I just read an article about curbside recycling by James Thayer at the Weekly Standard.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/603wxcce.asp
Let me summarize a few of the points from the article:
- It is 55% more expensive than conventional garbage disposal
- It costs businesses and households time to sort the garbage
- The U.S. is not running out landfill space
- A second truck going thru the streets hurts the roads and adds to air pollution
Let me also add that the products made from recycled materials are often inferior and/or more costly than those from virgin materials (like paper and plastic).
Now, on the flip side, I have heard it said by some recycling proponents that, “yeah, we know it is not cost effective now, but we want to keep people in the habit of sorting their garbage so when recycling does become cost effective people won’t have to be retrained.”
Besides, recycling just makes people feel like they are doing something good for the environment. But what if they are not?
"Curbside recycling in Urbana costs, I believe, $2.50 per month" - that is what it costs residents or costs the city? If the premise of the article is accurate, Urbana could get rid of its recycling program and spend less total $ on garbage pickup.
"polluting the Earth for all time"
Does paper in a landfill pollute? Glass? Plastic bottles? I was under the impression that current legal landfills are like a giant swimming pool, with a big plastic liner around them to contain all the stuff.
I can't believe one would even suggest trusting the Weekly Standard on such an issue. Clear Skies, Healthy Forests, Mission Accomplished...let the Orwellian games begin.
Technology forcing.
Bob-
Would your opinion be any different if the 'New York Times' had reported this?
Technology forcing? Does that mean if we keep providing industry with all this sorted garbge then they will get better at finding efficient uses for it?
Bob, we had a big discussion yesterday about which ideology is more willing to deal with facts - conservatives or liberals. I wonder if the open-minded, rationale (green) liberals are willing to even concede the possibility that curbside recycling is a waste of gasoline?
You know what else is cost-inefficient? Children. What's the deal with them?
We have to drive them to school in buses. They eat food and don't produce any logical product for years and years. Man, they sure use lots of diapers.
We should refuse to take care of children. It isn't cost efficient for me or my partner. While we're at it, we should refuse to do anything nominally positive if it isn't cost-efficient. Forget Africa, homeless shelters, and church. Aint working for me. And ... all the GAS we use getting to church? For what purpose? SO wasteful.
Paper comes from trees, a renewable resource. Glass comes from sand, one of the most prevalent substances on the planet. If recycling paper and glass is not to save money, why are we doing it?
RSW,
The reason people recycle is that is makes them "feel" better. Results don't matter as long as your intentions are good. Most of the items picked up for recycling end up in the landfill anyway because raw materials costs are low enough to make recycling too expensive.
Glass used to be profitable to recycle until plastics (from non-renewable mostly foreign oil) came along.
What happens when oil gets too expensive? Hopefully plastics from locally grown, renewable crops will be ready.
As the cost of gas rises, the post office raises rates meaning less and less paper due to the much cheaper cost and portability of electronic documents.
As the world population continues to grow and free trade distributes wealth across the world, more people will be competing for use of the same resources, so prices will skyrocket and we'll be forced to live more efficiently with less waste.
We can let our economy get run over by the changes or get ahead of the curve and profit.
We're doing it to feel better about ourselves. I personally would like to see more wooden baseball bats made (Louisville Slugger) and more hard wood flooring and more 2 X4 boards and more toothpicks made (the little mint flavored ones!). There are some though who would rather we live in mud huts and eat berries.
As oil gets more expensive we can easily turn to corn based polymers and bio-plastics since the market will be viable if the price of oil remains high. Refined corn based oils can and already have been converted into different types of polymers, it's just been cost prohibitive due to relatively inexpensive petroleum.
So anon, you are in the recycling proponent camp then? 'It doesn't really make sense now, but it will in the future and it will be good to have the infrastructure (and personal habits) ready.'
You use the terms "inferior" and "cost-effective" but these are relative terms. I think recycled toilet paper is "superior" because I don't have to feel as wasteful when I wipe my ass. It is "cost-effective" to me to buy insulation made from recycled plastic bottles because I want my house to be a reflection of reuse. Hey - here are 500 bottles that are not in the landfill. They are being used again. We call that reuse, and it is important to my family and myself.
Yeah, I think your screen name says it all - nice argument. See "Bleeding Heart" above.
Curbside recycling in Urbana costs, I believe, $2.50 per month, payable once every year. You can recycle at least half of your waste stream as the contractor collects all sorts of paper, cardboard and plastics and glass. Garbage collection is much more expensive. At least in Urbana, that premise is wrong.
Even if we aren't running out of landfill space, isn't it better to recycle as much as we can rather than burying our garbage and polluting the Earth for all time?
And as long as you're critiquing screenames, RedStateWannabe, I'll point out that Illinois is never going to be a red state, and is only going to become even an even deeper shade of blue. If you "wannabe" a red-stater, I'm afraid you'll have to move in with the rednecks and hillbillies in hellholes like Utah and Alabama.
It's our trash, and it's going to sit there for all time. That's pollution. Are you being purposely obtuse? I sure hope so.
Oh, I see. Landfills are pollution by definition - my bad.
What if we contain the trash (so nothing leaches out), then cover it with dirt, plant grass, and make a park or ski slope?
http://www.virginia.org/site/description.asp?AttrID=24654&MGrp=1&MCat=10
"So anon, you are in the recycling proponent camp then? It doesn't really make sense now, but it will in the future and it will be good to have the infrastructure (and personal habits) ready."
As gas prices rise, recycling becomes more expensive and less viable, but so does consuming products from far away.
Actually, recycling is very financially viable with metals, especially aluminum. Why didn't you mention that?
Personally, I'm in the camp that says reduce first, reuse second, and recycle third. If you don't buy waste, you don't have to recycle it.
Hard to do in our society, but how's one grocery bag of landfill trash per month?
BTW, you fill up a landfill much, much faster if you put in things you could reuse or recycle. The more landfills you have to open and close, the more expensive disposal becomes. That's why we banned yard waste from landfills. Also, most landfills (like the one in Urbana) have had problems with leaching toxins, especially during heavy rains.
By the way, avoiding wasteful packaging also saves you money.
I think aluminum is a seperate case, because you can actually get someone to pay you for it.
As someone whose been slurred over and over again on this site, I have to agree with the line of questioning on this one. By the way, RSW, did you pick up this talking point from Michael Moore, or did you both think of it independently? (That's a serious question, not snark)
Recycling, like anything is not some sort of free ticket into heaven--if the realities don't back up the practice, it should be abandoned in favor of another alternative that is most responsible whether that be simple trash disposal or a complete reassessment of how we use and dispose of these products (I don't know--I haven't done the research).
"Personally, I'm in the camp that says reduce first, reuse second, and recycle third. If you don't buy waste, you don't have to recycle it."
OK, but how much extra are you willing to spend to recycle it? If you could be convinced that it costs Urbana 55% more to run its curbside recycling than just throwing it in landfill, is that still a good thing?
Michael Moore agrees with me? Say it isn't so Xian?
As the post references, I read a piece in the Weekly Standard.
I recycle every four days: Front side, back side, inside, outside.
You can get paid for any type of metal, including steel...just take old appliances and scrap to Mack's in Urbana or the other one in Champaign.
You get less for steel, but stainless steel, copper, brass, and aluminum are all highly valued.
Did you know well over half a steel can is made from recycled steel?
Yeah, I think your screen name says it all - nice argument. See “Bleeding Heart” above.
Well, I may be a dumbass but at least I'm not a dick.
These are the type of conservative arguments that just hurt the conservative cause.
RSWB, can you actual be serious that people should not recycle?
Can you believe in rewards, savings, and planning that actual does not consider money?
Maybe people like being good stewards of God's earth or are you wanting to plunder his creation as long as it makes financial sense?
Should we let the free markets invisible hand decide what should be recycled and when?
If your arguments are true than to institute the free market people should be charged per pound of waste that they throw away. That will give meatheads a monetary incentive to save.
"Give Me a Break!"
Personally, I'm willing to pay a lot more for recycling because I know the long-term consequences of not doing it and it's a better investment to me than another gadget or trinket.
The benefit of more recycling is not just reduced impact of virgin supplies and lands, but with larger recycling supplies available, you get economies of scale that make recycled products more cost effective.
A few years ago, the cost of recycled copier paper at U of I was lower than virgin paper, suggesting it's more efficient to recycle than build new roads into even more remote forests or ship it in from overseas.
"If your arguments are true than to institute the free market people should be charged per pound of waste that they throw away. That will give meatheads a monetary incentive to save."
People are charged based on volume. You can get 1 can vs. 2 can service. And you get charged extra for extra stuff.
And, no, I am not saying recycling is not inherently evil or anything. But at some point don't we need to say "is this really worth our time, trouble, energy and $ to recycle?"
Newspaper does not pollute, is cheap to produce, and comes from a renewable source - does it make sense for a second truck to spend $2 per gallon gasoline to keep this stuff seperate from the other garbage?
Let me pose this another way - the environment is not the only "problem" that gov't is involved in "solving". What if Urbana saved $250,000 per year by not doing curbside recycling and spent the money on housing assistance, or vaccinations, or parks and bike paths?
That's not all they recycle though, so the $2.00 is not spent on the newspaper alone. They also pick up the metals, plastics, glass, etc...
I live in Urbana and I have to pay a private contractor to take my trash to the landfill. It costs like $20 a month for one can. If I didn't recycle I'd probably have two cans, which would cost me more than the $2.50 a month I spend on recycling.
So yeah, it's worth it.
Redstate, would you say your house is clean if you swept the dirt under the rug?
You didn't like the picture Justin?
The solution to newspaper is to have it all online.
Unforunately, that may take another generation before costs exceed resistance to reading online.
What about incinerators?
Ahat about an incinerator?
Ralph has definitely left the building.
Whew!
I thought you were taliking about me!
Remember, support the MTD in it fight to legally annex Savoy, don't let Savoy misuse the law to stop what the MTD has the right to do.
The MTD has the law on its side. Support the laws, or be outlaws.
Great movie plot: Outlaw Joanie D gets down off her high horse and moseys up to the bus barn.
George and Bill are there. She draws her six shooter, and fires. She misses! Then...
RSW, my baggage, my reading comprehension sucks.
Yeah, Moore can grate on my as much as the next person, but the guy does do investigative journalism occasionally, which is more than we can say about many of our present day "journalists" (on both sides of the aisle).
Moore spent a few days following around recycling trucks and caught them dumping recycling in the dump.
This is the key point here. I understand the righteous indignation about people questioning recycling in theory. But that's not the decision we have. We have to evaluate recycling in practice and adjust it or replace it. Shouting "Recycling is good!" does nothing if the "recycling" we have is a bunch of people feeling good about themselves while the "recycled goods" are dumped in the landfill.
We, as a society, have been literally brainwashed into believing that recycling is beneficial and must never be challenged. The article is eyeopening. What will the environmentalists do with facts like this? Deny, deny, deny. And they say conservatives live on blind faith.
That's what I am saying, handymom. Maybe it is good and important and worth the cost. But I think we need to realize that it may be costing us a lot of money, and we may have different priorities for that money. It doesn't even necessarily have to be anti-environment - we could spend the money to buy solar panels for the city buildings or something.
Stuff just becomes a sacred cow that you can't even consider changing - like public education or social security - and that is just wrong. All gov't programs need to be evaluated on their costs and benefits.
Given that the "conservative" environmental strategy seems to be to disbelieve science and statistics, pretend that global warming is a myth and that the oil will never run out, oppose any attempt to make anyone pay for the real costs of their actions, pray a lot and assume that the Rapture will come before the ice caps melt, I hesitate to even engage in this discussion. But I'll try to explain why this isn't the black-and-white issue that the author of that article presumably wants to be.
Any statistic like "curbside recycling is 55% more expensive than conventional garbage disposal" is bogus by definition. Landfill costs and the recycling value of materials vary extensively from region to region and from year to year. The efficiency of curbside pickup depends entirely on the level of participation and population density--how many tons of material a given truck picks up in a given mile during a given hour will vary by several orders of magnitude from a big-city downtown to a rural county. And saying that "the U.S. isn't running out landfill space" is idiocy--Wyoming certainly isn't, but New Jersey is. I can only assume that RSW's apparent amazement that one could consider a landfill to be "pollution" indicates that he's never been downwind of one. There's no doubt that they are necessary, but they always smell, they frequently leak, they occasionally catch fire, and they don't do much for surrounding property values. There are no active landfills in Champaign County and every attempt to site one has been politically DOA. Imagine what it's like on the East cost and you'll understand why some of New York City's garbage goes by barge to New Jersey and thereafter by rail to Scottsdale, Arizona (seriously).
Like everything else in the real world, the economics of waste management are too complicated to be captured in snappy ideological platitutes. You have to consider time, place, and the material involved to determine whether it was an economic win or an economic loss. Of course its proponents and opponents discard all data points that don't comply with their argument, which for conservatives is usually based on the notion that liberals seem to like it, so it's got to be bad. For my part I'd be happy to see it stand or fall on the economic merits, but I'd want to see all the economic factors (short and long term) taken into account, not just the ones that made one political pundit's point-of-the-day.
Perhaps this is another attempt by conservatives to diminish the impact of a traditionally liberal policy issue? Perhaps facts and analysis are not as important as implanting a little chip of doubt about environmentalism as whole? Perhaps recycling is being used because it is the biggest step that most people make to attempt to address environmental destruction?
Conservatives are successful when the environment is not an issue. Bush/Kerry debates barely touched on it, much to Bush's delight, I'm sure. RSW is fulfilling the function of creating doubt about a solid Dem issue. He is to be commended for his punditry.
It's unfortunate he's willing to play games with things like our environmental future. But, whatever - it is still effective politics.
Which may be the biggest insult of all.
Anyone who has ever stood on a muddy slope where a forest has been clear-cut knows that recycling is worth every ounce of effort.
Regarding incineration, it creates dangerous toxins unless burned at extremely high temperatures, which uses a lot of energy. It usually uses short smokestakes, so locals are affected the most. In the past, most incinerators created toxins because they frequently malfunctioned or were improperly operated.
Supposedly, with low oxygen (5%), high pressure, and temperatures around 800-900 degrees you can "squeeze" out a fairly clean methane-like gas (like a landfill) without burning, eliminating the toxins and reducing the waste into a much smaller powder. The gas is then burned to help continue powering the vaporizing.
Seems a bit too good to be true, so investors be wary. The bigger problem is it fails to address the problem of creating too much waste (economically bad by definition...ask any business owner) in the first place.
Recycling economics:
metal - easily pays for itself and makes up for any costs of most other recyclables. Mining and processing is extremely energy intensive and expensive.
paper - depends on sorting and quality, top grades usually profitable. Tree farms using fast growing (20 yr) pines are becoming more common and cheaper than driving hundreds of miles to the next virgin forest.
cardboard - fluctuates wildly, most to Asia. Often stored until prices recover.
plastic - depends on sorting and quality, top grades usually viable.
glass - only profitable in major cities due to weight, cost of transportation, and much less common now due to plastics.
Lazlo, "I can only assume that RSW's apparent amazement that one could consider a landfill to be “pollution” indicates that he's never been downwind of one"
Have you ever been downwind of a plastic bottle recycling center, with all the rotten milk clinging to those gallon jugs? You "solution" to my "problem" just creates two smelly spots instead of one.
And I understand that landfill space is a much different issue in Wyoming than it is in New Jersey, but I have never heard any questioning of recycling's importance anywhere.
Foley, you give me way too much credit. I just saw an article and thought it was interesting. Maybe I am just an unsuspecting pawn of a good political operative at the Weekly Standard - that could be.
"Conservatives are successful when the environment is not an issue."
I think conservatives just think of the environment differently. Nobody wants to live in filth and drink dirty water. It just seems that some "hard-core" environmentalist see any human activity as an intrusion, and inherently evil. Costs and tradeoffs are not considered. A poster on the oil drilling thread admitted that he/she felt we really shouldn't drill for oil anywhere. Is that really a majority position in this country?
Have you ever been downwind of a plastic bottle recycling center, with all the rotten milk clinging to those gallon jugs? You “solution” to my “problem” just creates two smelly spots instead of one.
Oh, come on. That's like comparing a garbage dump to a garbage truck. Of course waste smells wherever it is handled, but there's a bit of difference between trace amounts of spoiled milk on a few tons of plastic bottles and the methane and other noxious emissions which persist for many decades from a few million tons of waste in a landfill. Trust me--you'd rather live next door to a transfer station or a recycling center than live two miles downwind of a landfill.
Oh, and don't call it "my solution"--I went out of my way to say that whether or not recycling is economically sensible depends entirely on time, place, and material. Conservatives seem to have this irrational hatred of recycling whether it's economically justified or not, because somehow conservation and sustainability have become classified as "liberal." I'm willing to be more open minded.
I agree, Lazlo.
Lazlo said,
"Given that the “conservative” environmental strategy seems to be to disbelieve science and statistics, pretend that global warming is a myth and that the oil will never run out, oppose any attempt to make anyone pay for the real costs of their actions, pray a lot and assume that the Rapture will come before the ice caps melt, I hesitate to even engage in this discussion."
"I'm willing to be more open minded."
You seem willing to be open minded about anything except the motivations and intelligence of conservatives.
Read the totality of my comments again - I am not saying that recyling is evil and should never be done. And I commend you for your willingness to acknowledge that it might not be logical in certain instances. But your position would make you more at home at the GOP Lincoln Day dinner than an Urbana city council meeting.
You seem willing to be open minded about anything except the motivations and intelligence of conservatives.
I'm okay with conservatives. It's "conservatives" (i.e., the clowns running around in Congress calling themselves conservatives, most of whom are Republicans) who I could do without. But we can probably agree on that.
Agreed. I think once you and I really get down to the nub of the issues, we are not that far apart. We just both abhore the caricatures of the others party.
"And I understand that landfill space is a much different issue in Wyoming than it is in New Jersey, but I have never heard any questioning of recycling's importance anywhere."
A few years ago, Springfield cut off glass recycling because it was too costly (ie inefficient) to send a heavy load to Chicago.
Paper and plastic markets fluctuate too much to stop and start community recycling during seasonal and business cycles.
If alternatives like email and tree farms become common and are cheaper then paper recycling may no longer be viable.
"A few years ago, Springfield cut off glass recycling because it was too costly (ie inefficient) to send a heavy load to Chicago."
Well, there you go. I always like those folks over there in Springfield, at least until they decided private property rights didn't apply to restaurants and bars.
Before you completely dismiss glass recycling, consider the highly profitable emerging market for food containers that don't leach oil-based plastics into your food that accumulate in your body.
Such a business would have to be locally based to make glass recycling profitable and would need a mass produced food product that could be initially marketed to high-end consumers in Chicago, St Louis and Indianapolis.
If there's a very cheap supply of local recycled glass available, the potential for a significant "export" to boost the local economy is much better.
"food containers that don't leach oil-based plastics"
Funny, I was in a hospital yesterday and all the medicine and fluids were stored in plastic containers, and they dripped straight into peoples bodies thru plastic tubes. Must be a pretty big risk.
Hospitals also used to incinerate PVC releasing dioxin into surrounding neighbors until they learned better and decided their hypocratic oath of "first do no harm" couldn't justify it. The science and research on the effects of plastics and chemicals is only just beginning. Like cigarettes, some prefer the precautionary principle and choose to stop smoking, others prefer to wait until 30 to 60 years of scientific research "proves" something, and others may ignore the proof.
If you want to learn about the PVC once commonly used in those hospital drip bags (now crop based plastics are emerging), rent the movie Blue Vinyl.
You could have your blood tested for the typical 100+ synthetic chemicals commonly found these days. While some people may not care what's in their blood and bodies, some people are willing to pay extra to avoid what seem like unnecessary risks. If you're good at business, you'd take advantage of that opportunity, just as big business has picked up on demand for organic foods that entreprenuers saw decades ago. If you're a political hack, you can afford to ignore the trend for another decade or two.
As long as you are advocating a marketing campaign, and not a government campaign to ban all PVC, knock yourself out. I won't invest any of my money into a business plan based on what might turn out to be bad for me in 30 years, but you can go ahead. This is America, and there are millions of $ to be made.
Marketing is great, although I wouldn't be opposed to banning the burning of PVC (#3 recycleable) because it releases a lot of dioxin.
Some things are just too toxic to allow when it harms more than the fool burning it and far better disposal alternatives exist.
Lucky for us the wind was blowing away from C/U when the Illiopolis PVC plant blew up a year or two ago...too bad for Taylorville.
Did you know the Illiopolis plant was so toxic their workers had to sign health liability waivers to get a job?
Bioplastics is the future...start looking for investment opportunities soon before you miss the next boom!