Posted on 03/04/2003 7:16:56 AM PST by ZGuy
A group of Swedish environmentalists -- convinced that recycling is a colossal waste of time and money -- is urging people to toss their blue boxes in the garbage.
To the chagrin of fellow environmentalists in Canada and across the globe, the group said burning cardboard, plastics and other household trash is actually much better for the planet than any recycling program has turned out to be.
In fact, the group contends the so-called benefits of recycling are all but nullified by the environmental damage associated with hauling the waste to and from the recycling facilities.
Coupled with the overwhelming cost of collecting, sorting and reprocessing the material, the group is convinced that decades-old recycling initiatives are nothing short of a complete failure.
"Protection of the environment can mean economic sacrifices, but to maintain the credibility of environmental politics, the environmental gains must be worth the sacrifice," the consortium wrote in a recent newspaper article.
At the controls of this latest anti-recycling crusade are five residents of Sweden, a country well-known for its trailblazing initiatives aimed at protecting the environment. Made up of environmentalists and waste-collection companies, the team is lead by Valfrid Paulsson, a former director of Sweden's environmental protection agency, and Soren Norrby, the former campaign manager for Keep Sweden Tidy.
Based in a country already full of incinerators, the campaigners say technology has improved so much in recent years that the process is completely clean and safe. It also allows communities to generate significant amounts of electricity, reducing their dependency on oil.
Environmentalists in Canada, however, dismissed any suggestions that recycling is a foundering experiment that should be immediately scrapped.
"I think they're flying a kite," said Guy Dauncey, a Victoria-based author and environmental consultant. "It's nonsense."
For decades, Canada has built very few new garbage incinerators, largely over concerns that they emit harmful substances. Changing that philosophy is definitely not the way to solve any glitches associated with recycling, said Veronica Sherwood, who co-ordinates the Nova Scotia Environment Network, an umbrella organization for the environmental groups in the province.
"Recycling may not be the best choice," she said yesterday. "It burns considerable precious energy and does in fact add to fossil fuel emissions. However, incineration is not an ecologically sound alternative."
Burning recyclables, said Mr. Dauncey, would still entail the same amount of effort as traditional recycling. Simply ensuring that certain toxins do not filter into the air would involve the same level of methodical sorting that occurs now.
And, he said, transportation costs -- both financial and environmental -- would not decrease if incineration replaced recycling.
"You can't put an incinerator in the middle of downtown Toronto," he said.
"So you've still got to haul the stuff to an incinerator."
David Wimberly, a well-known Canadian environmentalist, said the campaigners are doing nothing more than trying to sell a few incinerators.
Either way, other observers said it is time that Canadians -- who produce approximately 21 million tonnes of garbage every year -- more rigorously debate the merits of recycling.
"It's always worth taking a look at the numbers and looking at the reliability and asking: Have we got the mix right now or should we be trying something else," said Donald Dewees, a University of Toronto professor who specializes in environmental economics.
Do you compensate the individual householder for his excess labor to collect and sort recyclables?
Do you compensate the individual householder for the use of his property when he dedicates portions of his home for the purposes of recycling waste?
If not, then the net profit of your enterprise does not reflect the overall profitability of the activity.
I'm sure a lot of people are making a lot of money off recycling. But they are doing so by avoiding the many of the costs by forcing somebody else to do the work.
This needs to be broken down further. Paper, plastic and aluminum...not garbage meant for landfill. Depending on where you reside the recycling industry is successful or not.
This is the law in all the places where I have lived in the last twenty years. These places are the Washington DC Metro Area, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Detroit Metro Area, New York City and the NYC Tri-State Area. In each and every one of these locations I have been given instructions by the local government that tells me how to recycle and informs me of the penalties that I will incur if I fail to do so.
I have not done a systematic nationwide study, but five-for-five suggests a pattern. It might be different in the stix, but I wouldn't know.
I am not aware of any recycling program that compensates householders for their excess labor and use of their property. Do you know of such a program?
The eco-fascists knew that recycling was a scam when they proposed it. The purpose was to make it more expensive for corporations to do business, and bring down overall corporate profits.That's a given to anyone who's seen how they react to a proposed (or for that matter existing) recycling facility.
-Eric
I've reposted my questions to you...in case you didn't see them. :o)
My apologies. Exactly what were your questioning when you asked about "my theories". My basic point (theory, if you will) is that recycling programs do not make economic sense when they must account for all costs associated with the overall activity. If all costs are included, from the point where the waste leaves the hand of the consumer, to the point of ultimate re-use or disposal, there is no municipal solid waste recycling program in the world that would make economic sense. The material involved is just not worth enough money to pay for all the costs.
I base my "theory" on common sense and my own experience. Take your average householder. Say he dedicates six square feet of interior space and ten square feet of exterior space for recycling, and invests $25 on durable materials (bins, trashcans, etc) required. Further suppose he spend just 15 minutes a week engaged in recycling activities, and produces the prodigious total of one can of plastic bottles, one-half can of aluminum, and a twenty pound bale of paper each week.
I'm going to commit math here, so forgive me...
Where I come from, interior residential space costs about $100 a square foot, but lets suppose this householder's cost is $50. Further estimate that his exterior cost is $10 per square foot, typical in the suburbs. Add this to his $25 for recycling materials, and you have a capitalized cost of $425.00. Given an 8% internal rate of return, his weekly cost of capital is 65 cents. Also assume that this person makes a living wage of $10.00 per hour. His weekly cost of labor is $2.50. So we have a total weekly cost of $3.15.
Now are you or anybody else in the world going to pay $3.15 for a can of plastic bottles, a half-can of aluminum and a twenty pound bale of newsprint, to be picked up from an individual house? It just doesn't make economic sense. The material is not worth that much, even if it were delivered directly to your processing facility.
The way recycling makes money, where it makes money, is because nobody compensates the householder.
No, you must not have read the article. I think we need to incinerate them instead.
You pump your own gas so your car will run. You take out your owne garbage so your house doesn't fill with garbage.
Recycling programs force you to do one thing instead of another, recycling waste instead of just throwing it away. They should be evaluated on that basis, by comparing the costs of one activity against another.
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