Recycling Costs vs. Diminishing Benefits
To recycle or not recycle: that is the question. This has been a debate that dates back to the 90s and it continues today. The major argument suggests that recycling is costing too much money, more than it will cost to dump the trash. It also suggests that recycling doubles the use of energy and causes more pollution than what dumping the garbage would produce.
On the other hand, two of the biggest environmental agencies – The Natural Resource Defense Council and the Environmental defense disagree on this, saying that on the contrary, recycling programs in communities reduce pollution and the amount of garbage that ends up on the landfills, therefore being beneficial to our planet.
The environmental protection agency shows numbers demonstrating that municipalities that have a recycling program that is well run and established will spend from $50-$150 plus per ton of trash, while they will spend from $70-$200 plus per ton of trash in collection and waste disposal programs. The agency maintains that as cities evolve and learn how to run better programs the benefits outweigh the cost. In addition, there is more demand for recycling materials now, which makes the difference.
The situation in which the City of New York was losing money with their recycling program due to lack of material demand, was one that many other cities watched closely. The city’s material was being dumped anyway due to the lack of demand. After Mayor Bloomberg closed the last landfill, the prices of trash soared due to the extra trips and mileage that private companies had to put to dispose of the trash. The result was that recycling proved to be less costly than garbage dumping, after the recycling program was reinstated. Since then, the city has managed better recycling programs.
It seems to be a matter of cities getting it together, so the cost is less, and cities are learning. However, most people recycle out of following city-recycling laws. The only way in which true recycling can be accomplished in households is by lessening out of control consumption and learning to reduce, reuse, and re-purpose, which will make the amount of items to be recycled by cities a lot less, therefore improving the cost. This will benefit not only the environment, but also cities budgets as well as families’ budgets. Learning to manage a recycling program starts in each and every household in America first, as people watch and control their consumption habits. Glass, plastic, and paper can all be reused to a certain extent, less packaging used, and overall less output created. Find on your computer recycling centers near you to take your household waste to, and dispose of batteries and TV’s at the appropriate electronics recycling facilities.