Is Recycling Worth It?

A recent article Is Recycling Worth It? PM Investigates its Economic and Environmental Impact, that’s posted over at Popular Mechanics, is well worth a read.

The article covers the basic of economical advantages (or not) and eco advantages (or not) or recycling. Some of it I agree with, such as the point that recycling critics question, “The wisdom of deploying fleets of large, fuel-hungry trucks that duplicate the routes already driven by garbage trucks to take recyclables to reprocessing facilities that burn energy and emit pollution.” Which true, makes little sense eco-wise especially if the reuse products gained aren’t all that rare. I also agree with the issue of “Materials [that are] are currently “downcycled” into less desirable products that can be recycled no further.” This is no where near as handy as closed-loop recycling.

I strongly disagree with this blurb though:

“According to one calculation, all the garbage produced in the U.S. for the next 1000 years could fit into a landfill 100 yards deep and 35 miles across on each side—not that big (unless you happen to live in the neighborhood). Or put another way, it would take another 20 years to run through the landfills that the U.S. has already built. So the notion that we’re running out of landfill space—the original impetus for the recycling boom—turns out to have been a red herring.”

So it’ll take a whole 20 years to run through our current landfill space, plus this means we’ll of course be adding new landfills. 20 years – NOT that long. We are running low on space. My son won’t even be 30 in 20 years. I may not even have grand kids born on this planet yet. I guess it’s a possible red herring for older generations, I mean, too bad, but they’ll be very old or dead, so yeah, it’s not an issue. But seriously, how is this not an negative issue for future generations?

All in all, it’s an interesting read though. One that might make you rethink the recycling issue, at least in terms of how we should be recycling for maximum benefits to the earth.

Read this article.