The Reign of Recycling(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
The Reign of Recycling
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html
34 comments
The point was that landfills and incinerators work pretty well and that there's no rational justification to eliminate them. And landfills needed for 1000 years of USA's trash would take up about .1% of our grazing land.
Just because people might not like the concept of piling up trash doesn't mean it's an inherently bad idea.
Overall waste and recycling is low on the threats to our planet so I think doing nothing is ok (if by doing nothing you mean incinerating trash to generate electricity or responsibly burying it). The primary issue is reducing meat/dairy consumption and the next is transportation.
Just because people might not like the concept of piling up trash doesn't mean it's an inherently bad idea.
Overall waste and recycling is low on the threats to our planet so I think doing nothing is ok (if by doing nothing you mean incinerating trash to generate electricity or responsibly burying it). The primary issue is reducing meat/dairy consumption and the next is transportation.
> The point was that landfills and incinerators work pretty well and that there's no rational justification to eliminate them.
Incinerators have well known carcinogenic effects.
Landfills can easily pollute the nearby fields and water aquifers. And in most of Europe and Japan there is no more space for them.
Incinerators have well known carcinogenic effects.
Landfills can easily pollute the nearby fields and water aquifers. And in most of Europe and Japan there is no more space for them.
Are we talking about classic incinerators (simply burn stuff) or plasma arc (gasification)incinerators? With plasma arc gasifications the temperatures are so high (2,200 to 13,900 °C) that all the waste and any resulting toxic byproducts, the very molecules themselves, are broken down to individual atoms. There are no toxic compounds left.
All that remains at the end is ash that contains various metals and syngas that is produced in the process. Which can be used for generating electric power.
I hope plasma arc gasification becomes the standard for managing and disposing municipal solid waste. It really works. But you do need a certain scale (enough waste) for it to be effective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/print/volume-...
All that remains at the end is ash that contains various metals and syngas that is produced in the process. Which can be used for generating electric power.
I hope plasma arc gasification becomes the standard for managing and disposing municipal solid waste. It really works. But you do need a certain scale (enough waste) for it to be effective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_gasification
http://www.waste-management-world.com/articles/print/volume-...
> Are we talking about classic incinerators (simply burn stuff) or plasma arc (gasification)incinerators?
In 2015 "incinerator" means classic burners. Plasma gasification is practically unused: there are less that 10 plasma gasification facilities in the world.
In 2015 "incinerator" means classic burners. Plasma gasification is practically unused: there are less that 10 plasma gasification facilities in the world.
Japan has a lot of low cost land.
According to the most recent land ministry survey conducted in 2013, there are 8.2 million vacant residences in Japan, 39 percent of which are designated as “abandoned,” meaning they are not for sale or rent. The portion of abandoned houses found in the previous survey, conducted in 2008, was 35 percent, and since 200,000 houses are demolished every year in Japan, the increase in the number is actually steeper than the percentage difference would indicate.
According to the most recent land ministry survey conducted in 2013, there are 8.2 million vacant residences in Japan, 39 percent of which are designated as “abandoned,” meaning they are not for sale or rent. The portion of abandoned houses found in the previous survey, conducted in 2008, was 35 percent, and since 200,000 houses are demolished every year in Japan, the increase in the number is actually steeper than the percentage difference would indicate.
Japan is also weird in that they tend to tear down houses every 30 years and rebuild rather than resell them and renovate them keeping them up for hundreds of years like many other places in the world.
I agree. It's a provocative argument, but the logic seems a bit slippery. For instance, Tierney writes:
Despite decades of exhortations and mandates, it’s still typically more expensive for municipalities to recycle household waste than to send it to a landfill.
But he seems to deliberately confuse what is meant by "more expensive" (using carbon per airplane travel as a unit of measure, for example). Part of the reason why advocates support subsidizing recycling is that it addresses external costs that are not being captured in traditional waste management costs.
Tierney brings up the question of environmental externalities later and points out, for example, "Worst of all is yard waste: it takes 20 tons of it to save a single ton of carbon dioxide." But does that 20 tons of yard waste not have economic value in excess of its value dumped in a landfill? And if it does, what does it matter if its saving only 1 ton of carbon dioxide? If it's saving 1 iota of carbon dioxide, it's still a net positive both economically and environmentally.
My take away from this is that: yes, perhaps recycling is not as economical and environmentally beneficial as most people believe, and there may be merit in a simpler recycling regime. But recycling is far from wasteful as the articles seems to want to argue.
Despite decades of exhortations and mandates, it’s still typically more expensive for municipalities to recycle household waste than to send it to a landfill.
But he seems to deliberately confuse what is meant by "more expensive" (using carbon per airplane travel as a unit of measure, for example). Part of the reason why advocates support subsidizing recycling is that it addresses external costs that are not being captured in traditional waste management costs.
Tierney brings up the question of environmental externalities later and points out, for example, "Worst of all is yard waste: it takes 20 tons of it to save a single ton of carbon dioxide." But does that 20 tons of yard waste not have economic value in excess of its value dumped in a landfill? And if it does, what does it matter if its saving only 1 ton of carbon dioxide? If it's saving 1 iota of carbon dioxide, it's still a net positive both economically and environmentally.
My take away from this is that: yes, perhaps recycling is not as economical and environmentally beneficial as most people believe, and there may be merit in a simpler recycling regime. But recycling is far from wasteful as the articles seems to want to argue.
You're describing concern trolling. Aka FUD.
Now that we're all recycle happy, I'd love to iterate.
Perhaps simplify, to reduce the kinds of plastics used, to simplify sorting and separating.
Packaging and shipping could be greatly reduced. I regularly receive a box within another box. Why not just send me the original box?
Why are products shipped to me (vs bought retail) still using theft (shop lifting) deterring plastics cases?
Why are over the counter drugs still triple sealed? There are no children in my house, why are bottles still childproof? Why are 30 tiny pills sold in a big glass jar? Why not just use ziplock baggies for everything?
Etc.
Edit: Good grief. Climate change "skeptic". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tierney_(journalist) Lesson relearned: google the author first.
Now that we're all recycle happy, I'd love to iterate.
Perhaps simplify, to reduce the kinds of plastics used, to simplify sorting and separating.
Packaging and shipping could be greatly reduced. I regularly receive a box within another box. Why not just send me the original box?
Why are products shipped to me (vs bought retail) still using theft (shop lifting) deterring plastics cases?
Why are over the counter drugs still triple sealed? There are no children in my house, why are bottles still childproof? Why are 30 tiny pills sold in a big glass jar? Why not just use ziplock baggies for everything?
Etc.
Edit: Good grief. Climate change "skeptic". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tierney_(journalist) Lesson relearned: google the author first.
Lots of contradictions in this short screed.
Apparently fining people for putting their trash in the recycling is bad, but charging them for landfill waste is good. What will stop these people from trying to save money by putting it in the recycling instead? Fines perhaps?
Landfills are good because they give off methane, but recycling food and yard waste is bad. Yet isn't it exactly those parts of the waste stream that decompose to methane and can be captured directly?
Recycling trucks use too much fuel but locating landfills out in the country is sensible.
The recycling industry is just make work for special interests, yet we should stop recycling paper so that we can keep tree loggers in jobs.
Apparently fining people for putting their trash in the recycling is bad, but charging them for landfill waste is good. What will stop these people from trying to save money by putting it in the recycling instead? Fines perhaps?
Landfills are good because they give off methane, but recycling food and yard waste is bad. Yet isn't it exactly those parts of the waste stream that decompose to methane and can be captured directly?
Recycling trucks use too much fuel but locating landfills out in the country is sensible.
The recycling industry is just make work for special interests, yet we should stop recycling paper so that we can keep tree loggers in jobs.
This mostly qualifies as "not even wrong" material.
Recycling may or may not be broken in New York or the US at large, but it's quite a no-brainer that you should not try to incinerate aluminum cans just to waste resources making new material. (Or paper. Or glass.)
With language like "indoctrination" there's no way to take this seriously. (Don't get me started on countries still using landfills. There's just no excuse for a modern society. The cost model won't make sense at all unless you do something with your trash.)
The examples in the article is also cringeworthy. "To offset the greenhouse production of a plane trip you have to recycle x cans" (where x is large). On the surface that tells us plane trips are very dirty, greenhouse-wise. Yet somehow the spin is how inefficient recycling is. But the greenhouse effect is not the main reason to recycle (also aluminum production is heavy on using renewables)!
Recycling may or may not be broken in New York or the US at large, but it's quite a no-brainer that you should not try to incinerate aluminum cans just to waste resources making new material. (Or paper. Or glass.)
With language like "indoctrination" there's no way to take this seriously. (Don't get me started on countries still using landfills. There's just no excuse for a modern society. The cost model won't make sense at all unless you do something with your trash.)
The examples in the article is also cringeworthy. "To offset the greenhouse production of a plane trip you have to recycle x cans" (where x is large). On the surface that tells us plane trips are very dirty, greenhouse-wise. Yet somehow the spin is how inefficient recycling is. But the greenhouse effect is not the main reason to recycle (also aluminum production is heavy on using renewables)!
The author agrees that recycling aluminum, paper, and cardboard is efficient. Glass is mildly efficient. It's that the complexity of sorting all the other waste is too costly with little benefit, so the industry relies on subsidies.
> But the greenhouse effect is not the main reason to recycle
What is the main reason to recycle? I always assumed it was either for greenhouse reasons and/or landfill space reasons, but I might not really understand the goals.
If a goal is less greenhouse emissions, then I think the point of the water bottle / plane trip example is that at a macro level, there are much better ways to reduce greenhouse emissions. Refraining from a single plane trip reduces more emissions than a lifetime of bottle recycling. It seems akin to stating your goal is to save money, which leads you to spend a few hours recovering a handful of coins from your couch and then buying a new car. Yes, the coins you recovered did get you more money, but relative to your other action -- the new car -- it is insignificant.
What is the main reason to recycle? I always assumed it was either for greenhouse reasons and/or landfill space reasons, but I might not really understand the goals.
If a goal is less greenhouse emissions, then I think the point of the water bottle / plane trip example is that at a macro level, there are much better ways to reduce greenhouse emissions. Refraining from a single plane trip reduces more emissions than a lifetime of bottle recycling. It seems akin to stating your goal is to save money, which leads you to spend a few hours recovering a handful of coins from your couch and then buying a new car. Yes, the coins you recovered did get you more money, but relative to your other action -- the new car -- it is insignificant.
> What is the main reason to recycle?
It saves resources. But it's also economically efficient, which is the main reason societies do it.
Landfills are completely dysfunctional in every way. Worst case, burn it and make use of the energy. The ashes are then much easier to take care of than what's seeping out of landfills.
> Refraining from a single plane trip reduces more emissions than a lifetime of bottle recycling.
Even if that was the goal, nobody ever said "Shall I take a plane trip today? No, I think I will recycle plastic bottles instead!". It's completely orthogonal.
I like the parable about how saving a handful of coins is insignificant to buying a new car. In practice you pick up the dropped the coins from your couch, independent if you plan to buy that car or not.
It works both ways. To frame the problem the way as in the article, no one pours spare coins out the window because you just decided not to buy a new car next week.
It saves resources. But it's also economically efficient, which is the main reason societies do it.
Landfills are completely dysfunctional in every way. Worst case, burn it and make use of the energy. The ashes are then much easier to take care of than what's seeping out of landfills.
> Refraining from a single plane trip reduces more emissions than a lifetime of bottle recycling.
Even if that was the goal, nobody ever said "Shall I take a plane trip today? No, I think I will recycle plastic bottles instead!". It's completely orthogonal.
I like the parable about how saving a handful of coins is insignificant to buying a new car. In practice you pick up the dropped the coins from your couch, independent if you plan to buy that car or not.
It works both ways. To frame the problem the way as in the article, no one pours spare coins out the window because you just decided not to buy a new car next week.
> It saves resources. But it's also economically efficient, which is the main reason societies do it.
I don't really think I agree that economic reasons are the only reasons to recycle. Some things like green house gas emissions are economic externalities that we should take into account even though they don't directly affect the economic bottom line.
From that logic if recycling was ever proven to not be economically efficient, then we should stop doing it. I think the article was basically saying that in many ways it isn't economically efficient.
> Landfills are completely dysfunctional in every way.
Not sure if I agree with that. In the USA, we have a lot of extra space. After a certain number of years, the landfill can be covered and the land itself reused. Seems just like another form of recycling.
I don't really think I agree that economic reasons are the only reasons to recycle. Some things like green house gas emissions are economic externalities that we should take into account even though they don't directly affect the economic bottom line.
From that logic if recycling was ever proven to not be economically efficient, then we should stop doing it. I think the article was basically saying that in many ways it isn't economically efficient.
> Landfills are completely dysfunctional in every way.
Not sure if I agree with that. In the USA, we have a lot of extra space. After a certain number of years, the landfill can be covered and the land itself reused. Seems just like another form of recycling.
I suspect the plane trip example is an ideologically veiled allusion meant to bring the mind the kind of digs shows like South Park and Fox & Friends like to take at Al Gore. Just think how many more empty beer cans we could happily toss in the trash if these rich hypocritical liberal environmentalists weren't making all these useless plane trips to UN conferences!
I think South Park is one of the most politically damaging things that happened to my generation. "It's a choice between a douche and a turd", "I really hate conservatives, but I really really hate liberals", "Nobody knows what's going on, stop talking about it", etc. [0]
Heavy doses of "not even wrong" twisted into a monstrous sense of pride about political apathy, "fuck you got mine", and myopia.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_Republican
Heavy doses of "not even wrong" twisted into a monstrous sense of pride about political apathy, "fuck you got mine", and myopia.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_Republican
I can't abide by rich white male entertainers telling their audience that their vote doesn't matter. As if disenfranchising oneself is an act of rebellion.
The epitome of amusing ourselves to death.
The epitome of amusing ourselves to death.
A completely neglected key factor is that it costs much less energy to manufacture recycled materials than virgin materials.
'A study ... found that it takes 10.4 million Btu to manufacture products from a ton of recyclables, compared to 23.3 million Btu for virgin materials. In contrast, the total energy for collecting, hauling and processing a ton of recyclables adds up to just 0.9 million Btu. The bottom line: We don't need to worry that recycling trucks are doing more harm than good.' - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a3736/42...
'A study ... found that it takes 10.4 million Btu to manufacture products from a ton of recyclables, compared to 23.3 million Btu for virgin materials. In contrast, the total energy for collecting, hauling and processing a ton of recyclables adds up to just 0.9 million Btu. The bottom line: We don't need to worry that recycling trucks are doing more harm than good.' - http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a3736/42...
Tierney's original 1996 article had a huge impact on me when it came out, and I still get in arguments with my wife today when I don't recycle.
It seems obvious to me that the right answer to waste is to apply a Pigovian tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax , which is what Tierney is suggesting with the $15 tax per ton of landfill waste. Then, materials that can be profitably separated (currently, paper, aluminum, and cardboard) would be exempted from the fee if you separate them.
The great problem I have with current recycling is that it is not based on any realistic theory of monetizing externalities.
It seems obvious to me that the right answer to waste is to apply a Pigovian tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax , which is what Tierney is suggesting with the $15 tax per ton of landfill waste. Then, materials that can be profitably separated (currently, paper, aluminum, and cardboard) would be exempted from the fee if you separate them.
The great problem I have with current recycling is that it is not based on any realistic theory of monetizing externalities.
Pigovian tax?
Tierney writes:
It would be much simpler and more effective to impose the equivalent of a carbon tax on garbage, as Thomas C. Kinnaman has proposed
I already pay to have someone haul away my garbage, yard waste, recycling.
How is what you, Tierney, and Kinnaman propose different?
[Kinnaman's paper is paywalled.]
Tierney writes:
It would be much simpler and more effective to impose the equivalent of a carbon tax on garbage, as Thomas C. Kinnaman has proposed
I already pay to have someone haul away my garbage, yard waste, recycling.
How is what you, Tierney, and Kinnaman propose different?
[Kinnaman's paper is paywalled.]
In New York City, it is against the law not to recycle. Paying for garbage removal (via taxes, or preferably, a per bag fee), but not for (realistically) recyclable trash removal, would be a good start.
> Moreover, recycling operations have their own environmental costs, like extra trucks on the road and pollution from recycling operations.
Opposed to trucks driving to "rural communities"
Opposed to trucks driving to "rural communities"
Yeah, he's making a nitwit statement there. Recycling or landfill - it's the same quantity of mass that has to be hauled somewhere.
That's not in the slightest true. Recycling stations are very high tech, and very expensive. There are not many of them.
So you have to ship your recycling much much farther than your garbage.
So you have to ship your recycling much much farther than your garbage.
As opposed to [for example] mining/milling/refinement/etc operations, which are also generally highly centralised?
It's hard to take this article seriously - heavy on broad stroke attacks (it's cheaper to send to landfill) than data from third party sources.
On an unrelated note if a composting facility reeks that's a management problem not a fundamental issue of composting - that means there is too much "green" waste such as food scraps relative to "brown" waste such as soiled paper.
On an unrelated note if a composting facility reeks that's a management problem not a fundamental issue of composting - that means there is too much "green" waste such as food scraps relative to "brown" waste such as soiled paper.
It is also worth noting how the author doesn't mind the landfills as long as they are in rural countryside. You know, where I grow my food and raise animals for their meat, not him.
Although I've been a dedicated recycler for years, I'm glad to read this. It confirms an impression I had already received from various other sources, that the primary value is separating out metals (especially aluminum) and paper -- actually I didn't know that recycling paper made such a big difference -- and plastics are secondary.
Is it worth rinsing plastic to recycle it? I've wondered about this. Sounds like it probably isn't unless it takes only a small amount of rinsing.
Is it worth rinsing plastic to recycle it? I've wondered about this. Sounds like it probably isn't unless it takes only a small amount of rinsing.
> the primary value is separating out metals (especially aluminum) and paper
Especially cardboard. Cardboard is significantly more valuable than other types of paper.
> Is it worth rinsing plastic to recycle it? I've wondered about this. Sounds like it probably isn't unless it takes only a small amount of rinsing.
The article argues that it isn't if you rinse in hot water, which was heated by electricity (not gas), which came from a coal power plant. That seems like a comparison which is set up to make recycling look bad. I've never had any problems just rinsing plastic with cold water or leftover dish water, in which case it sounds like it's still worth it.
Especially cardboard. Cardboard is significantly more valuable than other types of paper.
> Is it worth rinsing plastic to recycle it? I've wondered about this. Sounds like it probably isn't unless it takes only a small amount of rinsing.
The article argues that it isn't if you rinse in hot water, which was heated by electricity (not gas), which came from a coal power plant. That seems like a comparison which is set up to make recycling look bad. I've never had any problems just rinsing plastic with cold water or leftover dish water, in which case it sounds like it's still worth it.
With efficient optical sorters, some pure plastics where fetching as much as aluminium by weight. I'm guessing the plummeting oil prices may have had an impact here though.
I really liked this article. Even though we don't have access to the most relevant information (e.g. dollars per ton CO2 saved, or a cost benefit analysis using a shadow price of CO2), the author presents a lot of very compelling figures to show that recycling is overrated.
For example, given the overwhelming concentration of the benefits of recycling in paper and metal (as opposed to plastic and bottles), surely collections efforts and public education should be focussed on these.
And the author is exactly right to refer to "indoctrination" regarding recycling. At least that was my experience in primary school and high school.
I think the most important problem with the Green movement is not special interests per se (I doubt recyclers really that powerful) but the mindset that says that changing other people's opinion is more important than presenting them with the most accurate information.
For example, given the overwhelming concentration of the benefits of recycling in paper and metal (as opposed to plastic and bottles), surely collections efforts and public education should be focussed on these.
And the author is exactly right to refer to "indoctrination" regarding recycling. At least that was my experience in primary school and high school.
I think the most important problem with the Green movement is not special interests per se (I doubt recyclers really that powerful) but the mindset that says that changing other people's opinion is more important than presenting them with the most accurate information.
There's the assumption that my regular trash goes to a landfill (it does not) and even if it did, maybe my goal is not to save money but to have fewer stupid landfills. I'm not really interested in how much open space is available to pile up trash, I just plain don't want it to pile up.
It then makes some odd argument about offsetting the carbon of airplane travel when I'm really just concerned about the carbon embodied in the plastic bottle.
Complaints about the annoyance of composting facilities seems plenty absurd just after talking about the abundance of open space to dump trash.
There's other bits and pieces strewn about the article but the whole thing reaks of "Nirvana Fallacy": the current solution isn't good enough so let's sit on our hands until we think of a better one.