<story><title>Why Recycling Doesn&apos;t Work</title><url>https://thewalrus.ca/why-recycling-doesnt-work/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>barry-cotter</author><text>&amp;gt; There is an energy saving component to recycling. Aluminum for example takes a tremendous amount of power to produce and recycling reduces that.&lt;p&gt;Yes, that’s why aluminium is recycled everywhere. Glass, on the other hand, is more of a “What the hell do we do with this?” situation because making glass from sand is cheap and doesn’t have the quality control issues of making it from old glass. That’s why recycled glass goes to making gravel, decorative or not, mostly.&lt;p&gt;Transport is cheap and most recycling makes no economic sense and wouldn’t even with a carbon tax. Chemical feedstock is cheap, wood is cheap, metals are cheap. That covers plastics, paper and manufactured goods. Recycling is a religious impulse, not an economic one.</text></item><item><author>acomjean</author><text>There is an energy saving component to recycling.  Aluminum for example takes a tremendous amount of power to produce and recycling reduces that.&lt;p&gt;Recycling makes different amounts of sense depending on the material.   I suspect that a fair amount of material mined is subsidized by different governments (natural resource extraction at least in the us often takes place on leased government land).&lt;p&gt;I did some landfill design engineering in a previous career.  while there is lots of space sometimes it’s far away, so there is trucking waste around.  Plus landfills despite their liners and clay layers can leak nasty stuff into the groundwater.&lt;p&gt;You pay for what you put in the landfill by weight, so reducing waste can save municipalities money.</text></item><item><author>ordinaryperson</author><text>The NYT has had several decent articles on this over the years:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;recycling-landfil...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;local-recycling-costs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;local-recycling-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1996&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;recycling-is-garbage.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1996&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;recycling-is-gar...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;sunday&amp;#x2F;the-reign-of-recycling.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;sunday&amp;#x2F;the-reign-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ask yourself: how does recycling help the environment? It doesn&amp;#x27;t.  Recycling arose out of 1980s landfill anxiety but we have plenty of space, what we don&amp;#x27;t have are plenty of climates. All the money wasted on making us feel better by recycling could be far better spent reducing carbon emissions.&lt;p&gt;What a waste of tax dollars, especially now that most cities and counties just throw out recycling anyway.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>donw</author><text>I like the German solution for dealing with glass bottles: rather than recycling, they are made to be washed and reused.&lt;p&gt;You pay a deposit when you buy a bottle of tasty beverage, and some time later, can take those bottles back to the grocery store. There, you put your used bottles into a machine which scans each bottle, and gives you an aggregate receipt for all of the bottles you returned, which you can then use to buy goods at that store.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a great system for encouraging reuse, and we should be doing this in the US.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Recycling Doesn&apos;t Work</title><url>https://thewalrus.ca/why-recycling-doesnt-work/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>barry-cotter</author><text>&amp;gt; There is an energy saving component to recycling. Aluminum for example takes a tremendous amount of power to produce and recycling reduces that.&lt;p&gt;Yes, that’s why aluminium is recycled everywhere. Glass, on the other hand, is more of a “What the hell do we do with this?” situation because making glass from sand is cheap and doesn’t have the quality control issues of making it from old glass. That’s why recycled glass goes to making gravel, decorative or not, mostly.&lt;p&gt;Transport is cheap and most recycling makes no economic sense and wouldn’t even with a carbon tax. Chemical feedstock is cheap, wood is cheap, metals are cheap. That covers plastics, paper and manufactured goods. Recycling is a religious impulse, not an economic one.</text></item><item><author>acomjean</author><text>There is an energy saving component to recycling.  Aluminum for example takes a tremendous amount of power to produce and recycling reduces that.&lt;p&gt;Recycling makes different amounts of sense depending on the material.   I suspect that a fair amount of material mined is subsidized by different governments (natural resource extraction at least in the us often takes place on leased government land).&lt;p&gt;I did some landfill design engineering in a previous career.  while there is lots of space sometimes it’s far away, so there is trucking waste around.  Plus landfills despite their liners and clay layers can leak nasty stuff into the groundwater.&lt;p&gt;You pay for what you put in the landfill by weight, so reducing waste can save municipalities money.</text></item><item><author>ordinaryperson</author><text>The NYT has had several decent articles on this over the years:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;recycling-landfills-plastic-papers.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;05&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;climate&amp;#x2F;recycling-landfil...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;local-recycling-costs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2019&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;business&amp;#x2F;local-recycling-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1996&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;recycling-is-garbage.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1996&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;30&amp;#x2F;magazine&amp;#x2F;recycling-is-gar...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;sunday&amp;#x2F;the-reign-of-recycling.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;opinion&amp;#x2F;sunday&amp;#x2F;the-reign-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ask yourself: how does recycling help the environment? It doesn&amp;#x27;t.  Recycling arose out of 1980s landfill anxiety but we have plenty of space, what we don&amp;#x27;t have are plenty of climates. All the money wasted on making us feel better by recycling could be far better spent reducing carbon emissions.&lt;p&gt;What a waste of tax dollars, especially now that most cities and counties just throw out recycling anyway.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kwhitefoot</author><text>&amp;gt; Transport is cheap&lt;p&gt;only because heavy goods vehicles do not pay for the damage that they do to the roads and the environment and because the oil industry is effectively subsidised.</text></comment>