Recycling Archives - Granite Grok

OPINION: The State Behind the Recycling Bin

October 3, 2026 Thiago V. S. Coelho

Alex Chalmers and Rob Wiblin’s “Just bury your trash” challenges a durable assumption of modern environmentalism: that recycling is intrinsically virtuous while landfill represents failure. Their evidence supports a more selective view. Recycling metals often makes excellent sense, and some clean plastics can be worth recovering. But many other materials require more labor, energy, water, … Read more

GrokTALK!: The EPA, EVs Evolve, And Dems Hate America

September 7, 2026 GrokTALK!

This week, on GrokTALK!, Trump’s EPA tries to save recycling by reclassifying it as a manufacturing process instead of waste management. I’ve also got some great news about the next generation of Electric Vehicles. Plus a rant on how Democrat behavior, from Climate Cult antics to AI scaremongering, proves they hate America and Americans. 00:00 … Read more

An Inconvenient Truth About Recycling

March 10, 2024 Steve MacDonald

The New Republic was gobsmacked by a 2022 report that claimed only 5-6% of plastics entering the recycling stream in America were actually recycled. Most of them are relocated until they end up in landfills, incinerated, or in a turtle’s nose photo-op.

What’s the Carbon Footprint Of Maine’s 19-Page Container Redemption Modernization Law?

July 16, 2024June 8, 2023 Steve MacDonald

The internet machine coughed up a letter to the editor of the Bangor daily news. The law would update how the state pretends recycling is good for Maine or the planet. My first thought? How much carbon will they emit before it’s over?

Replacing Single-Use Plastic with Single-Use Paper Is Worse for The Planet™

May 8, 2023 Steve MacDonald

Democrats everywhere have a list of things. Once elected, appointed, or hired into the bureaucracy, the job is to check the boxes even if they make no sense or contradict the stated policy goal. And none of them make any sense, and all of them contradict the advertised outcome.

Greenpeace Admits That Recycling Doesn’t Work and is Probably Worse for “The Environment™”

November 3, 2022 Steve MacDonald

When lefty green meanies issue mea culpa’s, it makes for good blogging, but I always remain skeptical. Take Michael Moore, for example. Planet of the Humans made it clear that neither wind nor solar was viable or capable. A fool’s errand, yet the Left has tripled down on the agenda. So, what’s the point?

Gummy Bears He added: “The beauty of our resin system is that at the end of its use cycle, we can dissolve it, and that releases it from whatever matrix it’s in so that it can be used over and over again in an infinite loop. That’s the goal of the circular economy.”

Innovation Alert: Wind Turbine Blades You Can “Recycle” Into Gummy Bears?

August 24, 2022August 24, 2022 Steve MacDonald

There are cleaner ways to burn fossil fuels and capable carbon capture research that has produced scalable solutions to CO2 “pollution” if you think that’s a problem. Researchers in Michigan created a composite resin for Wind Turbine Blades that can be “recycled” into gummy bears.

A Response to the Kensington Selectboard and Casalla Trash Contracts

September 11, 2021 Skip

FROM: Michael L. Johnson. SUBJECT: Review of Two Documents Relative to 35-Gallon Recycle Carts Provided to the Author by the Town of Kensington.

Merrimack Mandates Masks in their Recycling Center – Why?

January 2, 2021 Steve MacDonald

Neither medical masks nor cloth face coverings are designed to stop the spread of a flu virus. The few studies ginned up to give some credence to the claim that they can or will are outnumbered by dozens more that say no. So, why has my town’s recycling facility demanded you wear them?

Quick Reminder About Just How Bad Wind Power is for the Planet

August 16, 2021September 28, 2020 Steve MacDonald

Look up dirty wind, and you’ll find plenty to read on these pages, but not everyone has that sort of time. But wind power is dirty, and it’s not a secret, except that the left does not want to talk about it.

And now we’re back to the Scott Dunn Monument to Economic Illiteracy (otherwise known as the Gilford Recycling Center) – Part 2

June 29, 2020 Skip

Well, I’m not letting the speed of return responses from my Right To Know requests get the better of me yet although I AM pleased that they aren’t being slow rolled. To recap, what I asked for: Revenues to date for this fiscal year (GL account line item for the last budget process: 01-3404-917) Fees … Read more

Wind Power isn’t Just Dirty and Inefficient – You Can’t Recycle the Turbine Blades

February 9, 2020February 9, 2020 Steve MacDonald

As New Hampshire muddles through another statewide power outage energy and electricity are on people’s minds. So, is this a good time to point out another issue with green energy policy (in NH and elsewhere). Wind Turbine blades can’t be recycled. Ever.

Recycling trash? It doesn’t pay at all as advertised; it’s just another form of religion

January 15, 2020January 15, 2020 Skip

Scott Dunn’s monument to economic illiteracy (the Gilford Recycling Center) will lose close to $7million over the next 10 years.

Notable Quote – EXACTLY my complaint against the Gilford Selectmen

January 6, 2020 Skip

Emphasis mine: Careful observers often and correctly note that, for many of its adherents, environmentalism is a religion. Too many environmentalists disregard inconvenient truths that would undermine their faith that calamities are percolating just over the horizon. It might well be that humans’ “footprint” on the Earth is larger than ever; it might even be … Read more

Gilford – Take our money for a Transfer Station THEN make recycling mandatory? Part 2

January 1, 2020 Skip

I did my initial rant here. Did you know that our new Recycling Center is now going to have a firing range (supposed to be for law enforcement but why stop there – if the taxpayers are paying for the facility, why not the rest of us?), and a boat storage area (probably for the … Read more

“Lawmakers Fatal Conceit on Recycling Should Be Trashed”

January 1, 2020December 31, 2019 Skip

My hamlet has just decided to force mandatory recycling on everyone in town (and they didn’t have to. They could have just said that IF you are going to recycle, here’s where what stuff goes where.

Tales from the Selectboard – “sure, ve haff der Power to make you verk for free fer der Recyling Center”

December 31, 2019 Skip

So last night was the Selectboard’s Public Meeting on the Recycling Center / Transfer Station: Rules, Regulations, and Fines. And what fine Fines they are! Here’s the paperwork / package that was prepped for the meeting. Again, to set the stage, twice the Selectboard put in warrants for the money to build out this place: … Read more

Waste-to-energy is the solution to the trash problem

December 6, 2019December 6, 2019 Doug

Regarding the recycling center in Gilford, this whole project has been a boondoggle of the highest degree. As the entire recycling industry crashes and burns, Gilford dives in headfirst … to an EMPTY pool. Once again, government is a day late and a dollar short in providing a “solution” to a “problem” that doesn’t exist, … Read more

Gilford: Money, Monopoly, and Mandatory – what a Mess for Trash and Recycling

November 29, 2019 Op-Ed

BY RICK NOTKIN

MY ERROR! I failed to swap the actual writer’s name for mine – that has been corrected and I apologize to those that thought I wrote this when it was Rick Notkin. My humblest apologies. It has been corrected and bumped

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Let’s see if I understand the situation in Gilford. The town is dissatisfied with the arrangement with Laconia for disposal of trash, so they decided to build a combined trash/recycling center at the recycling site.

Tales from the BudComm – Should Gilford’s new Recycle Center be named “Monument to Economic Illiteracy”? Or…

November 20, 2019 Skip

“A place where Ideology reigns over money”? Or, “Scott Dunn’s Taj Mahal” (Scott Dunn being the Town Administrator and the main pusher for Gilford’s new Recycle Center / Transfer Station. Sigh…and now the bill has has come due. But not the one you might think. In the beginning, it sounded OK – time to leave … Read more