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Could recycling really harm the environment? In a recent policy document, “Recycling Myths Revisited,” Professor Daniel K. Benjamin, a senior researcher at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Mont., Argues that curbside recycling programs in the States -United wastes resources and probably does little, if any, for the benefit of the environment.
“It’s a waste to recycle when the costs to do it outweigh the benefits,” Benjamin told Big Think. “In most cities across the country, recycling garbage is, in fact, a waste, even if we take into account the meager environmental benefits of such recycling.”
Environmentalists often point to the success of recycled aluminum in advocating for public and local subsidies for municipal recycling, Benjamin says – but that’s because the reality is that aluminum cans, priced between a and five hundred, are on average the most valuable recyclable materials in your garbage. . (Producing aluminum cans from recycled aluminum saves around 90-95% of the energy used to make aluminum cans from scratch, a difference that is reflected in their relatively high resale value. .)
The rest, according to Benjamin, is mostly garbage. Using data from cost studies from Franklin Associates, a lifecycle assessment and solid waste management consulting firm that lists the EPA as one of its clients, Benjamin compared the costs of the three most common forms. Most common municipal solid waste management programs across the country: landfills, including a voluntary recycling deposit / buyback program; a basic curbside recycling program and an extensive curbside recycling program incorporating the latest recycling technologies. After cutting state and local subsidies for recycling programs, he found that in 2009, even after accounting for resold recycled materials, state-of-the-art recycling programs were costing on average. $ 199 per tonne of municipal solid waste, while landfill disposal cost only on average. $ 119.
Commercial recycling is worth it, Benjamin says, but curbside recycling spends “an excessive amount of capital and labor per pound of material” to reuse very low-value items. “The only things that intentionally end up in municipal solid waste,” writes Benjamin, “are both low value and expensive to reuse or recycle. Yet these are the items that municipal recycling programs are targeting ”.
When asked how the costs of curbside recycling compare to the costs of landfill disposal, in terms of money and the environment, EPA recycling spokesperson Tisha Petteway , said it depends on location and the supply and demand for recyclable materials. “Because recycling markets are very volatile and react very quickly to supply and demand, recycling companies will often only make money at certain times and try to survive downtime. Petteway told Big Think that “the EPA does not control the fluctuation in the prices of recycled materials, and during tough economic times many recycling programs will be affected, which can lead to the landfill of recyclable materials.” .
Carry
“Most local governments subsidize recycling programs through garbage collection surcharges or other taxes. This misleads people into believing that curbside recycling programs and other municipal recycling programs are conserving resources when in fact they are not, ”says Benjamin. Recycling costs up to 50% more per tonne than landfill. State and local municipalities should end this cross-subsidy, price garbage collection and recycling at a price that reflects their full costs, and let people voluntarily choose which system to use.
Why should we reject this
Eric Lombardi, CEO of Eco-Cycle, the largest zero waste social enterprise in the country, and co-author of a study entitled “Stop destroying the climate “, said taking into account the real costs of recycling, Professor Benjamin’s argument is” absurd. “” Recovering resources from our trash cans and remaking them saves energy and costs. ‘save money,’ says Lombardi. has been selling recyclable materials for 25 years. “
Downstream solutions – efforts at the end of the product’s lifecycle – are integral to recycling, says Lombardi, who says there is a market for 85% of “scrap” that goes into the trash. “Once we allow everyone in society to use three bins – one bin for clean recyclables, one bin for organics, and one bin for non-recyclable materials – instead of one for their own. waste, we will be able to recycle or reuse 90% of what people are currently throwing away. “The remaining ten percent,” Lombardi says, “should be placed in landfills similar to those in Germany, where non-recyclable waste is buried separately from organic material to reduce the amount of heat and methane produced by the decaying material. .
“Once the industrial designers get it right and design everything to be recyclable and reusable, we should be close to the zero waste society,” Lombardi says. “The only people who don’t like my vision are the owners of incinerators and garbage dumps,” he adds, “and even they have quietly started investing in zero waste infrastructure.”
More resources
– Home page of Clemson University of Professor Daniel K. Benjamin.
– Links to other PERC publications by Daniel K. Benjamin.
– CleanTech 2008 article on wasted energy through recycling.
– The home page of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
– A report from Zero Waste New Zealand Trust describing the environmental impacts of landfills and incinerators.
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