Sustainability Issues, Fall 2011
Mackenzie M. Mason
660709177
Kim Fortun, Presentation #2, 11.01.2011
The Matrix: Part 2, 1408 words
The Three R’s: RECYCLE, RECYCLE, RECYCLE!
Image Sources:
Waste vs. Recycling:
http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/10-05/recycler-recycling-article.htm
The Three R’s:
http://www.aconcordcarpenter.com/2009/01/what-about-adding-re-fill-to-the-three-rs-below.html
For decades, the three R’s have been touted religiously: Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle. This is the
ultimate foolproof platform for liberals around the world in their effort to “save the world.” Recycling is
the worldwide phenomenon that is almost never debated as detrimental to the environment. However,
recycling is not nearly as effective as the utopic idea it is hailed as. Not only are there limitations to
recycling, it is also some types of recycling are too environmentally costly to recycle anyway, and there’s
also problems with people recycling what they should not due to being misinformed on the product. More
emphasis should be put back on “Reduce” and “Re-Use.”
Sustainability Issues, Fall 2011
The newest fad in recycling is now Single Stream, which due to its convenience, has led to more
people recycling than before. However, even single stream has its problems. In a December 2007 article
of BioCycle, there is a statement that:
On the materials recovery side, single stream requires expensive and sophisticated machinery at
the recycling plant, capable of sorting the mixture effectively and efficiently. Blue Mountain has made
these investments, but reports that occasionally there are problems, such as with paper fiber - the
increasing public obsession with identity protection has led to more shredding of documents, which are
difficult to separate from glass.
Here we come to the counter-productiveness; convenience leads people to recycle more with less care for
what they’re recycling, so often they try to recycle things, like this shredded paper, that make recycling in
general more difficult for recycling companies. Now let’s backtrack to recycling in general.
Because it seems to be the hottest topic in Green speeches, I’ll focus on plastics for now. It is
widely known that plastics are harmful to the environment, so Green Peach followers tend to support the
use of either paper packaging or no packaging whatsoever. However, that can sometimes prove
counterproductive. In an article titled “Recycling is Garbage,” author John Tierney states:
The typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American
household, but it produces one-third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods in
bulk and throw away large portions that are unused, spoiled or stale. Those apples in Dittersdorf's
slide, protected by plastic wrap and foam, are less likely to spoil. The lightweight plastic
packaging requires much less energy to manufacture and transport than traditional alternatives
like cardboard or paper.
This statement supports the argument that packaged goods, plastics and whatnot, are not as wholly bad as
everyone makes them out to be. Not using plastics for some products could produce more waste and cost
much more for companies to use. Tierney goes on to explain that while plastics do not degrade in landfills,
neither to their eco-friendly counterparts (paper, cardboard, etc.), as reported by William Rathje,
archeologist at the University of Arizona who excavated a landfill. These non-plastic products also take
up much more space than plastic products (since the plastic packaging is made to be thinner and more
cost-effective). So now we get back to recycling. So, let’s get back to recycling—paper, plastic.
I’ll first start off by mentioning that many papers and plastics cannot be recycled. According to a
Living Strong article, of paper products, coated papers (like wrapping paper, coffee cups, and milk
cartons, which are mixed with polyethylene and other products) and greasy papers (like pizza boxes)
cannot be re-cycled. Of plastics, “only plastic bottles and jugs with the numbers 1 or 2 on the bottom can
be recycled,” and PVC products as well as the plastic caps of recyclable bottles cannot be recycled.
Recycled products are generally picked up curbside, which means trucks are driving around the city,
emitting carbon dioxide in order to grab these recyclables. According to a Machine Design Article,
It takes as many trucks to collect perhaps four to eight pounds of recyclables that a typical
household generates as it does to pickup the 40 pounds of refuse created by the same residence.
This reality creates situations as have emerged in the city of Los Angeles, where officials now
figure the city's fleet of garbage trucks is twice as large as it would be without recycling, 800
rather than 400 trucks.
Not to mention, it also typically costs 55% more than “simple disposal because it consumes huge amounts
of capital and labor per pound of recycled material.” So, here, we see that already it takes far more energy
to actually recycle just in getting the recyclables picked up. Once you take into account the fact that most
of our recyclables are shipped to Chine in order to be recycled, we can see how the emissions from
Sustainability Issues, Fall 2011
recycling adds up even more quickly than for simply throwing our trash away. Not only that, but with the
recycling of paper, some argue that it takes more energy to remove the bleaches and colors from the
papers at the recycling plant than to simply cut down more trees and make new paper. In Rhodes’
Machine Design article, there was figure: “ recycled aluminum, the golden child of the recycling world,
takes 95 percent less energy to produce, with 95 percent fewer emissions, when compared to cans made
from virgin materials.” Plastics, as well, require an extreme amount of separation, which they are still
working on. Industrial-sized machines have been crated that use electro-magnetism to measure the
different densities of plastics to separate them. This machine is described in its US patent (# 5,141,110)
from 1992. Either way, the industrialized transportation and sorting of recycled goods and factories
demonstrates the problems with recycling itself.
The most crucial problem with recycling though is the psychology of it in culture. Because people
are recycling, they feel less guilty about buying and using more and more recycled goods, which then
leads them to extend their consumerism to other goods as well. To emphasize my point, I’ve included a
graph of PET production and waste in America from 1995-2002 (from http://www.grinningplanet.com/2004/10-05/recycler-recycling-article.htm). While it is true that recycling has increased (if
only a little), it’s also true that wasting products (purring them in a landfill or incinderator) has increased
at an alarming rate. Not only that, but hardly do people actually re-use things like Ziploc bags or even
technology since newer models come out every new months. Here we find people are replacing the ReUse and Reduce ideas (which are the most ideal solutions to consumption emission problems) with
Recycling.
My solution to these recycling problems is not to stop recycling altogether. As an study by Stuart
Ross and David Evans concludes:
This study … indicated that the energy consumed during transportation is negligible
when compared to the overall energy consumption of the system. This is true even with the
additional transport needs of the recycling and reuse steps.
The article also concludes that locations of certain recycling steps should be relocated. Here’s where I
agree. Rather than having most of our recycling plants in China, we should have more domestic locations
of recycling plants so that, even though transportation can be considered almost negligible (though this is
Australia, and our practices are a bit different) with how beneficial recycling can be, it would be even
more so in this case. I also believe these recycling plants should be powered by renewable energy sources
to be the most eco-friendly as they can be, so that recycling can begin to become that infallible perfect
tool liberals preach recycling is. Also, people should focus much more on REDUCING and RE-USING
so as to reduce the amount that people have to recycle or throw away. Furthermore, subsidies or
incentives by the governments to get people to reduce and re-use as well as recycled (charge more
perhaps depending on how much waste a family is getting rid of); Rhodes’ article provides evidence that
incentives for green movements are successful in encouraging people to join according to a case study
(“RecycleBank successfully tripled participation rates from 30 to 90 percent in a matter of months”). All
in all, people should rely on the three R’s but not put special emphasis on Recycling because it is certainly
not a perfect system.
Sources:
Leland, E. Teschler. “Save energy: Don’t recycle,” Machine Design. 13 July, 2006. Nov 15, 2011.
<http://machinedesign.com/article/save-energy-dont-recycle-0713>.
Sustainability Issues, Fall 2011
Christensen, Maria. “Products that Cannot be Recycled.” Living Strong. 30 Jun, 2010. Nov 15, 2011.
<http://www.livestrong.com/article/157176-products-that-cannot-be-recycled/>.
Academic Sources:
US Patent for Plastic Sorter, Patent # 5,141,110; 25 Aug, 1992.
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPAT5141110&id=hTgkAAAAEBA
J&oi=fnd&dq=recycling+sorting+plastic&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q=recycling%2
0sorting%20plastic&f=false
-Official US document.
Ross, Stuart and David Evans. “The Environmental Effect of Reusing and Recycling a PlasticBased Packaging System.” Journal of Cleaner Production. Vol. 11, Issue 5, Aug 2003,
p561-571< http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652602000896#sec6>.
Stuart Ross works at the School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies at the
University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3052, Australia. David Evans works in
Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3052,
Australia. The study was done to see what the true environmental effect of reusing and recycling
plastic-based packaging systems were. The two went about researching the manufacture of
products, their locations, what’s in them, getting data from various places as well such as from
Boustead’s work in Europe on material and energy data. They then use the quantitative life cycle
numbers found in their research to calculate the flows of materials and energy in the making,
transport, and recycle of these products. To do this, they had to identify and quantify the material
and energy inputs and outputs associated with each part of the transport of these items. I focused
on their conclusions from this article, with
•
•
•
Recycling or, better still, reuse of plastic products can significantly reduce the energy
required across the life-cycle because the high energy inputs needed to process the
requisite virgin materials greatly exceeds the energy needs of the recycling or reuse process
steps.
This study has demonstrated very clearly that recycling strategies can significantly reduce
the environmental burden of plastic-based packaging. The extent to which these results
could be generalised to other materials and products will depend on many factors [23] and
[33]. However, if a product requires a large input of energy derived from fossil fuels during
primary production, as is the case for plastic-based products derived from virgin materials,
then recycling is likely to reduce a product system’s environmental burden
This study has also indicated that the energy consumed during transportation is negligible
when compared to the overall energy consumption of the system. This is true even with the
additional transport needs of the recycling and reuse steps. This is important, because
transport emissions are often cited as a reason for not pursuing recycling possibilities [1].
Indeed, our rough calculations for construction energy embodied in capital equipment used
to make the packagings indicates that it is at least as significant as transport energy and thus
deserves a more thorough analysis than is normally undertaken in Life Cycle Assessment
studies.
These quotes were mostly to prove that recycling is still a viable solution to the problem; it just
should not be the sole solution used. I used mostly the final quote listed. Since it was rather long
and completed my point, I saw no reason to be redundant and include more.
Sustainability Issues, Fall 2011
Tierney, John. “Recycling is Garbage,” New York Times. 30 Jun 1996.
<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=recycling+is+garbage&btnG=Search&as_s
dt=0%2C33&as_ylo=&as_vis=0>.
Tierney is a journalist for New York Times and has also co-written a book with psychologist
Roy F. Baumeister titled Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Tierney
learned journalism at Yale University and became the editor of Yale Daily News. He also writes
a science column, “Findings,” and the “Tierney Lab” blog for the Times. He’s qualified in
journalism especially, which is why I trust this article. He’s not representing himself as a scientist but
rather a researcher presenting his findings. His argument is that recycling is not better than throwing
things away and there’s too much criticism on plastic use. His arguments are that recycling requires more
energy input than output, there is plenty of landfill space, and too costly to be worth it.
• The Federal Government and dozens of states passed laws that required public agencies,
newspapers and other companies to purchase recycled materials. These regulations, along
with a wide variety of tax breaks and subsidies, have pushed the national rate of recycling up
to Porter's goal of 25 percent -- an expensive achievement, since the programs lose money.
But that's still not enough.
• The typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American
household, but it produces one-third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods
in bulk and throw away large portions that are unused, spoiled or stale.
• The lightweight plastic packaging requires much less energy to manufacture and transport
than traditional alternatives like cardboard or paper. Food companies have switched to plastic
packaging because they make money by using resources efficiently. A typical McDonald's
discards less than two ounces of garbage for each customer served -- less than what's
generated by a typical meal at home
From his article, I used mostly the 2nd quote listed along with the information from the following
paragraph:
Plastic packaging is routinely criticized because it doesn't decay in landfills, but neither does most other
packaging, as William Rathje, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, has discovered from his
excavations of landfills. Rathje found that paper, cardboard and other organic materials -- while
technically biodegradable -- tend to remain intact in the airless confines of a landfill. These mummified
materials actually use much more landfill space than plastic packaging, which has steadily been getting
smaller as manufacturers develop stronger, thinner materials. Juice cartons take up half the landfill space
occupied by the glass bottles they replaced; 12 plastic grocery bags fit in the space occupied by one paper
bag.
This evidence supported my argument because it shows reasons behind the criticism of recycling.
Yepsen, Rhodes. “Encouraging Sustainable Recycling Behavior Through Financial Incentives”: BioCycle.
Dec 2007, Vol. 48, No. 12, p.34 < http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/001525.html>.
Yepsen Rhodes is a freelance Organics Recycling Consultant, a contributing editor at BioCycle magazine,
and a co-director of RRcraft (Renee and Raechel’s Craft store). He graduated from Oberlin College.
Because he’s so closely affiliated with Recycling issues, I found him capable as a source. He has not
written anything else and instead focuses on editing on BioCycle magazine. His article’s main argument
was really an overview on the possible financial incentives given for encouraging sustainable recycling
and how that might be more effective. He talks about the ReCycleBank (the Recycling company being
focused on) basics, how they go about their routines in collecting recyclables and encouraging people to
Sustainability Issues, Fall 2011
recycle, the Wilmington success of the case study, where incentives did urge people to recycle, and his
conclusion on rewards for green action.
• RecycleBank successfully tripled participation rates from 30 to 90 percent in a matter of
months.
• Since adopting RecycleBank's program, Wilmington's participation rate has jumped to 65
percent, and that only represents people who recycle every week. Extend those statistics to
every other week participation, and it reaches 90 percent. In terms of a diversion rate from the
landfill, Wilmington is at almost 35 percent (6,700 tons), placing it in the lead for cities in the
area. Not including organics, the waste stream in Wilmington is estimated to be 50 to 60
percent recyclables.
• The kiosks operate similarly to curbside accounts, linking to an online rewards account. After
lunch Gonen explains the kiosks in more detail, highlighting it as just one of many new
technological innovations to advance recycling. These advancements are what set
RecycleBank apart, he remarks, because innovation has been relatively stagnant in the
recycling industry. There is a prototype of the kiosk, with plans to launch it in New York City.
I used quotes like:
“For instance, recycled aluminum, the golden child of the recycling world, takes 95 percent less energy to
produce, with 95 percent fewer emissions, when compared to cans made from virgin materials” and “The
typical household in Mexico City buys fewer packaged goods than an American household, but it
produces one-third more garbage, chiefly because Mexicans buy fresh foods in bulk and throw away large
portions that are unused, spoiled or stale. Those apples in Dittersdorf's slide, protected by plastic wrap and
foam, are less likely to spoil. The lightweight plastic packaging requires much less energy to manufacture
and transport than traditional alternatives like cardboard or paper”
This helped support my argument because it showed evidence that recycling is not always the easiest or
best solution to a problem even though it can be part of the solution.