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Page added on November 8, 2015
Getting it wrong on recycling
Let’s see what those disparaging America’s rate of recycling as “too high” either get completely wrong or fail to understand. You can read recent commentary suggesting that the recycling rate is too high here, here and here.
The number one complaint is that it costs more to recycle some categories of waste than to put them into a landfill. What the critics fail to comprehend is that unlike a couple of generations ago when most landfills were owned and run by local governments, today most are run by profit-making enterprises such as Waste Management Inc. and Republic Services Inc. which haul some 80 percent of the nation’s refuse. Those enterprises developed their large centralized landfills for the purpose of keeping down their disposal costs.
Since the private waste disposal industry has organized its infrastructure around cheap landfill disposal, it’s no wonder that landfilling seems like the most cost-effective option. It follows that if we Americans had built a waste infrastructure with the goal of zero waste as Germany did, our infrastructure would naturally have delivered lower costs for recycling than it does.
The Germans landfill about 1 percent of their waste compared to America’s 68 percent. Germans recycle about 70 percent of their waste and burn almost all the rest to produce energy. Americans recycle about 25 percent of their waste and burn about 7 percent.
Consider this analogy. You can make your house energy-efficient in two ways. You can build it to be energy-efficient in the first place. Or, you can add energy-efficient features later on. Which do you think would be more cost-effective?
That’s what we’ve been facing with the boom in recycling. We are retrofitting a system designed for cheap landfilling rather than building a system designed for cheap recycling (which ought to be our goal).
But we must also consider that the narrowly defined cost of landfilling waste does not take into account the long-term costs of monitoring and mitigating damage to soil and water from closed landfills far into the future. Private landfill operators are responsible for what happens for the first 30 years. After that, taxpayers pick up the bill. But only if officials decide to. Otherwise, the cost to human and animal health and the loss of value for properties affected is simply absorbed by those unlucky enough to live or work near a closed landfill.
Now, this is important: Current landfill technology which lines waste pits will not keep pollutants from leaking out forever. In the long run, whatever goes into landfills will eventually seep out with rainwater or sink into the soil below once the lining deteriorates.
Finally, landfills are a source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, produced by rotting organic matter in the waste. Some of that methane is being captured and burned as fuel. But some of it is released into the atmosphere where it is driving climate change.
When we say that landfilling is cheaper, what we really mean is that landfilling is cheaper for us–not for those who come after us who will have to clean up the mess that keeps on giving.
The howls over the costs of recycling tend to reappear periodically when commodity prices sink as they have done so dramatically in the last year.
That’s because recycled materials such as paper, plastic and metals compete with newly harvested or mined materials. When commodity prices are high, recycled material is in demand because it is cost-competitive with virgin materials. During such periods nobody seems to complain about the supposed burdensome costs of recycling because recycled materials are fetching such healthy prices. (Consequently, at such times the nation’s editorial pages tend to be silent on the topic of trash.)
When prices are low, the recyclers complain that they cannot earn enough for their recycled materials which must compete with low-priced virgin material being dumped on the market by suppliers desperate for cash. (Predictably, the nation’s editorial pages start to take a closer look at trash when this is the case.)
But just like forestry, oil and gas and mining companies and the manufacturers who rely on their raw materials, recyclers ought to have business plans that take into account the full commodity price cycle. Weyerhaeuser Company, the forestry giant, doesn’t just close its doors when wood product prices are low. It has a plan for getting through to the next upswing.
While there is room for debate about what materials are currently most cost-effective and environmentally important to recycle, that should not distract us from the goal of creating a cradle-to-cradle society, that is, one in which all products are designed to be converted into other materials or products at the end of their useful lives. The consequence of such design is practically zero waste.
Of course, it’s no wonder that waste haulers are not particularly interested in a zero landfill goal since it would leave their existing landfills without customers.
But one simple policy change could make recycling much more attractive, even in times of low commodity prices. Tax trash. Tax anything that is dumped in a landfill. The higher the tax, the more likely someone will figure out how to 1) minimize waste in the first place and 2) recycle what waste remains more efficiently.
Any mention of a tax on trash would undoubtedly cause the lobbyists for waste haulers to darken the skies over Washington, state capitols or city halls where the mention was made. But that doesn’t make a trash tax any less of a good idea as a way to get us all focused on the real goal: less trash, more recycling, and, with what we cannot currently recycle, energy generation using best practices.
21 Comments on "Getting it wrong on recycling"
Mark Bucol on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 11:32 am
Rather than taxing trash, how about taxing the land fill property at a rate based on the mass of material put in the land fill. The higher the pile of trash, the more the operator, and indirectly the producers of the trash, will pay for the privilege of using the “land fill”. The money could go to local schools, police dept., park districts, social services, etc. to help make the local community better for the residents.
yellowcanoe on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 3:44 pm
Plastic recycling makes little sense to me. Whereas paper and metal can be used to make items of similar quality to the original item, plastic recycling generally results in an item of lower quality. The energy cost of recycling plastic is also quite high relative to the cost of producing the original item. We should be trying to discourage the use of disposable plastic containers and instead promote the use of reusable containers. Here in Ontario manufacturers of food/drink products packaged in non-reusable plastic containers have been able to avoid having a tax or deposit placed on disposable containers by making a nominal contribution to the cost of running blue box collection programs. However, I’m sure most of the cost of collecting and recycling plastic containers is shouldered by taxpayers.
Keith_McClary on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 6:37 pm
“Tax trash. Tax anything that is dumped in a landfill. The higher the tax, the more likely someone will figure out how to 1) minimize waste in the first place and 2) recycle what waste remains more efficiently.”
Around here they just go up the forestry road and dump it rather than drive a few km further to the free landfill.
makati1 on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 7:50 pm
Mark/Keith, all that would do is raise the price you pay to have them haul your trash. It would not cost the haulers anything in the end.
Many do not think the tax idea through to reality. ALL taxes are repaid by the consumer/worker. The corporation only passes it along to the consumer/wage earner in higher price or lower wages.
If they did not have to pay taxes/benefits, the cost of an item would be lower or your paycheck would be more.
For instance, the cost of an employee in the Us is about 60% wages and about 40% taxes/benefits that the government mandates that the corporation pay.
Corporate paid wage taxes include: their portion of Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, etc.
Corporate paid ‘benefits’ include: Obamacare, liability insurance, maybe a retirement plan or 401k contribution, paid holidays, etc.
If you have never personally owned a company and had employees that you had to pay a salary to and cover the mandated costs, you may not have realized the cost of even a minimum wage employee.
makati1 on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 7:58 pm
When I was a kid, just after WW2, there was a truck that came through the neighborhood monthly and bought any metals or paper that was recyclable. All food liquids came in glass bottle with a deposit. I used to find empties and take them to the store for a refund that I used to buy candy or a soda. Every house had a ‘burn barrel’ (old metal oil barrel) in which we burned anything we could not recycle for money. It took about a year or two before it was full of ash and misc glass and metal. THAT went to the local dump. But then, most everything was easily reparable and things like refrigerators and TVs lasted for decades and were salvaged for parts when they finally quit working.
Ah, the good old days when one wage earner could support his family in a middle class lifestyle.
Boat on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 8:43 pm
mak/Greg
The good old days eh. The disabled, the poor, the elderly were flocking to the emergency room and hospitals were going broke. In 1967 Medicaid and medicare.
Even today to much medicine is delivered at the emergency room and is a major reason health care is so high.
Simple blood tests and cheap generics would save 10’s of billions if serious problems were caught and controlled before they become life threatening.
Now if you and everybody over 70 would just off yourself we could curb medical costs. Since that won’t happen quit dreaming about false good times of the past when you were young and didn’t face the lives your elders had.
makati1 on Sun, 8th Nov 2015 9:39 pm
Boat, in the good old days, people were happy, not on drugs, and lived a good life, not the obese rat race of today. 60 good years are better than 80 bad years.
As for the older generation ‘offing themselves’, feel free to do so yourself, consumer. I paid my way, are you? I served my country in the military for 11 years. I paid taxes for 50 years. I am now claiming the Social Security I was forced to pay all those years. I do not use any other government service like Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment, Food Stamps, Welfare, or even subsidized oil, food, roads, or any other government teat. Do you?
If you are lucky enough to live to be 70, your selfish attitude will change. IF you make it that far. Good Luck!
Lawfish1964 on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 7:27 am
The landfills of today are the mines of tomorrow.
Kenz300 on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 7:42 am
Reduce….reuse and recycle…..
There is way too much STUFF being disposed of in landfills… Much of it can be reused or recycled…… so wasteful
More companies need to incorporate recycled materials into their products in order to increase the demand for recycled materials. All plastic and paper products should have recycled content in them.
makati1 on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 8:57 am
Lawfish, that may be true, but what will be reusable? After all, it takes huge amounts of energy to recycle metals or glass into new products. And electronics are useless without electric.
Plastics may be burnable for heat with poisonous fums as a byproduct, but not for making new plastic stuff. That requires an entire chemical industry for the solvents and additives used to make a simple bottle.
Not too much today is simple mechanics, without electronic parts. I guess some things could be cobbled together, if you were handy with hand tools had had what you needed. Most of the junk in land fills will not be useful after a few years of being buried, not to mention 10 or 20. But, maybe I am wrong.
HARM on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 12:25 pm
Recycling is for commie f*g hippie liberals. We don’t do that here because it’s unpatriotic and destroys “jobs”.
Give me a mountainous landfill leaching toxic chemicals into the water table and surrounding farms/suburbs for 200 years over some limp-wristed kraut “closed loop system any day of the week. Darth Cheney said “our way of life is non-negotiable” and I salute him!
I feel like heading over to my local big box store right now, in my “rolling coal” monster truck modified to bypass all those weenie EPA pollution abatement systems. I’ll buy a bunch of Chinese junk I don’t need (ideally packaged as wastefully as possible), then as soon as it breaks (which will be soon, thanks to planned obsolescence and generally poor quality), I’ll just chuck it in the nearest landfill… or river.
That’s my Divine right and duty as an Uh-murikan, and I’m not giving it up to a bunch of tree-huggers and liberal euro-weenies! U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A…
Davy on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 1:07 pm
Harm, I don’t do any of that so are you talking about me too? What about China? If the U.S. Is bad China is the Death Star. I guess you were being cute like your avatar. Ha ha
HARM on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 2:06 pm
@Davy,
Yup, just me doing a “Colbert” as a bit of fun. I enjoy re-proving Poe’s Law now and again, and there are so many right-wing blowhards saying near-identical idiocies in the media, it’s hard to resist sometimes.
apneaman on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 4:15 pm
Too late for recycling. What ever happened to Reduce and Reuse? Here in pretend green BC they have all sorts of commercials for recycling (corrupt & corporate) but no commercials for reducing or reusing. Too late for anything.
Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Hit Yet Another Record
“Geneva 9 November 2015 (WMO) The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached yet another new record high in 2014, continuing a relentless rise which is fuelling climate change and will make the planet more dangerous and inhospitable for future generations.
The World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin says that between 1990 and 2014 there was a 36% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate – because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities.”
https://www.wmo.int/media/content/greenhouse-gas-concentrations-hit-yet-another-record
Carbon emissions hit new high and temperature rise soars to 1 °C
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28469-carbon-emissions-hit-new-high-and-temperature-rise-soars-to-1-c/?utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=SOC&utm_campaign=hoot&cmpid=SOC|NSNS|2015-GLOBAL-hoot
apneaman on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 4:17 pm
Toxic Dust From a Dying California Lake
The shrinking Salton Sea is now a major source of air pollution—and no one seems to know how to stop it from getting worse.
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/the-airborne-toxic-lake-event/414888/
Boat on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 4:33 pm
apeman,
What was the rise in population. Might be a factor. How much of that rise was immigration.
Davy on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 8:57 pm
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-09/sickening-images-china-plagued-extremely-hazardous-record-smog-winter-heating-season
GregT on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 9:07 pm
“How much of that rise was immigration.”
Here in North America? I would guess most of it. Like your grand-daddy immigrated from Sweden. You come from a family of immigrants Boat.
Boat on Mon, 9th Nov 2015 11:58 pm
GregT,
That was in the 1800’s. Overpopulation, depletion of resources, water shortage and a few other problems have risen since then. You have to change with the times.
Sometimes I worry about you. Weird you can’t figure this stuff out off the top of your head.
GregT on Tue, 10th Nov 2015 12:12 am
That doesn’t change the fact that you come from a family of immigrants Boat. You are not indigenous to North America. You are European.
Kenz300 on Tue, 10th Nov 2015 6:11 am
More people creating more trash…….
Climate Change, declining fish stocks, droughts, floods, pollution, water and food shortages all stem from the worlds worst environmental problem……. OVER POPULATION.
Yet the world adds 80 million more mouths to feed, clothe, house and provide energy and water for every year… this is unsustainable…
Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm