What is the object and is this being achieved?

WITH the massive national surge towards recycling prompted by Government policy and local council initiatives I am always left with a nagging doubt in my mind. I have never seen the fundamentals of the process set down in a concise article of valuation. What is the object and is this being achieved? Does it really contribute to saving our beautiful planet or is it a politically driven sop to our consciences that our politicians and each of us is actively doing something positive to help?To enable the recycling process to happen many additional vehicles have to be manufactured and continuously make enormous numbers of extra journeys to collect and deliver the various segments of household waste for processing. Many new processing plants have been manufactured and will be continuously powered to effect the treatment of collected materials.All these parts of the operations have required additional labour and administration workers most of whom will travel to and from work by car. The storage of so many different sorts of household waste materials has created the need for the manufacture of numerous types of containers, their separate collection and processing. Replacement will be ongoing.Is disposing of household waste into holes in the ground so terrible when modern methods of lining and monitoring are carried out. Many such areas can be subsequently reusable for leisure activities and often obscure long standing scenic eyesores. Also, surely by now the incineration process can be made to work with reasonable, acceptable levels of waste gases.Have we all been channelled down the recycling route because politicians find it hard to tackle ever mounting waste problems at source i.e. the manufacturers, suppliers and supermarkets? The old maxim of prevention is better than cure is still true. I would guess household waste contributes to less that 20 per cent of all waste generated compared to industrial and commercial waste. If we are all genuinely concerned about the effect our human activities are having, then we must all feel some sacrifices in our cosy lives may be necessary. To help me decide the real value of recycling in the list of priorities of actions that could be taken I would love to see a summation of the benefits to our planet based solely on factual statistics and not environmental hopes and aspirations. ROB ASHBEE - Via email