Is Recycling a Waste of Time?
Recycling is one of the few change-of-lifestyles with large environmental benefits people actually support - but it must be done intelligently and adapt to market and human behavior realities.
“Recycling is a waste of time. Much of it ends up at the trash dump anyway.”
I heard this claim from numerous thoughtful and intelligent neighbors as I researched implementing a recycling program at the condominium where I am on the board of directors. This view has become common among those on the left and right ends of the political spectrum:
This attitude came as a shock to me. I had dutifully recycled for decades and I wondered if these neighbors were right. Given that the benefits of recycling have been taken as an article of faith by many, including myself, this seems like a perfect topic for a Pure Science article.
Background
The percentage of US Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) that was recycled or composted rose continuously from 6.6% in 1970 to 35% in 2017 before falling to only 32.1% in 2018, which is the latest year for which EPA data is available (apparently EPA employees are still on their COVID-19 break).
This recycling reduced strains on the environment, including the need for landfill space and raw materials, like metal, lumber and oil.
Additionally, recycling in 2018 reduced US emissions of greenhouse gasses by 193 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMTCO2e), which is equivalent to taking 42 million cars off the road for a year!
Seems good so far. So why has a backlash occurred against recycling (as 1st seen as the drop in 2018 recycling rate)?
Problem 1 - Contamination
Nationally, an average of 17% of collected recycling is contaminated with non-recyclable material, which due to the poor profit margins of recyclers, means it is frequently more economical to dump whole lots of “recyclables” in the trash. Blame mandatory recycling programs that force the unmotivated to recycle, poor education of citizens regarding what to recycle or not, and single stream collection that requires a gargantuan and imperfect sorting process.
As a glass-half-full kind of person, I still see 83% of recycling actually being recycled as an imperfect positive (i.e. reduced mining, forest cutting, need for landfill space, and the 193 MMTCO2e GHG emission reduction) as compared to doing nothing.
High contamination rates and reduced commodity rates for materials recovered by recycling have forced a number of Florida municipalities near where I live to reconsider and sometimes drop recycling programs due to higher costs relative to having just trash collection.
However, there are solutions to this problem. The recycling collector I am proposing for our condominiums, Conex Recycling, inspects recycling as it is loaded onto their trucks. Small contaminating objects can be removed at that time or if the contamination is more severe, recycling bins are left uncollected, with the contamination to be removed by the source.
As a result of collecting relatively uncontaminated recycling, Conex can haul away recycling at a cost that is around 35% lower than our rate for trash collection (by volume). Recycling is economically viable if contamination is controlled.
Problem 2 - China Import Ban
The big blow to US recycling efforts and the source of much present day cynicism was an import ban by China on most recycled materials which was instituted in March of 2018. Until that time, much of US recycled materials had been sent to China. This ban created a huge disruption to the entire US recycling processing chain. It took several years for the United States recycling industry to develop new foreign and domestic capability to process all the recycled material that used to be sent to China. But from 2018 to 2020 municipalities kept collecting recyclables. Large volumes of recycled materials with no place to go stacked up and a significant fraction (enough for people to notice) was dumped in the trash.
Fortunately the China import ban problem is behind us. But in the future, recycling collection efforts should be more adaptive to new downstream processing shocks, possibly including halting collection of some types of material that can’t or won’t cost effectively be reused.
Problem 3 - Energy Costs
The Chinese ban came on top on of a 6 year long depression of oil and energy prices which started in 2015. Thanks to the US fracking revolution, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude fell by 50% in 2015 and remained depressed until 2021. The value of recycled material, and plastic in particular, is highly correlated with the price of oil as can be seen in the chart below. The COVID-19 recession and corresponding crash in oil prices to below $0 in 2020 only made things worse.
Our government’s ill-advised war on fossil fuels and continued increasing worldwide demand for oil will likely keep oil prices elevated for years, resulting in higher value for recycled materials, and thus a healthier recycling industry.
Problem 4 - Plastic
Recycling plastic provides the least environmental benefit of the commonly recycled materials. This is especially true in locations such as Pinellas County, where I live, and where all trash is incinerated and the energy released is used to create electricity in place of fossil fuels. Recycling plastic that would (hopefully) end up in a landfill otherwise has more benefits as the plastic in a landfill doesn’t degrade and increases methane (a very harmful GHG) production of the landfill.
Plastic can only be recycled a few times before the quality degradation makes the recycled material useless for its originally intended use. The wide variety of nearly identical plastic types makes sorting difficult. Some plastic types can not be reused.
I will be proposing that our condominium recycling program only accept plastic types #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) that have had, and are expected to continue to have, value to recyclers. The value of each plastic varies greatly with the season, but in May of last year prices peaked at $820/ton and $2,160/ton respectively. Uncontaminated PET and HDPE is not going the trash at those prices!
Recycling Economics
It's important to understand and accept that without intervention in free markets, recycling is subject to supply and demand.
Recycled materials are only as valuable as the corresponding raw natural materials and the net energy that is saved by reuse. Recycling collection programs should never collect material that can not be profitably collected, sorted, and sold.
Numerous large manufacturers have made pledges to use increasing amounts of recycled materials in their products. Europe uses tax policy that encourages use of recycled materials over raw materials. Both actions distort (in a good way) recycling supply and demand, raising demand for recycled materials, and ultimately resulting in less waste. This can be seen in the sky rocketing prices for recycled PET (rPET) in the EU.
The recycling challenges due to foreign import bans and depressed energy prices are now in the past. The real question is: “Is recycling a waste of time NOW and looking forward?” The answer is an emphatic NO if contamination is controlled and demand for recycled materials remains high.
Very well written and makes sense. I’m curious what, if any, technological advancements are being made (potentially on the backs of recycling trucks) to reduce manual effort and make sorting and de-contamination easier
Well researched and written. Agreed with all except the contamination will be removed by the source.