The Religion Of Recycling's Benefits Don't Offset The Costs
I try to be ecologically prudent. For example, because there's a drought in California, I sustain my few potted plants that have yet to commit suicide on me with water I take out of the Sous Vide. I rent, but if this were my house, I'd pull up the lawn and plant native plants.
I also try to not waste paper and plastic products. I reuse everything I can, like the bag I store my bacon in. I'll use a store bag -- and reuse it and reuse it until it seems like sanitary reasons might call for it to go into the trash.
Well, years ago, I blogged about John Tierney's initial New York Times piece on recycling, which he wrote back in 1996. An excerpt:
Believing that there was no more room in landfills, Americans concluded that recycling was their only option. Their intentions were good and their conclusions seemed plausible. Recycling does sometimes makes sense -- for some materials in some places at some times. But the simplest and cheapest option is usually to bury garbage in an environmentally safe landfill. And since there's no shortage of landfill space (the crisis of 1987 was a false alarm), there's no reason to make recycling a legal or moral imperative. Mandatory recycling programs aren't good for posterity. They offer mainly short-term benefits to a few groups -- politicians, public relations consultants, environmental organizations, waste-handling corporations -- while diverting money from genuine social and environmental problems. Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America: a waste of time and money, a waste of human and natural resources.
He writes in a current piece, "The Reign of Recycling," that not much has changed:
So, what's happened since then? While it's true that the recycling message has reached more people than ever, when it comes to the bottom line, both economically and environmentally, not much has changed at all.Despite decades of exhortations and mandates, it's still typically more expensive for municipalities to recycle household waste than to send it to a landfill. Prices for recyclable materials have plummeted because of lower oil prices and reduced demand for them overseas. The slump has forced some recycling companies to shut plants and cancel plans for new technologies. The mood is so gloomy that one industry veteran tried to cheer up her colleagues this summer with an article in a trade journal titled, "Recycling Is Not Dead!"
While politicians set higher and higher goals, the national rate of recycling has stagnated in recent years. Yes, it's popular in affluent neighborhoods like Park Slope in Brooklyn and in cities like San Francisco, but residents of the Bronx and Houston don't have the same fervor for sorting garbage in their spare time.
The future for recycling looks even worse. As cities move beyond recycling paper and metals, and into glass, food scraps and assorted plastics, the costs rise sharply while the environmental benefits decline and sometimes vanish. "If you believe recycling is good for the planet and that we need to do more of it, then there's a crisis to confront," says David P. Steiner, the chief executive officer of Waste Management, the largest recycler of household trash in the United States. "Trying to turn garbage into gold costs a lot more than expected. We need to ask ourselves: What is the goal here?"
Cost/benefit analysis examples:
To offset the greenhouse impact of one passenger's round-trip flight between New York and London, you'd have to recycle roughly 40,000 plastic bottles, assuming you fly coach. If you sit in business- or first-class, where each passenger takes up more space, it could be more like 100,000.Even those statistics might be misleading. New York and other cities instruct people to rinse the bottles before putting them in the recycling bin, but the E.P.A.'s life-cycle calculation doesn't take that water into account. That single omission can make a big difference, according to Chris Goodall, the author of "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life." Mr. Goodall calculates that if you wash plastic in water that was heated by coal-derived electricity, then the net effect of your recycling could be more carbon in the atmosphere.
To many public officials, recycling is a question of morality, not cost-benefit analysis.
Which is just stupid. And wasteful.
In New York City, the net cost of recycling a ton of trash is now $300 more than it would cost to bury the trash instead. That adds up to millions of extra dollars per year -- about half the budget of the parks department -- that New Yorkers are spending for the privilege of recycling. That money could buy far more valuable benefits, including more significant reductions in greenhouse emissions.So what is a socially conscious, sensible person to do?
It would be much simpler and more effective to impose the equivalent of a carbon tax on garbage, as Thomas C. Kinnaman has proposed after conducting what is probably the most thorough comparison of the social costs of recycling, landfilling and incineration. Dr. Kinnaman, an economist at Bucknell University, considered everything from environmental damage to the pleasure that some people take in recycling (the "warm glow" that makes them willing to pay extra to do it).
...When Mayor de Blasio promised to eliminate garbage in New York, he said it was "ludicrous" and "outdated" to keep sending garbage to landfills. Recycling, he declared, was the only way for New York to become "a truly sustainable city."
But cities have been burying garbage for thousands of years, and it's still the easiest and cheapest solution for trash. The recycling movement is floundering, and its survival depends on continual subsidies, sermons and policing. How can you build a sustainable city with a strategy that can't even sustain itself?
I live in a Santa Ana neighborhood that doesn't have recycling. People always ask when they come over if I recycle. "No, I have dumpster divers that do it for me."
Chadly at October 4, 2015 10:41 AM
Let's not forget that it's always been more important to REDUCE and REUSE. Recycling is the last resort.
lenona at October 4, 2015 11:19 AM
NYC must be doing it wrong. In Portland OR, they got it right about 5 years ago (it takes a while to dial it in).
The cost of recycling is about the same per ton as land fill disposal. For garbage, it is about $100/ton for collection, and $100/ton for dumping. For recycling, it is about $200/ton for collection and processing. Yard debris and food waste is collected separately and composted, at a little bit more than $200/ton.
Totals For 2014:
recycle: 544,000 tons
compost: 149,100 tons
garbage: 398,700 tons
About 65% recycled, in other words. They used to make a bit of money on recycled materials, but that doesn't happen anymore.
The big trick is they made it easy for customers to do.
One big blue cart for recycling, no separating required, collected every week. Paper, cardboard, plastic containers of every description, cans and metal, cat food tins, phone books, etc. A separate bin for all glass, for safety.
One big green cart for compost, also every week, with both yard debris and food scraps. Greasy pizza boxes and used coffee filters? Sure.
One small gray cart for garbage, collected every two weeks. Whatever else you have left.
They also have a good setup for providers. All the hauling and processing is private businesses, operating on franchises. The city sets the rates, based on the actual costs incurred, and contracts out all the work.
It is working out rather nicely these days.
Steve Gerrard at October 4, 2015 12:18 PM
Pickups run pretty much all day long now with different trucks to collect from the different bins. Composting and recycling were made mandatory (although that may have changed since I moved outside the Portland limits). My waste bill went up. No, it's not that great and a big pain to separate recycling from garbage from food and then have to figure out where to store the bins and to have to drag them back and forth all the time. I'm not forced to do that crap now out in the suburbs and the cost for service is 1/3 less than what we were paying in Portland.
I reuse things that I can. I use the plastic bags from stores for wastebasket liners or to tie up my baby's poopy diapers to cut down on the smell. I save save the glass jars from pickles for storing leftovers like soups or sauces. I wash my plastic freezer bags and reuse them another time or two.
BunnyGirl at October 4, 2015 2:51 PM
"Plastic bags are good for you"
https://reason.com/archives/2015/09/01/plastic-bags-are-good-for-you
Amy Alkon at October 4, 2015 3:54 PM
Government trumpets that it is the repository for long-term planning and the use of top minds and rational analysis to do the complicated things which would otherwise not be done. Think of Solyndra (bankrupt), ethanol in gasoline (actually bad for the environment and increasing carbon production), and the entire green energy boondoggle. Yes, these things would not be done were it not for government.
What else does government see as important? Garbage collection! Opportunities for graft make it irresistible for government to be the monopoly trash and garbage collector in almost all towns and cities. There are many opportunities to hire cousins and children to manage the waste stream, with multiplying ideas about how to recycle and separate this and that. People need garbage collection; it is not an elastic demand. The costs can be hidden in the city budget. Even better, it is advertized as a needed service provided free (eye-roll) by a beneficent government working selflessly for the people.
Most religions teach that life is a fall from grace. If you work hard, come to all of the meetings, give us your contributions, and pray every day, you may be able to overcome your sin.
Recycling teaches that your life produces a stream of waste that is harming the earth. If you work hard, recycle carefully, give us your taxes, and regret the impact of your life every day, you may be able to show your sorrow for the damage you are doing.
Recycling delivers more cash to politicians and their friends, so it is presented as a necessity, a religion.
Andrew_M_Garland at October 4, 2015 5:01 PM
I remember when I was younger, watching some Nat Geo show about people in India who live in dumps and spend their days sorting out what's dumped there-getting anything recycleable- to sell. The show was all "how terrible is this!" but I was thinking "that's awesome! People support themselves AND it helps the environment!". Well, I guess, at least some people were supporting themselves.
People do tend to forget the "reduce, reuse..." part of the equation. I LOVE my plastic grocery bags. They used to hold nasty diapers, now they line trash cans and pick up dog poop (got a great dane puppy 3 months ago to keep the doxie company. MAN can that thing poop!), and sometimes carry my lunch. So I get 2 to 3 uses out of those bags, as opposed to using (bacteria-laden)fabric bags for groceries, then buying plastic ones for trash and poop.
I think it's pretty possible that someday our progeny will be mining our garbage dumps. At some point, certain things will run out (barring space colonization), like metal. But you know, they'll probably be glad it's concentrated in distinct areas called dumps.
I used to be all crunchy-granola and not waste water doing things like...watering my lawn. But you know what happens in 105+ degree, zero-water summers east of I-35 in central texas? The ground shrinks, and your foundation moves. A LOT. Watering the lawn is the cheaper evil. I still hate doing it, I get mad every time the water bill comes in, but I do it.
momof4 at October 4, 2015 7:24 PM
Recycling, or conservation, isn't really taught well as far as I know. Reusing every grocery bag at Whole Foods isn't anywhere near as impactful as taking one less hot bath per week, or doing wash in cold water instead of hot. Curricula I have been told about just uses talking points of "green" advocates, some of whom are deficient in engineering discipline.
For instance, it is by far easier on the environment to buy Grandma's secondhand Buick Century than a new hybrid - unless you drive all the time in the city, where the advantage is plain. That's because of the huge environmental cost of the propulsion battery in the hybrid. It's going to get better, like laptop & handheld device batteries, but they're not there yet.
Radwaste at October 4, 2015 9:04 PM
Here's news about your tax dollars at work:
Savannah River Site contractors, with the full blessing of the DOE, built a modern incinerator facility a few years ago. About the time it was completed - for several million dollars - it was discovered that a "super compactor" produced smaller effluent streams and less atmospheric pollution. Yes, you can crush your waste - used coveralls, etc. - to a smaller volume than the ash left over from the incinerator.
How many knew that?
Radwaste at October 4, 2015 9:09 PM
Water: if you run a dehumidifier, the water that collects in the bucket is actually good quality. Dump that on your plants; heck even in a pinch boil it and drink it.
mer at October 5, 2015 3:27 AM
Water: if you run a dehumidifier, the water that collects in the bucket is actually good quality. Dump that on your plants; heck even in a pinch boil it and drink it.
Posted by: mer at October 5, 2015 3:27 AM
Nobody runs a dehumidifier west of Nebraska, except maybe in the Pacific Northwest, on the coast.
In climates where you need them, there is plenty of rain water for the plants.
And that dehumidifier is using quite a bit of energy to suck that water out of the air
Isab at October 5, 2015 5:49 AM
We should consider the level of our waste management, If there is one! Nowadays, there is so much waste going to landfills. We should start thinking, instead of just consuming! If everyone try to reduce their waste, we will not only minimize the our footprint, but also make the world a better and healthier place!
Sophie Harper at October 5, 2015 8:28 AM
Behold the Google Alert contributor, mindlessly copying and pasting the same comment into hundreds of blogs a day. Sophie, did you even read the article?
Cousin Dave at October 5, 2015 5:47 PM
Cousin Dave, one of my favorite things about Google Alert contributors is that they tend to have a very poor command of the English language. Years ago, I had a garden blog, and I would occasionally get poorly worded, off-topic rants about things like water use from random people who had obviously not even read the post.
I just got an email from our building manager reminding us that the City Of Austin mandates that office buildings recycle at least half of what gets thrown out. Whatever. You know you aren't supposed to put shredded paper in the recycling bin? Hmpf.
ahw at October 6, 2015 12:14 PM
Leave a comment