Is recycling hogwash?

[robby]

@jtgain

…I think that this, like many things, is government gone wild. If we have a shortage of paper, steel, aluminum, etc, then the price of those things will rise to the point that recycling becomes profitable. Until then, throw them in the garbage can.

@Krokodil

…In the July 1993 issue of US Mayor, Norm Rice (Seattle’s mayor at the time) said “Our recycling program has been a great success. Unfortunately, there’s no market for our recycled goods.” We in the private sector have a name for that kind of success; we call it “failure.”

So nobody bothered to read the previous thread I linked to above?

As I said in that thread:

@robby

Environmental engineer here with extensive experience in the solid waste industry.

…Other than aluminum, you don’t recycle to make money. You recycle to reduce landfill usage. While there may be plenty of room in some parts of the country, it’s very difficult to site a new landfill here in the Northeast, and the old ones are filling up fast.

Here in Connecticut, the old Hartford Landfill is getting ready to close, as it has reached its permitted capacity. There is no replacement on the horizon. When the landfill closes, much of the municipal solid waste in the state is going to have to be hauled out of state, at great expense. As a consequence, much of the waste in the state is being incinerated, with the resultant volume reduction to the residual ash. Of course, incineration has its own environmental problems [notably air pollution].

This discussion omits a key point, though. It’s not just finding the space for a landfill. Modern landfills are much more costly to install than the old unlined “dump” people may be thinking of.

Typical landfill construction costs range from $300,000 to $800,000 per acre for the initial construction, not including ancillary structures and facilities, or access roads. When the landfill closes, it has to be capped (approximately half the cost of initial construction), and the groundwater has to be monitored for decades.