The column Is recycling worth it? — although written in 2000, which adds to the problem, for a lot of junk has gone under the soil since, due to aversion to recycling — concludes: In the end we may conclude that this junk is best consigned to landfills.
Perhaps not; a recent Ars Technica piece suggests that the EPA, not through fault, underestimates the amount of waste being chucked into the ground: Analysis revealed that the US disposed of 262 million tons of waste in 2012, which is 115 percent more than the waste estimate produced by the US EPA for that same year.
And further:
The decomposition that occurs in landfills accounts for 18 percent of the US’ domestic methane emissions, making landfills one of the largest sources.
No doubt earlier populations, although less productive due to comparative smallness and lesser variety of everything, had dumps and middens equally unpleasant, but still less dangerous to the atmosphere on which some of us rely. The old ways are frequently the best ways, but not in this instance. Ars : US puts more trash in landfills than the EPA knew about
Won’t the organic component compost and release methane wherever it is, whether recycled or not?
This interests me, as I am a (limited) home composter. I feel very virtuous, until I wonder about the methane my little pile must make. At many (most? all?) landfills, the methane is collected (and usually burned). Then I think that perhaps it would be better for all these garden clippings and vegetable waste to go to landfills.
It depends on oxygen and water availability. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about this, and I don’t have any references handy. Lots of methane permeates from geologic formations, but gets oxidized before it reaches the surface. So your compost heap may be producing methane or just carbon dioxide.
New York Times just ran an opinion piece on recycling. Spoiler alert: it’s ineffective and wastes more than it saves.
I’ve always thought recycling as the wrong end of the stick. You want to tax the damage to the environment when the object is made. For example carbon and resource depletion taxes. Then, products would use minimal packaging and minimize their environmental footprint. That’ll generate less waste than recycling saves. In some countries, the producer is responsible for the disposal of the product. This makes reducing the environmental footprint part of the initial design.
OK, so landfills are 18% of the country’s methane emissions. That sounds like a lot… but just how much is it? Do we emit enough methane total that it’s worth worrying about it? Is it worth worrying about 18% of that? And how does that weigh in compared to the carbon sequestration of landfills?
I’m seeing 114.6 MMT CO2 equiv for landfill methane out of 6,649.7 total emissions, so 1.7%. That’s ignoring “Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry”. Landfilling yard and food waste sequesters 12.6 MMT.