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Science

Swedes Say Recycling Wastes Time And Money 94

Posted by timothy from the rubbish-or-rubbish dept.
Rob Parkhill writes "The London Daily Telegraph is reporting that a group of Swedish environmentalists are claiming that recycling is a waste of time and money, and most houshold waste should be burned instead."
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Swedes Say Recycling Wastes Time And Money More

Swedes Say Recycling Wastes Time And Money

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  • huh. (Score:3, Funny)

    by penguin_punk ( 66721 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:29PM (#5486981) Journal
    These don't happen to be the same environmentalists that made us recycle everything in the first place, do they?

    end rant
    • Swedish eco-nazis has literally replaced a very good and safe nuclear reactor with coal. (Burned in coal plants in other countries and imported.) The exhausts from the coal plant kills people every year and then we have the greenhouse effects.

      Background:
      The Swedish' electricity saving programs has worked quite well during the last 20 years, but the use is still rising (people get computers, etc.) So any lowering of production capacity has to be replaced with fossile fuel.

      The environment can't afford Swedish' environmentalists. They are ... words fail me.

      (The decision of coal/nuclear was done by social democrats and environmental political parties. The report is about a report written by experts...)

    • Lets see through the article:
      Former director-general of the government's environmental protection agency, former campaign manager for Keep Sweden Tidy, former managing directors of three waste-collection companies.

      I only read former, former, former. Perhaps I am wrong, but this sounds like an assembly of exwifies howling in front of their ex`s house.

      And even _if_ their arguments are rigth (wich I doubt), they have a very short-sighted point of view. They stand on the bottom of the bowl and are only capable of looking to the rim but cannot grasp that there is a wider horizon. They ignore the fact that one day there will be no oil to produce plastics, not enough wood to produce paper, ... (you get my point, I assume ;-D)

      Just my 2 ct

      Maresi
      • one day there will be no oil to produce plastics, not enough wood to produce paper

        No more oil to make plastics, no doubt. But as for wood, there is a greater acreage of forest cover (in the US) than there was 300 years ago; lumber companies love to plant trees, it's a very cheap factory. What we have lost is old growth forest, not total ammount of forest. Trees are a renwable resource in every sense of the term; It is unlikely that we will run out of them due to their overuse.

        As for the "former former former," these guys are experts in their field, and obviously have strong convictions regarding the environment. The main point is that these are the same people that advocated recycling 20 years ago. They have now reversed their opinion, and that is significant. If we listened to them then, why not listen now?

  • Not a new insight (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:36PM (#5487075) Journal
    The problem is that recyling has taken on a near-religious quality, where as long as you toss something in a recycling bin, it's mgically like it never existed. It would make much more sense to introduce a market-based scheme where a cost is assigned to generating trash and people could use their judgement, and the real economic benefits of recycling to decide what to throw out, what to recycle and what to not buy in the first place.

    I think any environmentalist would agree that not generating waste in the first place is always preferable to recylcling. Encouraging people to think that tossing a half-full Starbucks cup into a bin is an environmental victory is counterproductive.

    (Out of curiosity, why is it that questioning environmentalist dogma is only valid coming from Scandinavians?)

    • It's only valid coming from Scandinavians because their environment is a beatuiful example of what nature can look like (compared to the a lot of the industrialized world).

    • Environmentalists never wanted recycling (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @05:44PM (#5487810) Journal

      (Out of curiosity, why is it that questioning environmentalist dogma is only valid coming from Scandinavians?)

      The "recycling saves Mother Earth" viewpoint was never really from the environmentalists. I remember back when recycling was first being considered in America -- the environmentalists were the only group opposed to the idea. The reason is simply that they wanted the responsibility for trash to be imposed on the corporations producing the junk rather than relying on the volunteer efforts of consumers. For the politicians, the recycling plan was absolutely brilliant. By passing it, they could convince the masses that they were doing the environment a favor. Passing the bill also kept their corporate campaign contributors very happy. And most of all, people could get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside everytime they went to the recycling center, knowing that they were doing something good, all thanks to Senator Whatshisface.

      Recycling was never part of "environmentalist dogma". It was simply a very clever trick cooked up by politicans.

      GMD

      • That may well be true (and interesting -- I certainly had never heard that) but I don't think there's any question that mainstream environmentalism overwhelmingly supports recycling today. Let me know if the Sierra Club, which I've belonged to for years, but am quitting because I joined for environmental advocacy, not anti-war protest and free-floating leftism, supports this new study.

    • Reduce, Re-use, Recycle (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geoswan ( 316494 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @08:23PM (#5489485) Journal
      Real environmentalist have always pointed out that recycling is their third choice. Reusing is their second choice. Not requiring the product in the first place is the first choice in a Conserver Society.
  • Don't buy crap [guardian.co.uk] like this.

    This type "research" is frequently sponsored by corporations with an interest in attempting to sway public opinion by footing the bill for "scientific studies."

    Instead, call them out [petitiononline.com] on it.

    PS: we've seen this [slashdot.org] stuff before [slashdot.org]

    Don't be a sucker.

    • Re:Sure and Global Warming is Good For You (Score:5, Insightful)

      by neocon ( 580579 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:54PM (#5487282) Homepage Journal

      Do you have any evidence for your claim that some of the most established figures in the Swedish environment movement are actually working for `the corporations'? (Which corporations? Since when? What evidence contradicts their conclusions?)

      Did it cross your mind that someone could wish to preserve the environment, but not agree that current attempts to do so are the right way to go?

      Or do you automatically consider someone to be in ill will if they don't agree with you one hundred percent?

      • No, I don't have any evidence, but what I'm advising is to be skeptical of "new scientific" proof that asks you to embrace consumerism and the "disposable economy."

        If you look at what Exxon/Mobil has done to thwart emission reductions and confuse the public through "scientific press releases" about global warming you can see an obvious pattern. They are interested making people comfortable with their gas guzzling SUV's and driving up energy use.

        In my opinion, the cost of recycling shouldn't be a major concern. Money is a man-made concept that we've invented for ourselves. It does not "exist" unlike the plastic soda bottle that will take hundreds of years to decay. I would rather pay 10x the cost to ensure proper disposal than to get a cheap one-use item that will outlast us all.

        To think only in financial or economic terms over environmental matters is a grave mistake. For instance, just because the GDP went up when Exxon spilled gallons of crude in Alaska that doesn't make it a "good thing."

        All I'm saying is to take it with a grain of salt and question this new "proof."

        • So, in other words, you feel we should judge scientific work not by whether its methods are valid, but by whether its conclusions meet our pre-formed political conceptions.

          Very interesting.

        • Money is a man-made concept that we've invented for ourselves. It does not "exist" unlike the plastic soda bottle that will take hundreds of years to decay. I would rather pay 10x the cost to ensure proper disposal than to get a cheap one-use item that will outlast us all.

          Not quite true. Money represents "value" or "worth." What you say is true if the value of something is in human labor. However, fossil fuels also have "value," as well as trees and other natural resources. Suppose that a recycling plant takes {some huge amount of money} to build. That is not just green pieces of paper (or whatever color money is over there), but bricks made from earth, which probably used a bulldozer to get at. The bulldozer burns fossil fuels! Also, to build the bulldozer (heavy steel content) required mining, which uses fossil fuels. And the raw materials and the finished product for the bulldozer has to be moved all around, which uses more fossil fuels.

          I could also go on about the eqipment in the recycling plant, and the trucks used to haul this stuff around, the trees cut down so that the beurocrats in the plant can have papers to push, etc. You get the point .. that almost every dollar impacts the environment.

          Note that I am NOT saying that we should not recycle. Just that we DO have to take these things into account in order to have an accurate picture of what is happening.

      • From the article:
        They include Valfrid Paulsson, a former director-general of the government's environmental protection agency, Soren Norrby, the former campaign manager for Keep Sweden Tidy, and the former managing directors of three waste-collection companies.
        (Describing the people behind the campaign.) While I know nothing about Sweden politically, these titles are enough for me to at least be suspicious of their motives. I think it's always best to be a bit skeptical, at least enough to ask those kinds of questions. But I, too, would not immediately jump to the conclusion that this effort is being puppeteered by a group of men smoking in a dark room.

        In any case, I think this particular question isn't very interesting. The motto for environmental friendliness has always been "reduce, reuse, recycle". These are roughly organized decreasing order of how much net energy can be saved by adopting the practice. Recycling has always been known to be an inefficient process.

    • MOD PARENT UP!

      Seriously, "research" like the parent comment is the result of BILLIONS of electrons streaming towards the front of quakeslut's CRT in a frantic search for unsubstantiated opinions. Anybody who tells you that paper and plastic recycling processes involve the use of toxic chemicals is lying, just like those republican assholes who say that glass recycling takes almost as much energy (generated with fossil fuels, or worse, with that evil nuclear stuff) as making new glass, without even counting the costs of collecting and sorting bottles.

      Even it sombody comes up with an idea that's good for the environment but contrasts ideas presented as environmentalist, we should resist those ideas, as they reduce the momentum of the movement and undermine environmentalism as a political force. Clearly that power is more important for saving the environment than anything these meddling scientists can think up.

  • Recycling Considered Harmful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:44PM (#5487178)
    Not only is it a waste of time and money, but in many cases the waste products from recycling are more harmful to the environment than the thing being recycled.

    In many cases there are health concerns - for example would you want recycled plastic of dubious heritage showing up in plastic sode pop bottles?

    Recycling today is really driven by municipalities who are having trouble siting new landfills due to NIMBY. In reality there is no shortage of land for landfills - just plenty of politics arount their siting.

    There are a few things that are being recycled sucessfully - corrugated cardboard and aluminum. However most of the rest is driven by politics rather than sound science and economics.

    • There are a few things that are being recycled sucessfully - corrugated cardboard and aluminum. However most of the rest is driven by politics rather than sound science and economics.

      There's currently plenty of space for landfills, and there's currently no particular shortage of raw materials. Fast forward a few decades and things might not be so convenient, at least not everywhere.

      Pushing recycling now advances the state of the art. Even if the process is inefficient now, it will eventually become cleaner and cheaper, in the same way that paper recycling has. So part of every dollar we put towards recycling can be considered an investment in future technology.

    • > for example would you want recycled plastic of dubious heritage showing up in plastic sode pop bottles?

      Um, in countries, where there is an existing enforced recycling system (for example, most of Northern and Central Europe), the plastic in soda bottles is standardised. It's PET (polyethylen), IRC.
      Actually, plastics are one of the easiest things to recycle, far easier than, say glas. The possible harmful additives are already outlawed, since people are drinking from such a bottle.

      IRC, the plastics are shreddered and dissovled in various solvents. One solvent for each kind of plastic. Then the plastic is extracted from its solvent and you receive a practically pure resin.

      Not to mention that recycling processes can be improved as production processes are improved. This is especially true, when the product is designed and produced with recycling in mind. And AFAIK, this hasn't happend a lot in the past.
      • The possible harmful additives are already outlawed, since people are drinking from such a bottle.

        It is far more complex than that. The safety of plastics for food packaging is determined primarily by how much of the components of the plastic end up in the food. This has been carefully studied for many years in the case of virgin materials. Nobody knows what the characteristics of recycled plastics are in this regard. Clearly additional processing of the plastic is highly likely to increase its mobility. In addition there is a great possibility that contaminants from the life cycle handling of the plastic (maybe the consumer mixed week killer in the bottle for his lawn after the soda was consumed!), or errors in sorting the plastics during recycling lead to contamination.

        IRC, the plastics are shreddered and dissovled in various solvents. One solvent for each kind of plastic. Then the plastic is extracted from its solvent and you receive a practically pure resin.

        There are many things wrong about this - first, cross-linked plastics are not soluble in solvents, and second, the introduction of solvents in itself will cause traces of the solvent (possibly harmful) left in the plastic - and then there is the issue of environmental damage from waste solvents.

        The fact is that recycling is mostly a pipe dream. The only real way to reduce waste in an economic and sound environmental fashion is through reduced consumption.

  • Recycling Centers are the problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:45PM (#5487192) Homepage Journal
    On a bi-weekly basis, I have to load up my truck and drive about 8 miles to the recycling center, to deposit about 20 pounds of mixed paper (mostly junk mail) and four or five cardboard boxes. Sometimes I do it monthly but SWMBO doesn't let it accumulate any longer than that.

    So, I've burned one gallon of gasoline and, if the IRS is to be believed, it cost me $5.60 for mileage.

    Hundreds of other families in town are doing the same thing. So, that's about two barrels of oil, and about $500 out of our pockets.

    Tell me again how this is cost effective and good for the environment?

    Now, for the more valuable recycleables, a truck drives down the road and picks them up from the curb. The incremental cost of getting from my neighbor's driveway to my driveway is probably $0.10, a much more reasonable solution.

    Who has comments about good home incinerators?
    • The best thing you could do for the environment is get another car. One gallon for a short trip is way too much!
      • The best thing you could do for the environment is get another car.

        I thought about it, and I don't think so.

        Consider the costs, both monetary and environmental of:
        * mining all the raw materials for another car
        * processing those raw materials into usable parts
        * assembling the parts
        * finishing the parts
        * lubricating the parts
        * transporting the car to me
        * keeping the car running (oil changes, fluids, taxes, registrations, etc)

        Now consider that in order to buy and maintain the car, I need to earn money. Just about every way of earning money involves an expenditure of energy in terms of fossil fuels, and the price of a car requires alot of expenditure.

        So, say I get myself a Mini Cooper to go to the recycling center (ignoring that it won't work in the snow or be able to negotiate the ruts at the shed). It gets 28MPG. My truck gets 16MPG. So, I save 0.4 gallons of fuel by buying the new car per trip, or a little over ten gallons of fuel for the year. That's a hundred gallons of fuel for the amount of time I'll have the truck. It doesn't net out in favor of getting the new car, and it still doesn't make the centralized recycling model economically favorable.

  • what about _____? (Score:3, Funny)

    by wjvdt ( 621519 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:50PM (#5487249)
    Does this mean that I shouldn't recycle my recycle bin when I toss it out?

  • Trueness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @04:58PM (#5487341) Homepage Journal
    Of course, we've known this for years. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an environmentalist who refuses to accept the facts. The amount of money it costs to take a piece of plastic, paper, glass or whatever and recycle it into another one is more than the cost to create that item from unrecycled material.

    In Bridgeport, CT there is a plant called the RESCO, I toured it when I was in elementary/middle school (I forget). They take trash and burn it in a giant furnace, which in turn generates electricity. And the only thing you see coming out of their "smoke" stacks is steam. Very environmentally friendly, profitable and it works on almost anything that burns.

    Recycling is a waste of time effort and money. The benefits to the environment from using a trash power plant vs. a fossil fuel or nuclear power plant are far greater than the benefits of say recycling paper vs. trashing paper.

    • Re:Trueness (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Mr. Shiny And New ( 525071 )
      I don't think paper is a good example to back up your concerns... paper is usually very easily recycled. Paper mills have always recycled lots of waste, for years. Paper is among the most recycled products there are, really. But I agree that recycling everything is pointless. For example, plastic containers, like the milk jugs you get from corner stores, or 2 Litre pop bottles. These things are essentially big bottles of air and recycling trucks burn so much gas hauling them around that it's actually harmful to the environment. Besides, residential waste is so miniscule compared to industrial waste, it's almost pointless to spend time dealing with it. If more time were spend dealing with industrial waste, the world would be a much better place.
      • I don't think paper is a good example to back up your concerns... paper is usually very easily recycled.

        Well, yes and no. A dedicated bin for newspaper or for white copy paper yields waste that can be efficiently and profitably recycled. The stuff I put outside every week -- a mix of junk mail, envelopes, cardboard, wrappers -- is far less attractive.

        The problem is that RECYCLING!!!! has turned into an end in itself instead of a means to help the environment.


    • They take trash and burn it in a giant furnace, which in turn generates electricity. And the only thing you see coming out of their "smoke" stacks is steam.

      This process could be further improved if new products are designed using "incinerator friendly" materials that minimize environmental damage when burned.

    • The amount of money it costs to take a piece of plastic, paper, glass or whatever and recycle it into another one is more than the cost to create that item from unrecycled material.

      The problem is not this simple. Suppose that the monetary cost of producing a good from unrecycled material is less than the monetary cost of producing the same good from recycled material. Even so, it may be the case that it's better to produce the good using recycled inputs if the environmental damage is sufficiently smaller. (Of course, government subsidies are necessary to encourage the right out outcome in such situations.)

      While this is great in theory, I don't think the environmental ramifications of using recycled versus unrecycled inputs are typically very well understood. This is a problem that I run into constantly as an environmentalist, it that often I find that the information I need to make even a simple problem (e.g., paper vs. plastic) is simply unavailable...

      Anyone who claims that all recycling is bad (or good) has an agenda.

    • Of course, we've known this for years. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an environmentalist who refuses to accept the facts. The amount of money it costs to take a piece of plastic, paper, glass or whatever and recycle it into another one is more than the cost to create that item from unrecycled material.

      The problem is the source of unrecycled material. While we have no shortage of things like metals, and while fossil fuel reserves are large, I know that here in Canada we're converting forests to wood pulp at an alarming rate, and my understanding is that the US has already mostly finished this process and is importing from us.

      When the forests run out - easily within my lifetime - we'll either be stuck farming trees for lumber and wood pulp, with a manyfold increase in lumber and paper costs, or have to use recycled paper (paying more than we do now, but less than we would with tree farming as the sole source of supply).

      Personally, I'd rather we used steel and concrete for building and recycle paper and keep the forests. But that's just me.

      We'd still have to farm trees, as recycling would never be perfectly efficient and some applications (like food wrappings) need to be made from new material, but we'd stand some chance of halting the full-scale deforestation that's going on now.

      Lastly, if we think that recycling technology will ever get better in the future, it's best to get people into the habit *now*, so that we aren't stuck trying to retrain the populace down the road.
      • The US has more forest cover now that it had 100 years ago. Trees are kind of funny that way, you plant a seed and, somehow, 20-40 years later you have a perfectly good tree back ready to cut down again. Forest companies and governments both plant a lot of trees, usually more than they cut down.

        Anyone who thinks that either Canada or the US is running out of trees, or will EVER run out of trees, has clearly never stepped outside their local concrete urban neighborhood and seen how truly immensely huge and relatively unpopulated North America is.

        Now we are running out of old-growth forest, and destroying some unique ecosystems in the process, and that is a problem. But we are certainly not running out of trees.

    • Re:Trueness (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @08:15PM (#5489392) Homepage
      And the only thing you see coming out of their "smoke" stacks is steam
      So they've somehow managed to magically eliminate or remove the production of CO2? Excuse me if I take this with a huge grain of salt. Burning is a messy business. Burning plastics, dyes, old batteries, etc doubly so. I can maybe accept that most or all of the toxic chemicals are somehow filtered out of the exhaust, but I just can't believe the only thing released into the air is steam.

  • This isn't news (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JCMay ( 158033 )
    If you're a taxpayer, this isn't news. Here in Melbourne, Florida [melbourneflorida.org] we have a mantitory waste recycling program for glass, plastic, metals and paper. [melbourneflorida.org] Residents pay [melbourneflorida.org] for the priveledge of sorting their junk and setting out FOUR refuse containers (three recycle bins plus their "to the landfill" bin).

    If recycling was really worth the effort, the recycling companies would be paying the city for the effort and we'd be getting credits on our utility bills! If recycling was really worth the effort, recycling companies wouldn't need government mandates and subsidies to stay in business.
    • In Largo, FL, my dad says that even if you DO throw out cans and stuff, they have facilities at the incinerator (which does generate electricity too) to sort that stuff out. Don't ask me how but I'm sure they have a way... I just hope it isn't a bunch of people pulling that stuff out.

      So over here, if you put it in your recycle bin or not (if what he said is to be believed) it doesn't matter... but I still do anyways

  • Catch-22 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @05:23PM (#5487566)
    There is an age-old argument that most littering is actually better for the environment than contributing to land fills. The logic behind it is that most litter biodegrades relatively quickly, whereas we have 80 year old meat being dug out of landfills that still show marbling and what kind of cut they were. So if you want that milk carton to biodegrade this decade, litter it. (Yes I know we have better landfill tech now, but the same logic still holds true to a lesser degree.)

    So should we all start littering? No because the litter will just pile up, we make it much faster than it would decompose. In the same light I think several hundred million people's piles of trash being perpetually burned would have the Global Warming people throwing fits. We make it faster than the atmosphere can reasonably take it in. That's a heck of a lot of CO2. A volcanic eruption of extremely fine particulate matter that never ceases. El Nino Grande anyone? Don't mess with the weather.

    Their argument seems logical, but so can littering seem logical. In the end it really is a Zero-Sum game. There are only so many atoms on the planet (don't pick the metiorite type nits). In the long run, reducing, reusing and recycling are the only weapons that can work in this game.
    • In the same light I think several hundred million people's piles of trash being perpetually burned would have the Global Warming people throwing fits. We make it faster than the atmosphere can reasonably take it in. That's a heck of a lot of CO2. A volcanic eruption of extremely fine particulate matter that never ceases. El Nino Grande anyone? Don't mess with the weather.

      Balogna. The result of burning garbage doesn't necessarily have to be CO2. Plasma burners yield H20 after they are finished processing the H2 and CO that come out. Is H20 harmful to our planet? If so, we are in deep trouble, because there is far more H2O than we know what to do with! Or maybe it is the sand byproduct you are worried about. After all, where can we possible put millions of tons of sterile sand?

      The result of just burning garbage without controlling the temperature or what exactly you were burning would be chemicals far worse than CO2 (and far worse than CO!). That's why you don't burn pop bottles and styrofoam in a campfire.

      • Balogna. The result of burning garbage doesn't necessarily have to be CO2. Plasma burners yield H20 after they are finished processing the H2 and CO that come out.

        If you have carbon going in, you have carbon going out.

        Burn it in an oxygen-poor environment or play reforming games, and you get the carbon out as tar or particulate carbon instead of CO2 (mostly), but it still comes out.

        Plasma burners or other high-temperature incinerators are also *extremely* expensive to run compared to more mundane incinerators. They're used for PCBs and other difficult-to-decompose hazardous wastes, and not much else.
    • So use the damn CO2 for something, too..

      CO2 enrichment works really well for growing hemp (which grows fine in side shipping containers from what I hear).. In turn, use the energy from burning and the CO2 to grow more fuel.

      Yeah.
    • Incinerating trash isn't such a bad idea. Especially if you can generate power and keep emissions down.

      After all you need power anyway, and if you were going to burn something you might as well burn trash rather than burn oil.

      Better to have the oil turn to plastic, then to trash, and then only burn it, than to burn it straight away.
    • In the same light I think several hundred million people's piles of trash being perpetually burned would have the Global Warming people throwing fits. We make it faster than the atmosphere can reasonably take it in. That's a heck of a lot of CO2

      If you have lots of small CO2 sources, then you have a problem, but if you only have a few large ones, you can collect the CO2 and pump it to the bottom of the ocean, where pressure will keep it in liquid form.

      There are only so many atoms on the planet (don't pic
  • There are many arguments both in favor and agaist recycling, but I have yet to see a study that performs a thorough cost/benefit analysis. What does it really cost to recycle something?

    A good analysis needs to factor in transportation costs, processing costs, whether using the recycled material requires more/less energy than using the raw material, etc. For starters, look at materials that can be truely recycled (such as aluminum cans) rather materials that are just put to another use (such as melting down HDPE bottles to make park benches).

    Then somehow factor in the long term cost of using raw materials that come from non-renewable sources versus renewable sources (oil versus paper).

    The problem is that an analysis that considers the multitude of materials used by modern society would be a very complicated and time consuming project. I doubt if anyone has even attempted it.

    • It's really pretty simple. If it made economic sense to recycle, they would pay you to do it. There's a reason we pay companies (or municipal employees) to pick up our garbage, and not the other way around.

      • It's not that simple. Let's say that it costs $10/ton to put waste in a landfill. If the cost to recycle the same waste is $5/ton then recycling makes economic sense.

        • Let's say that it costs $10/ton to put waste in a landfill. If the cost to recycle the same waste is $5/ton then recycling makes economic sense.

          If so, then waste mgmt. companies that recycle would be able to bid lower for contracts than waste mgmt. companies that don't. Some of this actually goes on--mostly with metals being reclaimed--precisely because it does make economic sense.

  • Who ever claimed otherwise? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JUSTONEMORELATTE ( 584508 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @05:53PM (#5487929) Homepage
    I don't recall anyone claiming that recycling saved time or saved money.
    The claim that I've always heard (and happen to believe) is that recycling lowers the rate at which we burn through resources while reducing the volume of crap that we bury each year.
    Yes, that costs more money. Yes, that takes more time. This surprises you?

  • spin (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zenyu ( 248067 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @06:04PM (#5488063)

    Look, they are not saying we shouldn't be recycling. Recycling metals, especially aluminum, makes a lot of sense. Recycling paper from offices, where lots is generated, saves energy and resources.

    But, sometimes the cost of sorting is greater than the savings. This is the case with mixed packaging (paper & plastic), and mixed color glass, and sometimes household paper. This is all they are saying. The Telegraph is trying to say they don't want you to recycle, this is not the case.

    Mixed glass could be easily delt with by just recycling clear glass, and levying a $10 per lb tax on the non-recycled glass. This would encourage beer makers to use clear glass on their new brands and properly account for the added costs of the non-recycled stuff. Same thing could be done with plastics, just recycle one type, and levy a sin/sorting tax on the other stuff. And it's also not a huge loss to just burn plastics, most of it is non-toxic if burned at a high enough temperature. Those that aren't like epoxy, bakelite, teflon, etc have specialized uses (make at home, high temperature, good sealing properties and non-stick in these examples). An extra levy on these wouldn't hurt the producers unless they could be using the non-toxic stuff, in which case the levy would encourage the users to use the non-toxic stuff. Sure these taxes would hit the lower middle class disproportionately, but we could just adjust for that by raising the income tax exemption to 30 or 40 k and/or eliminating sales taxes, there is plenty of room for use taxes. Hell, you could have a $50/gallon gas tax and still make it revenue neutral by simply killing the payroll tax and raising the income tax exemption. (Not that I'm recommending such a high gas tax, that would distort the market in the other way. My point is simply that you could do it without lowering people's after tax income.)

    Finally some stuff just doesn't make sense to reuse, this you can either burn or ship to a landfill in Virginia. Plastic still has a lot of hydrocarbon chains you can suck energy out of, and even household waste if properly aerated produces some methane you can combust.

    • Mixed glass could be easily delt with by just recycling clear glass, and levying a $10 per lb tax on the non-recycled glass.

      I spoke with a guy who works at a glass plant once. He said that they heat the glass to some ridiculous temperature (3000F?) and all the coloring dyes incinerate, float to the top, and are easily scraped off as a bit of slag. They're left with just molten sand at that point, which is clear glass. The town was requiring separated glass at the time and he thought it was just some political idea to make people think they were doing more.

  • Paper versus Plastic? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by north.coaster ( 136450 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @06:13PM (#5488159) Homepage
    I once pondered whether it was better for the environment to eat meals off paper plates which would then be thrown away, or plastic plates which would be washed and reused.

    Paper plates are made from a renewable resource (trees), which sounds good, but energy would be continually used to harvest the raw material and manufacture the plates. Plus throwing them away results in energy being used to transport the waste to the landfill, and then waste takes up space in the landfill. At the time I didn't consider incineration, but that undoubtably has costs, too.

    Plastic plates are made a non-renewable resource (oil), which does not sound good, but it's (almost) a one time usage since the plates would be used many times. However, it takes energy to clean them (water has to be heated, automatic dishwashers use electricity, etc) and the soap may not be completely biodegradable. Plus in some areas the availability of water is an issue.

    After about a day I gave up, because I had no idea where to start looking for information about the energy used for the different steps in each process. Plus I had no way to assign any type of cost/value to renewable versus nonrenewable resources, etc. I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of what initially seemed like a simple problem.

    I bring this up because almost all decisions about things that impact the environment require making choices, and in most cases all of the available options have some amount of environmental cost. The problem is that there are no good sources for information that would help us make true comparisons. Instead, we are left with comparisons that are influenced by politics or ignorance (or both). As we consider new proposal about how to deal with environmental issues, we must never forget that nearly every alternative will cost something.

    • Instead of paper plates, why not actual wood? Instead of plastic plates, why not glass or ceramics? Glass is my favorite since it is essentially environmentally inert (once it is made)... and if you are washing by hand, very easy to see if you've got the whole thing clean. :)
      • The reason people use paper plates is simply because you don't have to wash them and you can just throw them away... wooden plates would need to be washed and reused; If you want people to cut waste by not using paper plates, just get them to use and wash the pyrex/ceramic ones they already have...
    • When you look at all the angles, the problem can seem overbearing, but gestalt for a minute. Mainly, the issue is "we use x tons of stuff and produce y tons of waste". Reduce x and y automatically goes down. Food packaging is just one example of riotus overuse. The fact that so many items are individually packaged is just ridiculous! I can make 4 containers to hold 500ml of liquid but use less resources if I package all 2000ml in one package. This is basic geometry. And so much that we produce doesn't recycle easily or is toxic to living organisms. What to do with waste "y" is a difficult question and I'm not sure what the best solution is, but certainly using less product "x" makes the problem smaller in range and scope.

      Yes, every method for dealing with waste does cost something. Using less in the first place and reusing whenever possible makes this problem less daunting. Maybe consumption could be reduced to such a point that the amount of waste could be effectively (both environmentally and econimcally) dealt with.
      • Your logic is lovely... And 100% correct. The problem is more that very few people (Americans) think that way. If you set the same amount of product side by side, one packaged in bulk and one individually wrapped with funny cartoon characters or, heaven forbid, something that makes people think about sex - What happens?

        People buy the individually wrapped ones, that's what happens. At at a higher price, no less. Why would any company that produces x ignore this data? They won't! Why? Because we are capitalists.

        Therefore communism is the answer! Thank you, Thank you, I'll be here all week.

        Seriously, it doesn't help that in our society the only thing that motivates anyone to be environmentally friendly is the rather abstract idea that we are ruining it, and the vague morals that accompany this condition.

  • ... The London Daily Telegraph reports that according to Swedish environmentalists global warming doesn't exist!
  • My grandparents had a trash burning stove right in the kitchen of their old house. They also had a brick fireplace out in the back yard used for burning bigger non-kitchen garbage. Ash and non-burnable materials were hauled to the county dump.

    The county dump, incidentally, was sort of a recycling center all it's own. My grandpa often came home with more 'good stuff' he'd salvaged than garbage he'd hauled there in the first place.

    However, don't try to salvage anything from a modern dump. There are thugs there (municipal employees) whose job is to make sure nobody recycles anything.

  • Aluminum!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @06:30PM (#5488358)
    Aluminum is hideoulsy energy intensive to purify, but once its refined, its dirt cheap to remelt. ALuminum recycling is one of the few things i believe in.

  • This is just business rubbish. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nathan Ramella ( 629875 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @07:10PM (#5488792) Homepage
    They include Valfrid Paulsson, a former director-general of the government's environmental protection agency, Soren Norrby, the former campaign manager for Keep Sweden Tidy, and the former managing directors of three waste-collection companies.

    None of these people are environmentalists. One is an Ex-Government mouthpiece, a former campaign manager for Keep Sweden Tidy (former is the key word here), present occupation sounds like Waste-Management Lobbist and a bunch of waste collection companies. And their argument is purely money oriented. Waste-Collection companies find that it's unprofitable to recycle. This isn't about what's really good for the environment.

    What would be best? Using less! But people won't do that. They like the convienence. They don't want to have to remember to bring a Nalgene bottle with them everywhere they go. They want to say 'Ah, I'm thirsty, and only poor people drink out of drinking fountians, and there isn't one around here anyway, so I'll plunk another dollar down for a bottle which I'll promptly throw away.

    The truth of this is, recycling in the long run probably isn't cheaper, but it is better for the environment. By recycling, we keep our finite resources circulating rather than throwing things away.

    So, boohoo if the waste management companies don't want to recycle. If the government is forcing these programs on waste-management, voters should support subsidies to waste-management to ensure that recycling continues.

    So while it's about profit, sometimes you have to pay more to do the right thing.

    The gluttony of resources at rock-bottom prices is just unrealistic. Nobody wants to pay the true price now. They just want discounted convienence by making future generations pay the price. The headline on this story is misleading.

  • reminds me of one of my housemates (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Tuesday March 11, 2003 @08:27PM (#5489516) Homepage
    She's bought into the whole "save the earth" campaign hook line and sinker, and consequently always uses the super-water-saver-short-duration setting on the dishwasher. Nevermind the fact that we live in Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, and right next to the Mississippi river. I guess that would be all fine, if the dishes actually got clean on the super-water-saver-short-duration setting, but they don't, and I have to run them a second time on a normal setting.

    I guess I've come to the conclusion that most so called "environmentalists" are really about "feel good" solutions, and not ones that actually work. They don't really care about solving the real problem, just alleviating their own guilt.

    • I guess I've come to the conclusion that most so called "environmentalists" are really about "feel good" solutions, and not ones that actually work.

      Based on a sample of one? So you would say that it's fair to assume that Minnesotans who live with female roomates should have nothing to do with a field that involves statistics?
      • Based on many years of paying attention to this movement. I've seen to many people that are overly concerned about "not being a bad person", and not really concerned about actually solving the problem.

        Anyway, I intended the last comment as an interesting point to my story, not the serious theory with data points to support it that you seem to be assuming.
    • The house I recently purchased has an expensive high efficiency washing machine that uses very little water. The house also has an open geothermal system that pumps water from a well, extracts heat, then dumps it into the stream out back at up to 60 gal/minute.

      I think the previous owners were very proud that the washing machine saved water and the geothermal heating system saved electricity.

      [I'm not too concerned about the geothermal unit, there are springs around the house with water gushing out.]

  • wait a second... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by C21 ( 643569 )
    the only reason "recylcing" ever came into existence is because of our bloated asses having to use grams and grams of paper, plastic, etc to wrap things like one snickers bar.
  • I've spent my share of time with environmental groups and nobody I've known has ever thought that recycling was a panacea. Remember the three "Rs"? They're listed in order of preference: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Reducing your consumption is the best thing you can do for the environment. But if you must consume something, then maximize its use and reuse. And finally, if you've exhausted all the utility you can from something, then you recycle it, if the opportunity is available. Most environmentalists are fully aware that recycling sometimes consumes more energy and resources than it saves, but that was never the main point. The real idea behind recycling was one of behaviour modification: if you could first convince people that they should think about the environment and start recycling, then it would be easier later to get them to reuse things, and finally to not consume so much stuff in the first place. Recycling is the easier of these three thing to do, which is why most of the emphasis was placed on it. As it turns out, most people are too fucking lazy to even recycle, which is why I think there's no chance ever of getting people to reduce in a meaningful way. Some neoliberal economists have even tried to argue that increasing your consumption is good for the environment, but this is a notion too insane to bother rebutting.
  • The swedes probably have a point! The major problem in making such a statement is that it will immediately be used as ammunition by "anti-recyclers". A similar issue arose when Bjorn Lomborg wrote "The Skeptical Environmentalist" [lomborg.com], claiming that the global environment was not getting worse. In both cases the statements probably have a lot of truth in them depending on interpretation, but the damage caused in the line of policy making is detrimental. The world really do not need people who will sign a carte blanche for policy makers for a few minutes of fame.
  • "Tin cans could be removed by magnets and sent for recycling"

    Will wonders never cease!

    -j
  • The amount of time I have to spend seperating recycleables from trash had better be very, very small or it isn't worth ny time to recycle. The city where I live has a voluntary recycling program where you actually have to pay extra to have your recycleables picked up at the curb or else take them to a pickup station yourself. My wife does the recycling in our household. Since my opportunity cost of recycling is $100/hr, I refuse to have anything to do with it.

    The city where I live used to have a trash burning municipal power plant. It was shut down a few years ago because it dumped too much dioxen into the air. The cost of building filters was way more than the electricity produced plus landfill averted was worth. There is also the question of what to do with the resulting ash which is heavily contaminated with things like lead and mercury.

  • That IKEA furniture will never decompose... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The plastic laminates in IKEA furniture will NEVER decompose. Maybe that's why the SWEDES are against recycling.

  • I'm gonna patent a super-duper genetically engineered bacterium/nanobot hybrid that eats anyting, turning it into a raw chemical sludge that is then reassembled by other nanobots into pure blocks of elemetary materials.

    Then I can take over the world using garbage as raw material. BWUHAHAHAHAHA!

    Of course there's no risk of the wee beasties escaping and eating the planet, oh no. It'll say so on the FAQ at my website.
  • Two things:
    Once I saw someone dump a container that held only aluminium cans straight into the regular garbage...

    Also, I belive it was Durham, NC that was just throwing the recyclable items right in the landfill with everything else. I'm pretty certain this happens more than people would believe.

  • Incineration (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheLink ( 130905 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:26AM (#5500845) Journal
    If they can keep it as clean as a decent fossil fuel power station, why not?

    Better to import your oil and wood as finished goods and burn them for energy once you're totally done with them, than to burn the oil directly.

    All that talk about it being a step backwards from recycling just seems emotional not rational.

    "Sends out a negative message". Tsk.

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