There is, however, a unique combination that will yield quite different results: 'recycling costs'.
Recycling is expensive. Even without taking into account the demands it places on people's time (a valuable resource), I think it is fair to say that most recycling programmes are loss making operations. While I could go on and on naming one local authority after another, the fact that private recycling operations are nowhere to be seen - with very few exceptions - neatly settles the argument.
When you read about a recycling programme 'paying for itself', what you see in effect is a covert tax on residents. When you see a recycling programme losing money, what you are witnessing is a public subsidy to the tree-hugger in all of us.
All the while, and completely discounting current welfare ('financial') considerations, it is at best debatable that recycling lives up to its purported raison d'etre - saving the planet. The environmental costs of recycling may well be far in excess of simply dumping waste. Extra trucks are needed on the road to collect the recycled bins, pumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. For many materials, the environmental cost of the energy used in recycling them is more than the environmental cost of simply tapping on nature's reserve to replace them.
Since the consumption of virgin materials or energy is not priced at marginal social cost, it is impossible to say with certainty whether a specific recycling operation is good for the environment simply by looking at the profit and loss account. For most materials, however, the available evidence seem to suggest that recycling is like shooting ourselves in the foot, all the while feeling we are doing the planet a great service.
Addendum: While looking at recycling, I came across this Wired article about GPI Atlantic's costing of the recycling programme in Nova Scotia. The headline finding was that Nova Scotia saved 'anywhere from $25 million to $125 million a year'. Here's more:
Simply adding up the costs of recycling and the revenue generated from sales of recycled materials would show that the program cost the province $18 million a year more than just throwing trash into landfills.
To get an accurate picture of the real value of Nova Scotia's recycling and composting program, the report considered a number of factors, including [...] the direct and indirect value generated from new employment in the recycling sector.
I assume that the recycling programme hired only chronically unempoyed, or even better, unemployable people - and I hereby petition the government to extend this beneficial policy and hire loads more in loss making public enterprises at subsidised wages. The direct and indirect value generated from employment of this type is surely worth it.
Most environmental questions seem to me to be primarily questions of discount rate and inter-generational altruism. Presumably if we totally screw up the planet and end the human race that will have a very large negative pay-off, albeit to our descendants. So if you factor that in with a low discount rate then all sorts of chronically loss-making activities suddenly start looking worthwhile due to massive positive externalities. Discount a bit more and/or stop caring about descendants and these activities don't look worth doing.
ReplyDeleteI think that at the speed of "progress",and our daily dependence on the technological world, the overstocking of food supplies, our romantic view of the wild world through documentaries,and just an enourmous amount of ignorance all over ,is enough to say that in general we do not respect the environment. Take the tuna fishing factory ships and all that is involved in the making of a can of the one listed above.What do we do when we cannot sell that can of tuna? Or at supermarkets especially the cereal sections ,where it is supposed to be intended for the health of our children ,is nothing more than colorants and chemicals all for the sake of your children. Bad nutrition also is part of the human being forming part the ecosystem and the way we interact. Consumer society is also a big problem ,I think that at the end we resemble goats eating pasture , the more we, buy the more we destroy our beloved earth. I can cite a whole bunch of cases ,and I will be missing lots of important points ,but the best thing we can teach our children is common sense.
ReplyDeleteI feel that recycling, regardless of the cost, is still a good cause to save a few natural resources. One thing that needs to be done however is having the cities give up the funds to do it and to stop the recent trend of taxing the residents. Many citizens can not easily afford to pay $35-$50 every quarter for a city mandatory recycling ordinance. I know that I buy mostly non-recycled products because of a fixed income and do so even more after having to pay out the $50 bucks.
ReplyDeleteI have been saying that recycling is a scam for a while. My theory is that chemical companies promote it to have a market for their products. It takes many caustic chemicals to break down, bleach and melt a soda can or bottle, for instance. These chemicals are not "greenly" produced or disposed of. I also have read that each product must be "downgraded" each time it is recycled, ie; cannot be made into the same thing again. This means that ultimately the same mass ends up in a landfill, but consumes much more energy and chemicals on the way. A book titled "Cradle to Cradle" explains an alternative to recycling.
ReplyDeleteWow, a common sense piece followed by posts from people who want to feel morally superior at the expense of others (ie, taxpayers.) If recycling wasn't expensive, it wouldn't cost more than regular garbage pick-up (which it does.) I think that "inter-generational altruists" (read: do-gooders) should pay for recycling if it makes them feel like good little saviors of mother earth. But like the sycophants they often are, they want to guilt everyone to pay for the scam. Case in point, Mr. Fixed Income above wants "the cities" to pay for recycling. Who does he think "the cities" are? They are other taxpayers, most of whom don't realize they are getting fleeced so that politically connected contractors get the "$green$" if you will. At least that's how it works here in Chicago/Illinois, land of Lincoln and political corruption. I think we are going to have enough politicians in jail soon to get our own prison wing. I hope you all eventually can see the emperor's new clothes for what they aren't before "the cities" are all bankrupt along with the rest of the country.
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