn't believe in recycling. Even more threatening is how many are walking around this campus. Have they seen WALL-E, I wonder?

Andrew: I understand that recycling is trendy. Al Gore told us all about it in "An Inconvenient Truth," but how long before this trend fades? It's hip right now, just like wearing a purple T-shirt in support of Darfur.

Clare: Do you enjoy imagining your children on a putrid planet of trash? Recycling excites and satiates me. Styrofoam is my Lucifer.

Andrew: If America goes for the McCain-Palin ticket, the green movement is deader than Ralph Nader's chance at the presidency.

Clare: Perhaps the most common argument against recycling is that the energy used to process reusable materials is greater than that used to create new products. However, this overlooks the fact that the materials themselves are not bottomless, and though it takes some energy to recycle them, nothing additional is being mined from the ground. Continuously harvesting raw materials is one of the most expensive and wasteful abuses of our environment.

Andrew: We all love to ride around in our hybrid Civics and flaunt our Whole Foods bags, but these are all empty gestures if we are not being responsible as consumers. Only hardcore environmentalists are making sure their cereal boxes are made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled goods and recycling every Post-It, nothing is going to change. We're just too damn lazy.

Clare: Recycling is like sex: The more we do it, the better it gets. Cities are developing recycling systems that are increasingly efficient with regards to both environmental and economic costs. As the demand for and use of a certain material grows, the technology becomes more proficient. And the materials themselves become more valuable: Aluminum from cans, for example, is increasingly refined the more times it is recycled.

Andrew: The demand for recycling might seem like its growing, and maybe in Oregon it is. But take a look around the rest of the country. Between December 2006 and May 2007, the city of Durham was mixing yard waste and trash and then incinerating it-a big no-no for the green world. Portland isn't the benchmark for the rest of the country.