Plain Ol' Stupid

Recently, I stepped into the hallway of my hotel (Hampton Inn, Raleigh, NC, which by the way, was quite nice) and saw this bag of garbage.  It kinda bummed me out.  It wasn't the garbage in the hall that offended me.  It was the the CONTENTS of the bag of garbage in the hall.  The bag was filled with aluminum beer cans.  I didn't object to the beer, it was the discarded cans that bothered me.  The hotel had recycling containers!  Aluminum is one of the most easily and effectively recycled materials on the planet.  Every new aluminum can that's made from recycled materials, uses only 10% (sometimes less) of the energy required to make a new aluminum can from virgin materials.  That's a HUGE savings of energy and raw materials, and energy and raw materials savings is good for America, good for business, and good for the planet.  So NOT recycling your aluminum cans is what we Alabama folks like to call "plain ol' stupid".  The wasted beer cans in this photo represent enough energy to run your TV set for several hours.  It's the same as siphoning fuel out of your car and dumping it right down the drain.  So if this "Bonehead Barney" (I actually used a much more colorful name for him, but there were no women or children present at the time) wants another six pack of beer, here's what is going to have to happen.  The bauxite ore to make the aluminum can will have to be mined and the ore transported. It will be combined with coke, purified, melted into ingots, purified, shipped to a manufacturer of aluminum, melted, rolled, shipped again, formed into cans, shipped again, filled with beer, shipped again, where he will buy more beer.  Notice all the steps (and energy and resources) that could have been saved along the way if Barney had chosen to recycle his cans.  Had he chosen to recycle these cans, 90% (probably even more) of the energy needed to make a NEW can from an OLD can would have been saved.   So the next time you drink from an aluminum can... don't be plain ol' stupid.  RECYCLE THOSE ALUMINUM CANS.  It's the smart thing to do.