I’ll try to wrap up this recycling discussion today. Yesterday we talked about the sheer amount of stuff we have in America (and really, in any part of the non-third-world world) and the apathy which results from lots of stuff and the waste that results from the apathy. Oh trail of destruction!
Let me clarify one thing here: I’m not into scare tactics. Almost every media outlet has used them, at one time or another, to promote one cause or another. I don’t like it when a grim reporter looks into the camera and says something I know to be a blatant exaggeration. You’re not going to die tomorrow if you don’t recycle. You’re probably not going to die at all due to your lack of recycling habits. What will happen? Let’s analyze.
You’ll produce an average of 1600 pounds of trash every year for the rest of your life. Let’s just not even take your childhood into consideration. So 1600 pounds of trash multiplied by, oh, 60 years or so. That’s right around 100,000 pounds of trash for your lifetime. 50,000 tons. Those 50,000 tons of trash will go to major landfills in America.
A public landfill costs a lot to build. I’ve seen numbers from $19 million to $36 million for constructing a landfill. A landfill costs a lot to operate. I’ve seen numbers on that from $50 per ton to $90 per ton. We’ll say your area is on the cheap side, $50 per ton. So your 50,000 tons of trash multiplied by your $50 per ton equals a lifetime cost of $2,500,000 to stash your trash.
You pay part of that through taxes. The rest is covered by government: local, state, federal, what-have-you. All that money is poured into the disposal of waste that will result in no end product. That’s just bad economics, kids.
On the other hand (the one with a green arrow triangle printed on it), you could recycle. What will that cost? It used to cost more, (see this article by John Tierney), but that’s changed drastically. A year 2000 chart of Plainville, CT’s recycling versus landfill costs shows that it takes $58/ton to dispose of solid waste and $30/ton to recycle it. Another example is the quote below from a Colorado municipality:
“Well-run recycling programs cost less to operate than waste collection, landfilling, and incinerations. Loveland has discovered that the municipal garbage utility’s costs to recycle are almost $40 per ton less than the cost to landfill trash, while Denver’s recycling programs saved about $200,000 in landfill costs in 2004 and brought in nearly $1 million from the sale of recyclables. Unlike many public services, recycling does function within the market economy, and quite successfully.”
Is that enough about recycling? Can we move on to something different now, like reusing?
Image Credits: Vertigogen.
