Ireadthenewstoday

Lets say as an anology, there was a plant that you needed to eat part of to sustain life, and there was a limited quantity of these plants in existence. By a little extra effort you could re-grow the life sustaining edible part of this plant by saving the part you don't eat and re-planting it. Yet, every where you went people and their leaders were too stupid or lazy to worry about re-using the unedible part and just tossed it in the garbage. And even more maddening the price of the edible part kept getting higher because it's demand was growing and it's supply shrinking. "62 percent of US oil is imported". If Iran or the Saudi's cut back dramatically the sale of their oil to the US, we would have a economic and social disaster far worse than 9/11 and Katrina. Yet there is not one politician, Republican or Democrat talking about the importance of recycling as an immediate solution to our oil dependency. "Recycling one ton of plastic saves, on average, the energy equivilent of 197 gallons of gasoline". "It takes 390 gallons of oil to produce one ton of paper. " I was recently at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. It was estimated there was over 150,000 in attendance at the 4 day trade show. It would be a sure bet (and there are few of those in Vegas) that every one of those attendees drank 1 to 4, minimum, plastic bottles full of water. Because in Vegas as in most US cities plastic bottles have replaced drinking fountains. Where do you think those plastic bottles went when empty? Not in any recycling bins, because if they exist they are invisible in the hotels, casinos and at the convention centers. I tried hard to find a recycling spot for my empty bottles but ended up dumping them in the trash, which was literally overflowing with empty bottles and paper and plastic containers. I repeat...."It takes 390 gallons of oil to produce one ton of paper", "Recycling one ton of plastic saves on average the energy equivilent of 197 gallons of gasoline". the next time you are in a fast food restraunt, McDonalds, Burger King, etc. ; where everything you order whether you eat it there or take it with you comes in some type of recyclible container just look around for a place to recycle the containers? Instead you will see garbage containers loaded to the brim with potential replacement oil recyclibles, headed for the nearest dump. Lets put recycling at the top of the list of immediate solutions to our oil dependency. but here are a couple of other immediate fixes to cutting back US oil dependency on the Middle East. These stats are from the San Diego Union 12/28 brilliant article called "Crude Numbers". "If the tires of all cars on the U.S. roads were properly inflated , it would save an estimated 2 billion gallons of gas each year". "The amount of energy leaking from American windows each year is equivilent to 820 million barrels of oil . But if we had a President offering and enforcing these solutions Chevron wouldn't have made $14 billion in profit last year, gas wouldn't cost $2.50 a gallon and Iran wouldn't be half the threat they are.