The argument against recycling

Whenever I read reports about how the number of people recycling has increased or how much more of our garbage is being recycled, my initial reaction used to be wow, that's great. If you think about it, though, how efficient is recycling?


First, it has to be collected from our homes, which is generally done by large trucks which crawl from house to house using up fuel. Then it's taken to a central facility (using more fuel) to be sorted. 


More and more communities are using what's called single stream recycling which means that everything is in the same blue bin, as opposed to separating paper products from plastic and glass.


The argument for single stream is that more people will recycle because it's less effort to do so. Eco-Cycle calls it "the future for responsible resource conservation". The argument against single stream is now there's more work to be done at the sorting facility, which costs more in terms of equipment, labor and space. 


Then there is the question of how much "junk" goes into recycling bins that then has to be discarded and carted away from the sorting facility, and the fact that apart from soda cans most items aren't worth much.


When you add up the sorting equipment, the trucks, real estate, fuel and labor costs many  are questioning the net benefits of recycling, such as this article last week in the Boston Globe.


Most of what we read in the media has been about the costs of not recycling; I think we need discussion around the costs of recycling. It's easy for all of us to sit back and feel complacent about how much we're recycling.


That kind of complacency is not productive and allows us to conveniently ignore what the poor have long known: reduce and reuse is better than recycling.

Books I'm Reading

The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, The Genius in All of Us, David Shenk, How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids will Talk,  Faber and Mazlish