Stephan,
The short answer is “yes”!
If there is door-to-door garbage collection then door-to-door recycling
collection is environmentally preferable for all the recyclable materials
because the upstream environmental benefits are an order of magnitude larger
than the environmental costs of collection. See my peer-reviewed articles
“Comparative LCAs for Curbside Recycling Versus Either Landfilling or
Incineration with Energy Recovery,” International Journal of Life Cycle
Assessment July 2005 10(4) 273-284, and “Recycling versus incineration:
an energy conservation analysis,” Journal of Hazardous Materials 47(1996)
277-293.
And even though the data for these
analyses are for the US,
it’s hard to see why the conclusions wouldn’t be universal.
Unless of course it’s a ridiculous hypothetical comparison between a
recently constructed facility with state-of-the-art pollution control equipment
and procedures that manufactures virgin-content products and an old,
inefficient recycled-content manufacturing facility that has no pollution
control equipment or procedures.
Regards,
Jeff
From: Stephan Pollard [mailto:stephan.pollard@no.address]
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2007 8:03
AM
To: GreenYes@no.address
Cc: Jeffrey Morris
Subject: Re: Dubner's interview on
Good Morning America
Jeff,
I presume we're talking about he U.S.
Are you suggesting that no matter where you go (in the U.S.), no matter the
time, no matter the mix of the plethora of factors/variables including the
attributes of the recycling collection program or the differences of the
recyclable content from waste stream to waste stream or simply what it takes to
recycle or compost, for each commodity collected for recycling and composting,
that the benefits outweigh the costs?
To repeat parts of a post made to this group on 9/26/06 RE: Informed Solid Waste Management...LCA is
an analytical tool that examines the often complex environmental impact of a
product, process, or service. Information returned from LCAs can be used
as an important input to informed solid waste decision-making...decision-making
that should incorporate periodic reassessment. Such reassessment includes,
for example, measurement of the efficacy of diversion programs at the
material/commodity level. Depending on ever-changing circumstances,
halting the diversion of glass bottles and jars in favor of spending the saved
money on programs targeting the diversion or perhaps elimination of high-risk
products might be an indicated course of action. Given the more than
appreciable expense of curbside collection of recyclables, a dollar spent on
the collection of glass, paper, or PET might be better spent elsewhere, perhaps
on drop-off or deposit programs or take-back schemes as has been suggested
(Lave et al., 1999; Barlaz et al., 2003). As Barlaz et al. (2003) point
out, saving gasoline has a lot more potential to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions than does PET recycling.
It is important to note that failure to consider that the rarely-static mix of
circumstances/management techniques/parameters/inputs differ between locations
could result in suboptimal or worse-than-before solutions when applying LCA
results in a cookie-cutter fashion. Additionally, not all LCAs are
created equal. Some are more accurate and(or) thorough in their
consideration of input parameters and externalities than others.
Quantifying tangible and intangible social benefits and costs can be very
difficult. Concerning the input data and the quality of the LCA, the old
adage (and pardon the pun) "Garbage In Garbage Out" certainly
applies.
Lave, L.B., Hendrickson, C.T., Conway-Schempf, N.M.,
McMichael, F.C., 1999. Municipal solid waste recycling issues. Journal of
Environmental Engineering 125(10): 944-949.
Abstract
Municipal solid waste (MSW) recycling targets have been set nationally and in
many states. Unfortunately, the definitions of recycling, rates of recycling,
and the appropriate components of MSW vary. MSW recycling has been found
to be costly for most municipalities compared to landfill disposal. MSW
recycling policy should be determined by the cost to the community and to
society more generally. In particular, recycling is a good policy only if
environmental impacts and the resources used to collect, sort, and recycle a
material are less than the environmental impacts and resources needed to
provide equivalent virgin material plus the resources needed to dispose of the
postconsumer material safely. From a review of the existing economic
experience with recycling and an analysis of the environmental benefits
(including estimation of external social costs), we find that, for most
communities, curbside recycling is only justifiable for some postconsumer
waste, such as aluminum and other metals. We argue that alternatives to
curbside recycling collection should be explored, including product takeback
for products with a toxic content (such as batteries) or product redesign to
permit more effective product remanufacture.
Barlaz, M.A, Cekander, G.C., Vasuki, N.C.,
2003. Integrated solid waste management in the United States. Journal of
Environmental Engineering 129(7): 583-584.
Best,
Stephan Pollard
Jeffrey Morris wrote:
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