To celebrate America Recycles Day, the Tellus Institute published a study showing the benefits of increased recycling, by force if necessary. The Tellus Institute’s mission is “to advance the transition to a sustainable, equitable, and humane global civilization,” and has published 3,500 studies, analyses, and reports on everything from energy, water, sustainable communities, corporate social responsibility, and climate change.

Its latest study, “More Jobs, Less Pollution,” prepared for several interested parties including the BlueGreen Alliance, the Teamsters, and the SEIU, purports to provide strong evidence that an enhanced national recycling and composting strategy in the United States can significantly and sustainably [there’s that word again] address critical national priorities including climate change, lasting job creation, and improved health.

The term “sustainable development” was first used by the Brundtland Commission, which was convened by the United Nations in 1983 to address the issue of “the accelerating deterioration of the human environment” and to “consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more effectively with [those] environmental concerns.” There is a real threat here, but it is not from too little recycling. The real threat is the loss of freedom brought on by “sustainable development,” which is discussed by noted freedom advocate Tom DeWeese here. The Tellus report confirms that danger to freedom through its need for mandates (force and coercion) to “address” those “critical national priorities.”

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