
Is it time to rethink recycling? - nkurz
http://ensia.com/features/is-it-time-to-rethink-recycling/
======
madaxe_again
Recycling sucks. You have to dismantle products and packaging, cut cardboard
into little squares no more than 20cm X 20cm, sort glass bottles by colour,
remove the labels, or else it won't be (expensively) collected. You can also
go drop it off yourself, but you have to pay for the pleasure, and own or rent
a vehicle.

Even after all of that, a majority of what is supposed to be recycled ends up
being "recycled" into electricity, by an incinerator. That's the case in this
neck of the woods, at any rate.

Recycling treats a symptom, not a disease. We allow the production of wasteful
packaging, we accept planned obsolescence, and we dispose of things that could
be yet used for a long time to come.

A better solution would be to impose the cost of disposal on manufacturers -
this already happens to a degree with WEEE, but try actually getting a
manufacturer to collect - it's made deliberately difficult as they'd rather
you just fly-tip and save them the expense - even though you paid for that
service as part of your purchase.

Another better solution would be to pass goods on whole for re-use rather than
recycling wherever possible, which has gained some traction through things
like freecycle and eBay, but is still a minority case. This behaviour could be
encouraged by governments, but is instead actively discouraged, as it hurts
sales of new goods, and therefore tax revenues.

As per usual, we'll only change when forced to - by which point it'll be too
late. People will use 300 year old toasters in the future, and weep for our
wastefulnes.

I do what I can, buy very little new (all of my furniture is pre 1960),
dumpster dive, pass things I no longer want or need on, but it's still not
enough.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
Why not impose the full cost of disposal on people that throw things away? If
the prices covered the real costs, and they were reasonably known and
understandable, people buying stuff could make their own decisions about the
best tradeoffs to make between all the various things you mention.

Recycling and reusing are great, but there are real costs to both. I've got a
bunch of CDs that I don't really want anymore. I'm certainly not ever likely
to use them, given Spotify and the like. But I feel bad enough about just
throwing them away that I've just held on to them. I fantasize about giving
them away to someone but realistically that would be such a pain in the ass
that I almost certainly will never bother. [Now I'm motivated to throw them
away!] Just the cost of someone driving to where I live and, maybe, take them
from me – for free – has both non-zero environmental and economic costs!

Throwing things away is fine. Not accounting for _all_ the costs, to everyone,
is the real problem.

~~~
c22
> Why not impose the full cost of disposal on people that throw things away?

Because if the cost is great many people will just dump their trash illegally.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
That's part of the cost too! In fact, that's probably one of the most
important, and potentially largest, components of the cost to consider.

People already dump their trash illegally. Are you arguing that whatever laws
they're breaking should be repealed?

~~~
c22
No, I am in favor of anti-litter laws. I had interpretted your argument to
imply imposing the cost at the time of disposal, but I realize this is not the
only way the cost can be imposed. I see your additional comment, but I'm not
sure a straight up tax is the best solution either. If the taxes are levied
indirectly then there is very little incentive for any parties to change their
behavior. Any effect of behavior on the actual tax rate would be slow and
dilute. If you levy the tax at the point of sale it is better, because now
consumers are incentivized by price to select eco-friendlier goods and
manufacturers are incentivized by the same mechanism to produce them. This
solution is still lacking however, because should the consumer ultimately
decide to dispose of an item, they've already paid the environmental fee, so
why go through the effort of disposing it properly? It seems to me a workable
approach might be to impose a materials based "environmental tax" at the point
of sale but credit it back when the item is brought to an appropriate
recycling center, just like a milk bottle deposit.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
I think maybe we seem to be disagreeing because I see it as a feature that

> If the taxes are levied indirectly then there is very little incentive for
> any parties to change their behavior.

I don't care about any particular behavior per se [in the context of this
discussion!]. If the costs of cleaning up people throwing plastic away are
being met by a tax, why would one care whether plastic continues to be used
for new items and people continue to throw it away?

It's possible that the most efficient behavior – in terms of physics – is to
make things out of certain materials and then throw them away after some
point. It's not obvious that reuse or recycling are _always_ more efficient
than simply 'wasting-and-remaking', given all of the other elements of our
environments (like bacteria, fungi, ambient energy, etc.).

~~~
c22
> If the costs of cleaning up people throwing plastic away are being met by a
> tax, why would one care whether plastic continues to be used for new items
> and people continue to throw it away?

Because it's possible that the costs are not entirely monetary. I agree that
there is more nuance to this debate, though. In my opinion one-time use
objects made of plastic are appropriate in some contexts (medical care, for
instance) and less appropriate in others (plastic silverware).

------
ranko
There's a reason that "recycle" comes last in the "reduce, reuse, recycle"
catchphrase. There's a frightening amount of food, for example, that could
simply not be wasted at all.

~~~
logfromblammo
There needs to be another word in that mantra: "repair".

~~~
burkemw3
repair falls into reuse in my mental model

~~~
logfromblammo
I always felt that reuse was finding another distinct purpose for an item
after its original purpose had been fulfilled.

For instance, cutting up old milk jugs as scoops or as root-watering funnels
would be a re-use, whereas washing out the plastic jug to hold water instead
of milk would be a repair.

Scuttling an old naval ship as an artificial reef would be a re-use.
Permanently mooring it and opening it for museum tours would be re-use.
Stripping it of war materiel and refitting for use as a passenger ship would
be re-use. Replacing the obsolete artillery guns with modernized radars and
air/missile defense systems and replacing all worn or corroded parts would be
a repair.

As such, I would put "repair" before "reduce". If you spend 120% on resources
at construction time to also build repair parts, that item might last 50 years
under repair instead of being reduced to 90% of normal resources and then
reused after only 20 years. I have to assume that when something is reused,
that it is simultaneously being _replaced_ in its original purpose, which
implies additional use of resources.

------
JulianMorrison
I honestly feel recycling is wasted effort. It's largely a way of buying off
our existential terror with publicly visible pious busywork. Rubbish which
actually makes it to landfill, as a problem, is not the big one or even in the
big few. Rubbish that does not, which ends up as polluting litter or in the
sea, is a larger problem but one recycling completely doesn't address.

So far as I'm concerned, what a landfill is, is a resource mine we don't yet
have the technology or desire to exploit. A bit of futuristic technology, and
we could be disassembling it for gold, iron, rare earths, hydrocarbons, etc.
It's not gone, but it's put aside. And putting things aside can be fine if you
come back for them.

------
henrikschroder
The part about plastics being useless to recycle actually makes a lot of
sense, if you live in a place where trash is incinerated for electricity or
heat, and you have oil-powered electricity. Making virgin plastic from the oil
you saved by burning plastic trash in its stead is better/cheaper/more energy
fficient than recycling the plastic trash.

Aluminium is always extremely cost-effective to recycle, because making
aluminium from bauxite requires enormous amounts of electricity, but re-
smelting aluminium containers is cheap.

I'm surprised that glass was not cost-effective to recycle according to the
article. I thought that since it's generally easy to sort and re-smelt, it's
be all good. But maybe the raw materials are so cheap that it outweighs the
cost of recycling?

~~~
ajross
Yeah. The energy cost to just melt sand into glass isn't likely to be
significantly different than remelting it for recycled products. And I'm
willing to bet that there are plenty of natural silica sources at a higher
purity than whatever you get out of the mixed glass recycling tub.

~~~
Symbiote
You seem to be guessing, when you could look this up very easily.

"Every metric ton (1,000 kg) of waste glass recycled into new items saves 315
kilograms (694 lb) of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere
during the creation of new glass."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling)

~~~
ajross
How much is that as a percentage overhead, though? I'm guessing not much. It
takes a lot of fuel to get something that hot. The point was why recycling
glass is less economically favorable, not that the carbon advantage
specifically was zero.

------
qewrffewqwfqew
Container deposit schemes are getting some discussion in the comments, so it
seems an apt time to mention their history in Australia [1]. SA has had the
scheme since '77, and the NT managed to introduce it - then reintroduce it -
just in 2013. No other state presently has such a scheme.

The most disturbing part is what happened in NT. The proposed scheme - which
had massive community support - was challenged by beverage manufacturers -
Coca Cola, Schweppes and Lion - based on some very dubious claims about it
being an expensive and ineffective way to recycle.

In other states it has been a political football: parties support the idea
when campaigning, then promptly forget about it once in government. The
paranoid part of my brain wonders about behind-the-scenes influence of donors
on this pattern.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation_in_Australia)

As a side point, in Asia I'm used to experiencing that a beverage bought in a
platic bottle must be consumed on premises, so the bottle can be immediately
put in a container for collection. That's a lot more satisfying than having to
look for a bin because I got thirsty.

~~~
specialist
_beverage bought in a plastic bottle must be consumed on premises_

Interesting.

Beverage waste is huge. My locale recycles aggressively. Including a separate
waste stream for compost (for better or worse).

Seeking to further reduce their waste stream, my local university assessed
what's what. Something like 50% of the waste by weight is fluids. From sodas,
lattes, etc.

Since attending that talk, I was trying to imagine a trashbin that would
puncture beverage containers, letting the fluid drain out the bottom.

I like your (Asian on premises) solution better.

------
ZeroGravitas
I did a thorough economic analysis of littering and discovered that just
dropping my crap on the street, at the beach or in the park was far less
effort and time than carrying it to the nearest trash can.

A libertarian friend pointed out that if there was economic value to not
littering then someone would already be paying to take my trash from my hand
as I drop it.

So now I can litter with a clear conscience, as I've proved its better to do
so.

------
marvel_boy
I do not disagree with the final conclusion or at least statement of this
article, “The ultimate solution, … is better design of products and packaging
further upstream to plan better for end of life and avoid the waste issue
altogether.”

~~~
progrocks9
Packaging is the problem. We should only use goods that can be recharged or
refilled. Otherwise, the problem goes on and on.

------
cat-dev-null
FWIW, Stanford both does recycling (usually 4 or 5 cans in Tresidder [0])
_and_ post-consumer separates trash into recyclable materials.

Judging from the typical Tragedy of the Commons recyclable contamination
disaster at places like Costco, perhaps relying on consumers to put things in
the right place is a fool's errand... robotic with human automation at refuse
processing points probably is a more efficient way to centralize and drive
down the net cost of recycling with scale.

0: [http://bgm.stanford.edu/pssi_flyers](http://bgm.stanford.edu/pssi_flyers)

------
dankohn1
This piece recycles (sorry) the prophetic arguments from this classic 1996
article by John Tierney, which generated more reader response than the NY
Times had then ever received:
[http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-
garb...](http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/30/magazine/recycling-is-
garbage.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
majewsky
Business idea: A weekly newspaper or website that just republishes decade-long
articles that were prophetic at the time and are still valid today.

------
danielweber
Recycling imposes a cost on me. I would like to know which parts of it are
really worth doing and which are not.

~~~
SteveNuts
I really only worry about recycling metal. Soda, canned goods, that sort of
thing. I've been a bit skeptical of recycling paper since I started recycling,
the trees used for paper are plentiful, and are grown as a crop. Plus, as far
as I can understand all the same processes that it takes to make paper from
tree pulp are also used when recycling paper, so that seems like a neutral
process at best.

Plastic I try to reuse whenever possible.

~~~
coldpie
One other benefit to recycling other than reducing new material usage is
keeping stuff out of landfills. Landfills are anaerobic, which means most
bacteria that breaks stuff down can't live in them, so things break down
extremely slowly[1]. That slow breakdown means we need more space for
landfills, which are toxic environments. So even if the recycling process is
neutral, or even somewhat more costly than producing new material, keeping
stuff out of landfills is another benefit that you might not have considered
in your calculation.

In addition, cities with recycling programs can actually sell the material
they gather back to companies, literally turning garbage into money and
creating a revenue source for the city[2,3]. One important component in this
is that the cities can get a higher price for higher quality recycling
streams, where the output is all composed of one type of material. This is
why, even though St Paul is now single-sort, I still separate my paper from
the other recycling. It helps keep the paper higher quality by avoiding
getting it dirty and wet, and costs me no real effort.

[1]
[http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/biodegradable.ht...](http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/biodegradable.htm)

[2] [http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/03/recycling-in-the-
us-a...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/03/recycling-in-the-us-an-off-
again-on-again-love-affair/)

[3] [http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/12/recycling-
matching-...](http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/12/recycling-matching-
high-tech-materials-science-with-economics-that-work/)

~~~
henrikschroder
I'm from a place where less than one percent of all household waste ends up in
a landfill, so moving to the US and learning that most of my trash actually
just goes on a dump somewhere was quite a shock to me. So why doesn't the US
have more trash incinerators? It seems like such a no-brainer to me if you
care about the environment?

~~~
coldpie
Is burning trash better* than a landfill? Honestly asking, I don't know and
this is something I'd love to be better educated about. Seems like you'd have
lots of toxic fumes from burning, which may make it less of a no-brainer.

* I don't know how to define "better".

~~~
mseebach
You can burn it cleanly, at sufficiently high temperatures. In the nordic
countries, this heat is then going into city-wide central heating networks,
meaning it substitutes natural gas or electricity for domestic heating.

~~~
AjithAntony
> sufficiently high temperatures

Can you fuel such a fire with only the trash? Or do we need to supplement with
other fossil fuels?

------
hackuser
Does anyone know about the relative trade-offs of composting and recycling?
Many of the trendier environmentally-aware people I see around me seem to
prefer composting, including compostable disposable cups, etc.

But it's not clear to me that composting would be better. What is the chemical
composition of this compost of somewhat random materials? Is it safe? Is there
waste? Is it usable as quality compost? Does it get used? How much demand is
there? etc.

~~~
rwmj
You also need to look at fuel costs of transportation. I compost all my food
waste, and use the compost to grow vegetables. The council could also take my
food waste, but the nearest municipal composter is apparently about 20 miles
away.

------
dreamlayers
Why is recycling almost a religious issue for some people? How has reduce,
reuse, recycle been turned into just recycle? Some people even talk about
reuse and incorrectly call it recycling. It seems as if many people have been
brainwashed via propaganda about recycling. How did that happen?

~~~
specialist
Speaking for myself: Waste is immoral.

I blame my Presbyterian upbringing, W. Edwards Deming, my 4th grade teacher,
and Peter Drucker for the washing of my brain.

------
dclowd9901
I would really like to see a longterm container pipeline. In true recycling,
we wouldn't have any plastic containers, period. Everything should be served
with, on or in durable, lasting materials, or easily recycled post compost
paper.

We just don't have an accommodating container infrastructure to manage that,
but what if I could take a cup from Starbucks and when I'm finished with it,
put it in a recycling bin, it goes to a center for sanitization, then is
redistributed to McDonald's? It would be like how a hotel works, but on the
scale of a city.

------
nprecup
Interesting article. It focused on economics, but didn't really factor in the
environmental effects of landfilling or recycling. I wonder how that impacts
the economic assessment. Still, generating less waste in the first place is
always a good goal. I like the thought of shifting responsibility of recycling
to the manufacturer. It would encourage less use of wasteful materials that
have little recycling value.

~~~
titzer
I am skeptical of pretty much all analyses of recycling and environmentalism
that start from a primarily economic angle. The main problem being is that
(obviously!) economic forces have driven us into the situation in the first
place. The market supports overproduction, overpackaging and oversupply. All
of those are economic activity that is marked in the "good" column by
governments and societies.

Ultimately, lowering the production of a good used by people is a reduction in
economic activity. Reduce, reuse, and recycle means less economic activity,
but not less wealth. Until we realize this, we are destined to pursue policies
that are bad for the environment and waste resources.

~~~
kbenson
It really depends on how long or short sighted the economic rational wants to
be. If you include the cost of pollution, including people's desire to live
without pollution and the cost to reduce it to acceptable levels for people,
then economics encompasses everything needed to correctly assess a scenario
(but whether _we_ can correctly create and interpret the model is a much more
dicey).

Edit:

> The main problem being is that (obviously!) economic forces have driven us
> into the situation in the first place.

Yes, costs of pollution were (are?) not being correctly applied to those
creating the pollution. That's not a failure of economics, it's a failure of
people to correctly account all the economic factors that exists.

~~~
titzer
I don't disagree with you(1), but time and again people have shown that their
economic calculations have a time horizon well short of a single human
lifespan.

(1) by a technicality; since complete environmental collapse and subsequent
starvation could be "calculated" as a total loss for humanity. But no one does
calculations in these terms; they do it in money.

~~~
kbenson
> time and again people have shown that their economic calculations have a
> time horizon well short of a single human lifespan.

I don't disagree with that either, but I think that has historically been
largely due to our erroneous belief that we had a negligible effect on the
world at most, which is thinking that is thankfully coming to and end. I don't
doubt there was a time in the past where we believed we couldn't affect the
ocean, and prior to that a river or the soil in an area. That isn't a good
track record to hoping we understand it earlier next time (if our species is
lucky, in some number of decades or centuries the discussion will be about our
effects on the solar system, not our planet), but it does point towards
eventually getting the idea and taking steps to fix the problem behavior, even
if it's not always adhered to or a perfect solution.

------
fiatjaf
Why not consume less?

~~~
static_noise
Because of the debt spiral induced imperative of growth.

------
robbiep
So this guy criticises recycling by creating an economic model that fails to
take into consideration externalities of product consumption and discard. Not
a very useful model and we would do well to not pay it much heed

