# The economics of recycling: why pick and choose what to recycle? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 15, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347 "2004-02-15T14:33:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/1 "2004-02-15T14:33:34Z")
I work out of an office in Orange County, New York. In this area, you are supposed to recycle just about everything - any sort of glass, plastic, metal, paper, cardboard, although IIRC paint cans are an exception as hazardous waste and must be disposed of separately. The recycling instructions for the county note that a “market has been identified” for all the materials on the list. In theory, if you were really anal-retentive about recycling, your actual garbage might consist only of food scraps and household dirt. In contrast, at home in the Bronx my recycling instructions are more specific - metal, paper and cardboard are recycled of course, but only #1 and #2 type plastics (narrow-necked containers) and no glass. As a bonus, though, paint cans can be thrown in with regular metal recycling, provided that the lids are off and the paint has dried. At one time glass was also collected as a recyclable, but I think that pickup was suspended as a cost-cutting measure. Both places collect non-paper/cardboard items as commingled recyclables, so there’s sorting to be done in any case. What is it about the economics of recyclable material that makes it worthwhile for Orange County to handle everything under the sun, but not NYC? If Orange County has identified a market for, say, used yogurt containers (#6 plastic), why doesn’t NYC do the same? Is it a matter of cost for the volume of material handled? Been wondering about this for a while, and was just reminded of it when I had to check my shampoo bottle for recycling-worthiness. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![seaworthy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@seaworthy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seaworthy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/2 "2004-02-15T17:46:38Z")
I’m no expert on recycling, but I do sell scrap at a local metal “recycling” place. It might be that the facilities have different capabilities, one might be older or smaller or not have the resources to recycle _everything_ so they only take certain types of recyclables. That’s my guess. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/3 "2004-02-15T17:51:00Z")
It may be less the “economics” of recycling than the politics. Markets may have been identified for many materials, but the number of which that can be economically recycled are really quite small. Presently it costs more to recycle many goods than can be had in the actual recycling. Bring in politics. In some areas, it’s quite popular to mandate recycling all such items, even though there is a significant net cost to the community. In other areas, they’ve opted to be more pragmatic, and deal only with those recyclables that can be easily sorted with a good chance of at least breaking even on. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/4 "2004-02-15T19:30:11Z")
- - - Basically: “helping the environment by forcing people to recycle” is a flat-out _lie_. … - The only material that is commonly used and also commonly profitable to recycle _on the consumer level_ is aluminum. That is why there are companies that will pay you for it–because it really is still worth something. - All other consumer recycling is a sham, a waste of money that _ultimately results in more pollution_. Various governments decided it was a really great idea to collect it all and pay people to separate it, in the belief that _somebody_ would find something useful for the material. And a few people have done that indeed, but the problem is that the gonvernments who do this are not acomplishing what they set out to do (-which was “conserve resources by recycling”) because what they are doing is not “recovering a vaulable resource for reuse”, but rather “providing a resource at a financial loss in the hopes that somebody will use it”. -But you see, the money that is wasted–\>that money which is spent in order to pay people to do the “recycling”, _represents wasted resources also_. When the people who earned that money spend it (on anything!), _it generates even more pollution and trash_. The problem is that many people do not make the connection between something “costing money” and something “using resources”, ----but _money represents resources!_ And the accountants for these boondoggles even cut themselves one more break; they do not count the time in labor that consumers are forced to spend separating materials themselves. * * * - So it goes: **any recycling program that operates at a financial loss is a failure at reducing pollution!** ~ ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/5 "2004-02-15T19:55:29Z")
[Cecil addressed](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000804.html) what **DougC** has to say. > [@](#): > > _Does recycling double energy consumption and pollution?_ No. Some early curbside recycling programs (and no doubt a few today) wasted resources due to bureaucratic overhead and duplicate trash pickups (for garbage and then again for recyclables). But the situation has improved as cities have gained experience. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/6 "2004-02-15T20:07:10Z")
As for plastics, only soft drink bottles and plastic milk cartons are really practical to recycle, since the material for each is very standardized. Pretty much any other type of plastic is being accepted only as a feel-good gesture. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/7 "2004-02-15T21:21:10Z")
> [@](#): > > …_Does recycling double energy consumption and pollution?_ No. Some early curbside recycling programs (and no doubt a few today) wasted resources due to bureaucratic overhead and duplicate trash pickups (for garbage and then again for recyclables). But the situation has improved as cities have gained experience. … - - - No, I am not wrong. I said that any recycling program that runs a financial deficit must be wasting resources, which is correct–because that means that you are expending extra resources just to recycle, which is pointless. The quote above specifically concerns “using double the resources”, which I never mentioned. I only said that recycling programs that run a financial deficit are actually wasting more resources than not recycling at all would. * * * - The key to True Understanding is that _money == resources_. The _profit_ that aluminum recyclers make is the difference between what new aluminum would have cost to make and what recycled auminum costs to recycle. If municipal recyclilng programs cannot turn a profit on what they are recycling, then they are wasting more resources than they would by _not recycling at all_. ~ ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/8 "2004-02-16T01:44:24Z")
> [@DougC](#): > > - The key to True Understanding is that _money == resources_. The _profit_ that aluminum recyclers make is the difference between what new aluminum would have cost to make and what recycled auminum costs to recycle. If municipal recyclilng programs cannot turn a profit on what they are recycling, then they are wasting more resources than they would by _not recycling at all_. ~ There’s a lot that I disagree with there, but let’s start with money==resources. It doesn’t. Certain purchases create more environmental damages than others, on net. Buying a fluorescent light bulb, for example, is likely to lead to lower electricity usage. Similarly, replacing a 20 year old refrigerator with a newer, more energy efficient model, is likely to lower energy consumption and pollution. Even in less extreme cases, different types of spending can have wildly different effects on the environment. Choosing a fuel efficient car, for example, is far more important a decision than, “Paper or plastic”. Ref: [The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from The Union of Concerned Scientists](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/060980281X/qid=1076895463/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8030779-2456802?v=glance&s=books). More generally, the inputs to any consumer good include natural resources, but also labor and capital (or machinery) as well as real estate. Different products will have different combinations of these inputs. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/9 "2004-02-16T02:50:09Z")
> [@DougC](#): > > - > - > - No, I am not wrong. I said that any recycling program that runs a financial deficit must be wasting resources, which is correct–because that means that you are expending extra resources just to recycle, which is pointless. The quote above specifically concerns “using double the resources”, which I never mentioned. Oh come on. Don’t you think that if recycling used 1.8 times the resources, Cecil would have mentioned that instead of leaving it at “no”? He clearly meant that recycling does not increase energy consumption and pollution. Anyway, I never said you were wrong. While I don’t think your line of reasoning is faulty, I think there are a lot of complicating factors that you may be overlooking. So do you have any evidence that a signficant fraction of recycling efforts in fact do cause a net increase in resource consumption and/or pollution? ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2004, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-recycling-why-pick-and-choose-what-to-recycle/229347/10 "2004-02-16T07:08:24Z")
With the exception of aluminum, no consumer recycling program that I am aware of has ever made money. This is not the point, however. The point is to keep recyclable materials out of the waste stream, which conserves landfill space. Modern landfills are not the open dumps of the past. Modern landfills have impermeable baseliner systems, leachate collection and treatment systems, are capped when closed, and are then monitored indefinitely after closure (basically forever). None of this is cheap. If you can reduce the waste stream going into the landfill, you are saving a limited resource, as well as reducing the volume of waste that can potentially adversely affect the environment. > [@](#): > > So it goes: any recycling program that operates at a financial loss is a failure at reducing pollution! This is not necessarily true. The savings of _not_ filling up the landfill with recycled material is generally not factored in. –robby (environmental engineer)