Hi Folks,
Re: Stephan Dubner’s interview on Good Morning
America, we (Scott Matthews of Carnegie Mellon and the Carnegie Mellon Economic
Input Output-Life Cycle Assessment model online at eiolca.net, Frank Ackerman
of Tufts and author of Why do We Recycle and co-author of Priceless: On Knowing
the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, and myself) have developed
the Consumer Environmental Index (CEI) that measures and tracks the climate
change, human toxics and ecosystem toxics impacts of consumer expenditures each
year – from resource extraction to production to retail sale and consumer
use and through to end-of-life management of discards. The short answer to
Stephan Dubner – recycling and composting a household’s discards (paper,
glass/metal/plastic containers, yard debris and food scraps) is equivalent to
reducing consumption of vehicle fuels, motor oils and repairs by 25% through using
mass transit to commute to work frequently enough to attain that 25% reduction.
So the environmental benefit of recycling and composting is
enormous, even though we sometimes have to pay more to recycle than we do to
throw discards in the garbage. The reason that economics and environment
are often at odds – emissions to air, water and land of pollutants is typically
free, i.e, free disposal of these toxic and climate changing wastes, so the
profit or cost/benefit bottom line driven household or business or governmental
or non-profit agency saves dollars by throwing things away. The fact that
polluting and wasting is mostly free is at the heart of why we have such a
difficult time finding ways to make recycling compete economically with
wasting.
You can see a quick description of the CEI at our website www.zerowaste.com and download the
presentation slides that Scott and I used when we unveiled the CEI for Washington State at the Washington State Department
of Ecology on July 9. There’s also a report that you can download
if you want more details.
The Economist on June 7th ran an article in their
print edition on recycling -- The Truth About Recycling -- that came to the
opposite conclusion from Dubner. The Economist is not known for being a
liberal rag so that’s another good source to point to for the opposite
conclusion.
Jeffrey Morris, Ph.D.-Economics
Sound Resource Management
2217 60th Lane NW
Olympia, WA 98502-0903
360-867-1033
360-319-2391 mobile
jeff.morris@no.address
www.zerowaste.com