Recycling

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3R Concepts
Waste Mgmt Hierarchy Reduce Reuse Recycle Barter Dematerialization Dumpster diving Ecodesign Ethical consumerism Freeganism Extended producer responsibility Industrial ecology Industrial metabolism Material flow analysis Product stewardship Simple living Zero waste
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Recycling involves processing used materials into new
products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the
consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from landfilling) by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse gas emissions as compared to virgin production.^[1][2] Recycling is a key component of modern waste management and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" waste hierarchy.

Recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, metal, plastic, textiles, and electronics. Although similar in effect, the composting or other reuse of biodegradable waste – such as food or garden waste – is not typically considered recycling.^[2]
Materials to be recycled are either brought to a collection center or
picked up from the curbside, then sorted, cleaned, and reprocessed into
new materials bound for manufacturing.

In a strict sense, recycling of a material would produce a fresh supply of the same material, for example used office paper to more office paper, or used foamed polystyrene
to more polystyrene. However, this is often difficult or too expensive
(compared with producing the same product from raw materials or other
sources), so "recycling" of many products or materials involves their reuse in producing different materials (e.g., cardboard) instead. Another form of recycling is the salvage of certain materials from complex products, either due to their intrinsic value (e.g., lead from car batteries, or gold from computer components), or due to their hazardous nature (e.g., removal and reuse of mercury from various items).

Critics dispute the net economic and environmental benefits of
recycling over its costs, and suggest that proponents of recycling
often make matters worse and suffer from confirmation bias.
Specifically, critics argue that the costs and energy used in
collection and transportation detract from (and outweigh) the costs and
energy saved in the production process; also that the jobs produced by
the recycling industry can be a poor trade for the jobs lost in
logging, mining, and other industries associated with virgin
production; and that materials such as paper pulp can only be recycled
a few times before material degradation prevents further recycling.
Proponents of recycling dispute each of these claims, and the validity
of arguments from both sides has led to enduring controversy.

History

Early recycling

Recycling has been a common practice for most of human history, with recorded advocates as far back as Plato
in 400 BC. During periods when resources were scarce, archaeological
studies of ancient waste dumps show less household waste (such as ash,
broken tools and pottery)—implying more waste was being recycled in the
absence of new material.^[3]

In pre-industrial times, there is evidence of scrap bronze and other metals being collected in Europe and melted down for perpetual reuse.^[4] In Britain dust and ash from wood and coal fires was collected by 'dustmen' and downcycled
as a base material used in brick making. The main driver for these
types of recycling was the economic advantage of obtaining recycled
feedstock instead of acquiring virgin material, as well as a lack of
public waste removal in ever more densely populated areas.^[3] In 1813, Benjamin Law developed the process of turning rags into 'shoddy' and 'mungo'
wool in Batley, Yorkshire. This material combined recycled fibres with
virgin wool. The West Yorkshire shoddy industry in towns such as Batley
and Dewsbury, lasted from the early 19c to at least the First World War.

Wartime recycling

Resource shortages caused by the world wars, and other such world-changing occurrences greatly encouraged recycling.^[5]
Massive government promotion campaigns were carried out in World War II
in every country involved in the war, urging citizens to donate metals
and conserve fibre, as a matter of significant patriotic importance.
Resource conservation programs established during the war were
continued in some countries without an abundance of natural resources,
such as Japan, after the war ended.

Post-war recycling

The next big investment in recycling occurred in the 1970s, due to
rising energy costs. Recycling aluminium uses only 5% of the energy
required by virgin production; glass, paper and metals have less
dramatic but very significant energy savings when recycled feedstock is
used.^[6]

Woodbury, New Jersey was the first city in the entire United States to mandate recycling.^[7] Led by Rose Rowan^[8]
in the early 1970s, the idea of towing a "recycling" trailer behind a
waste management vehicle to enable the collection of trash and
recyclable material at the same time emerged. Other towns and cities
soon followed suit, and today many cities in the U.S. make recycling a
requirement.

In 1987, the Mobro 4000 barge hauled garbage from New York to North Carolina; where it was denied. It was then sent to Belize;
where it was denied as well. Finally, the barge returned to New York
and the garbage was incinerated. The incident led to heated discussions
in the media about waste disposal and recycling. The incident is often
referred to as igniting the recycling "hysteria" of the 1990s.^[4]

Legislation

Supply

For a recycling program to work, having a large, stable supply
of recyclable material is crucial. Three legislative options have been
used to create such a supply: mandatory recycling collection, container deposit legislation,
and refuse bans. Mandatory collection laws set recycling targets for
cities to aim for, usually in the form that a certain percentage of a
material must be diverted from the city's waste stream by a target
date. The city is then responsible for working to meet this target.^[2]

Container deposit legislation involves offering a refund for the
return of certain containers, typically glass, plastic, and metal. When
a product in such a container is purchased, a small surcharge is added
to the price. This surcharge can be reclaimed by the consumer if the
container is returned to a collection point. These programs have been
very successful, often resulting in an 80% recycling rate. Despite such
good results, the shift in collection costs from local government to
industry and consumers has created strong opposition to the creation of
such programs in some areas.^[2]

A third method of increase supply of recyclates is to ban
the disposal of certain materials as waste, often including used oil,
old batteries, tires and garden waste. One aim of this method is to
create a viable economy for proper disposal of banned products. Care
must be taken that enough of these recycling services exist, or such bans simply lead to increased illegal dumping.^[2]

Government-mandated demand

Legislation has also been used to increase and maintain a demand for
recycled materials. Four methods of such legislation exist: minimum
recycled content mandates, utilization rates, procurement policies, recycled product labeling.^[2]

Both minimum recycled content mandates and utilization rates
increase demand directly by forcing manufacturers to include recycling
in their operations. Content mandates specify that a certain percentage
of a new product must consist of recycled material. Utilization rates
are a more flexible option: industries are permitted to meet the
recycling targets at any point of their operation or even contract
recycling out in exchange for tradeable
credits. Opponents to both of these methods point to the large increase
in reporting requirements they impose, and claim that they rob industry
of necessary flexibility.^[2][9]

Governments have used their own purchasing power
to increase recycling demand through what are called "procurement
policies". These policies are either "set-asides", which earmark a
certain amount of spending solely towards recycled products, or "price
preference" programs which provide a larger budget when recycled items are purchased. Additional regulations can target specific cases: in the United States, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency mandates the purchase of oil, paper, tires and building insulation from recycled or re-refined sources whenever possible.^[2]

The final government regulation towards increased demand is recycled
product labeling. When producers are required to label their packaging
with amount of recycled material in the product (including the
packaging), consumers are better able to make educated choices.
Consumers with sufficient buying power
can then choose more environmentally conscious options, prompt
producers to increase the amount of recycled material in their
products, and indirectly increase demand. Standardized recycling
labeling can also have a positive effect on supply of recyclates if the
labeling includes information on how and where the product can be
recycled.^[2]

Process

Collection

A number of different systems have been implemented to collect
recyclates from the general waste stream. These systems tend to lie
along the spectrum of trade-off between public convenience and
government ease and expense. The three main categories of collection
are "drop-off centres", "buy-back centres" and "curbside collection".^[2]

Drop-off centres require the waste producer to carry the recyclates
to a central location, either an installed or mobile collection station
or the reprocessing plant itself. They are the easiest type of
collection to establish, but suffer from low and unpredictable
throughput. Buy-back centres differ in that the cleaned recyclates are
purchased, thus providing a clear incentive for use and creating a
stable supply. The post-processed material can then be sold on,
hopefully creating a profit. Unfortunately government subsidies are
necessary to make buy-back centres a viable enterprise, as according to
the United States Nation Solid Wastes Management Association it costs
on average US$50 to process a ton of material, which can only be resold
for US$30.^[2]

Curbside collection

Curbside collection encompasses many subtly different systems, which
differ mostly on where in the process the recyclates are sorted and
cleaned. The main categories are mixed waste collection, commingled
recyclables and source separation.^[2] A waste collection vehicle generally picks up the waste.

At one end of the spectrum is mixed waste collection, in which all
recyclates are collected mixed in with the rest of the waste, and the
desired material is then sorted out and cleaned at a central sorting
facility. This results in a large amount of recyclable waste, paper
especially, being too soiled to reprocess, but has advantages as well:
the city need not pay for a separate collection of recyclates and no
public education is needed. Any changes to which materials are
recyclable is easy to accommodate as all sorting happens in a central
location.^[2]

In a Commingled or single-stream system,
all recyclables for collection are mixed but kept separate from other
waste. This greatly reduces the need for post-collection cleaning but
does require public education on what materials are recyclable.^[2][4]

Source separation is the other extreme, where each material is
cleaned and sorted prior to collection. This method requires the least
post-collection sorting and produces the purest recyclates, but incurs
additional operating costs
for collection of each separate material. An extensive public education
program is also required, which must be successful if recyclate
contamination is to be avoided.^[2]

Source separation used to be the preferred method due to the high
sorting costs incurred by commingled collection. Advances in sorting
technology (see sorting
below), however, have lowered this overhead substantially—many areas
which had developed source separation programs have since switched to
comingled collection.^[4]

Sorting

Once commingled recyclates are collected and delivered to a central collection facility,
the different types of materials must be sorted. This is done in a
series of stages, many of which involve automated processes such that a
truck-load of material can be fully sorted in less than an hour.^[4]
Some plants can now sort the materials automatically, known as Single
Stream. A 30% increase in recycling rates has been seen in the areas
where these plants exist.^[10]

Initially, the commingled recyclates are removed from the collection
vehicle and placed on a conveyor belt spread out in a single layer.
Large pieces of cardboard and plastic bags are removed by hand at this stage, as they can cause later machinery to jam.^[4]

Next, automated machinery separates the recyclates by weight,
splitting lighter paper and plastic from heavier glass and metal.
Cardboard is removed from the mixed paper, and the most common types of
plastic, PET (#1) and HDPE (#2), are collected. This separation is usually done by hand, but has become automated in some sorting centers: a spectroscopic
scanner is used to differentiate between different types of paper and
plastic based on the absorbed wavelengths, and subsequently divert each
material into the proper collection channel.^[4]

Strong magnets are used to separate out ferrous metals, such as iron, steel, and tin-plated steel cans ("tin cans"). Non-ferrous metals are ejected by magnetic eddy currents in which a rotating magnetic field induces
an electric current around the aluminium cans, which in turn creates a
magnetic eddy current inside the cans. This magnetic eddy current is
repulsed by a large magnetic field, and the cans are ejected from the
rest of the recyclate stream.^[4]

Finally, glass must be sorted by hand based on its color: brown, amber, green or clear.^[4]

Cost-benefit analysis

+ Environmental effects of recycling[11]
Material	Energy Savings	Air Pollution Savings
Aluminium	95%[2][6]	95%[2][12]
Cardboard	24%	—
Glass	5-30%	20%
Paper	40%[6]	73%
Plastics	70%[6]	—
Steel	60%[4]	—

There is some debate over whether recycling is economically efficient. Municipalities often see fiscal benefits from implementing recycling programs, largely due to the reduced landfill costs.^[13] A study conducted by the Technical University of Denmark found that in 83% of cases, recycling is the most efficient method to dispose of household waste.^[4][6]
However, a 2004 assessment by the Danish Environmental Assessment
Institute concluded that incineration was the most effective method for
disposing of drink containers, even aluminium ones.^[14]

Fiscal efficiency is separate from economic efficiency. Economic analysis of recycling includes what economists call externalities,
which are unpriced costs and benefits that accrue to individuals
outside of private transactions. Examples include: decreased air
pollution and greenhouse gases from incineration, reduced hazardous
waste leaching from landfills, reduced energy consumption, and reduced waste and resource consumption, which leads to a reduction in environmentally damaging mining and timber
activity. Without mechanisms such as taxes or subsidies to internalize
externalities, businesses will ignore them despite the costs imposed on
society. To make such non-fiscal benefits economically relevant,
advocates have pushed for legislative action to increase the demand for recycled materials.^[2] The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has concluded in favor of recycling, saying that recycling efforts reduced the country's carbon emissions by a net 49 million metric tonnes in 2005.^[4] In the United Kingdom, the Waste and Resources Action Programme stated that Great Britain's recycling efforts reduce CO₂ emissions by 10-15 million tonnes a year.^[4] Recycling is more efficient in densely populated areas, as there are economies of scale involved.^[2]

Certain requirements must be met for recycling to be economically
feasible and environmentally effective. These include an adequate
source of recyclates, a system to extract those recyclates from the waste stream, a nearby factory
capable of reprocessing the recyclates, and a potential demand for the
recycled products. These last two requirements are often
overlooked—without both an industrial market
for production using the collected materials and a consumer market for
the manufactured goods, recycling is incomplete and in fact only
"collection".^[2]

Many economists favor a moderate level of government intervention to
provide recycling services. Economists of this mindset probably view
product disposal as an externality of production and subsequently argue
government is most capable of alleviating such a dilemma. However,
those of the laissez faire approach to municipal recycling see product
disposal as a service that consumers value. A free-market approach is
more likely to suit the preferences of consumers since profit-seeking
businesses have greater incentive to produce a quality product or
service than does government. Moreover, economists most always advise
against government intrusion in any market with little or no
externalities.” ^[15]

Trade in recyclates

Certain countries trade in unprocessed recyclates. Some have
complained that the ultimate fate of recyclates sold to another country
is unknown and they may end up in landfills instead of reprocessed.
According to one report, in America, 50-80% of computers destined for
recycling are actually not recycled.^[16][17]
There are reports of illegal-waste imports to China being dismantled
and recycled solely for monetary gain, without consideration for
workers' health or environmental damage. Though the Chinese government
has banned these practices, it has not been able to eradicate them.^[18]
In 2008, the prices of recyclable waste plummeted before rebounding in
2009. Cardboard averaged about £53/tonne from 2004-2008, dropped to
£19/tonne, and then went up to £59/tonne in May 2009. PET plastic
averaged about £156/tonne, dropped to £75/tonne and then moved up to
£195/tonne in May 2009.^[19]
Certain regions have difficulty using or exporting as much of a
material as they recycle. This problem is most prevalent with glass:
both Britain and the U.S. import large quantities of wine bottled in
green glass. Though much of this glass is sent to be recycled, outside
the American Midwest
there is not enough wine production to use all of the reprocessed
material. The extra must be downcycled into building materials or
re-inserted into the regular waste stream.^[2][4]

Similarly, the northwestern United States has difficulty finding markets for recycled newspaper, given the large number of pulp mills
in the region as well as the proximity to Asian markets. In other areas
of the U.S., however, demand for used newsprint has seen wide
fluctuation.^[2]

In some U.S. states, a program called RecycleBank
pays people with coupons to recycle, receiving money from local
municipalities for the reduction in landfill space which must be
purchased. It uses a single stream process in which all material is
automatically sorted.^[20]

Criticism

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this section if you can. (May 2009)

Much of the difficulty inherent in recycling comes from the fact
that most products are not designed with recycling in mind. The concept
of sustainable design aims to solve this problem, and was first laid out in the book "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things" by architect William McDonough and chemist
Michael Braungart. They suggest that every product (and all packaging
they require) should have a complete "closed-loop" cycle mapped out for
each component—a way in which every component will either return to the
natural ecosystem through biodegradation or be recycled indefinitely.^[4]

As with environmental economics, care must be taken to ensure a
complete view of the costs and benefits involved. For example,
cardboard packaging for food products is more easily recycled than
plastic, but is heavier to ship and may result in more waste from
spoilage.^[21]

The following are criticisms of many popular points used for recycling.

Saves energy

There is controversy on just how much energy is saved through recycling. The Energy Information Administration
(EIA) states on its website that "a paper mill uses 40 percent less
energy to make paper from recycled paper than it does to make paper
from fresh lumber."^[22]
Critics often argue that in the overall processes, it can take more
energy to produce recycled products than it does to dispose of them in
traditional landfill methods. This argument is followed from the curbside collection of recyclables, which critics note is often done by a second waste truck. Recycling proponents point out that a second timber or logging truck is eliminated when paper is collected for recycling.

It is difficult to determine the exact amount of energy consumed or
produced in waste disposal processes. How much energy is used in
recycling depends largely on the type of material being recycled and
the process used to do so. Aluminium
is generally agreed to use far less energy when recycled rather than
being produced from scratch. The EPA states that "recycling aluminum
cans, for example, saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the
same amount of aluminum from its virgin source, bauxite."^[23]

Economist Steven Landsburg has suggested that the sole benefit of
reducing landfill space is trumped by the energy needed and resulting
pollution from the recycling process.^[24] Others, however, have calculated through life cycle assessment that producing recycled paper uses less energy and water than harvesting, pulping, processing, and transporting virgin trees.^[25]
By using less recycled paper, additional energy is needed to create and
maintain farmed forests until these forests are as self-sustainable as
virgin forests.

Public policy analyst James V. DeLong points out that recycling is a
manufacturing process and many of the methods use more energy than they
save. In addition to energy usage, he notes that recycling requires
capital and labor while producing some waste. These processes need to
be more efficient than production from original raw material and/or
traditional garbage disposal for recycling to be the superior method.^[26]

Saves money

The amount of money actually saved through recycling depends on the efficiency of the recycling program used to do it. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance argues that the cost of recycling depends on various factors around a community that recycles, such as landfill fees
and the amount of disposal that the community recycles. It states that
communities start to save money when they treat recycling as a
replacement for their traditional waste system rather than an add-on to
it and by "redesigning their collection schedules and/or trucks."^[27]

In many cases, the cost of recyclable materials also exceeds the
cost of raw materials. Virgin plastic resin costs 40% less than
recycled resin.^[28] Additionally, a United States Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) study that tracked the price of clear cullet from July 15 to
August 2, 1991, found that the average cost per ton ranged from $40 to
$60,^[29] while a USGS report shows that the cost per ton of raw silica sand from years 1993 to 1997 fell between $17.33 and $18.10.^[30]

In a 1996 article for The New York Times, John Tierney
argued that it costs more money to recycle the trash of New York City
than it does to dispose of it in a landfill. Tierney argued that the
recycling process employs people to do the additional waste disposal,
sorting, inspecting, and many fees are often charged because the
processing costs used to make the end product are often more than the
profit from its sale.^[31] Tierney also referenced a study conducted by the Solid Waste Association of North America
(SWANA) that found in the six communities involved in the study, "all
but one of the curbside recycling programs, and all the composting
operations and waste-to-energy incinerators, increased the cost of waste disposal."^[32]

Working conditions

Critics often argue that while recycling may create jobs, they are often jobs with low wages and terrible working conditions.^[33] These jobs are sometimes considered to be make-work jobs
that don't produce as much as the cost of wages to pay for those jobs.
In areas without many environmental regulations and/or worker
protections, jobs involved in recycling such as ship breaking can result in deplorable conditions for both workers and the surrounding communities.

Recycling proponents counter that the jobs involved in recovery of
an equal amount of virgin material creates worse jobs. Timber
harvesting and ore mining are more dangerous than paper recycling and
metal recycling.^{[citation needed]}

Saves trees

Economist Steven Landsburg
has claimed that paper recycling actually reduces tree populations. He
argues that because paper companies have incentives to replenish the
forests they own, large demands for paper lead to large forests.
Conversely, reduced demand for paper leads to fewer "farmed" forests.^[34] Similar arguments were expressed in a 1995 article for The Free Market.^[35]

When foresting companies cut down trees, more are planted in their
place. Most paper comes from pulp forests grown specifically for paper
production.^{[26][32][35][36]} Many environmentalists
point out, however, that "farmed" forests are inferior to virgin
forests in several ways. Farmed forests are not able to fix the soil as
quickly as virgin forests, causing widespread soil erosion and often
requiring large amounts of fertilizer to maintain while containing little tree and wild-life biodiversity compared to virgin forests.^[37]
Also, the new trees planted are not as big as the trees that were cut
down, and the argument that there will be "more trees" is not
compelling to forestry advocates when they are counting saplings.

The recycling of paper should not be confused with saving the
tropical forest. Many people have the misconception that paper-making
is what's causing deforestation of tropical rain forests but rarely any
tropical wood is harvested for paper. Deforestation is mainly caused by
population pressure such as demand of more land for agriculture or
construction use. Therefore, the recycling paper, although reduces
demand of trees, doesn't greatly benefit the tropical rain forests. ^[38]

Possible income loss and social costs

In some prosperous and many less prosperous countries in the world,
the traditional job of recycling is performed by the entrepreneurial
poor such as the karung guni, the rag and bone man, waste picker, and junk man. With the creation of large recycling organizations that may be profitable, either by law or economies of scale,^[39][40] the poor are more likely to be driven out of the recycling and the remanufacturing
market. To compensate for this loss of income to the poor, a society
may need to create additional forms of societal programs to help
support the poor. Like the parable of the broken window, there is a net loss to the poor and possibly the whole of a society to make recycling artificially profitable through law.

Because the social support of a country is likely less than the loss
of income to the poor doing recycling, there is a greater chance that
the poor will come in conflict with the large recycling organizations.^[41][42]
This means fewer people can decide if certain waste is more
economically reusable in its current form rather than being
reprocessed. Contrasted to the recycling poor, the efficiency of their
recycling may actually be higher for some materials because individuals
have greater control over what is considered “waste.”

One labor-intensive underused waste is electronic and computer
waste. Because this waste may still be functional and wanted mostly by
the poor, the poor may sell or use it at a greater efficiency than
large recyclers.

Many recycling advocates believe that this laissez-faire
individual-based recycling does not cover all of society’s recycling
needs. Thus, it does not negate the need for an organized recycling
program. Local government often consider the activities of the
recycling poor as contributing to property blight.

Newsprint

There are upper limits on the percentage of the world’s newsprint
that can be manufactured from recycled fiber. The most obvious upper
limit is imposed by the nature of recycling itself. Some of the fiber
that enters any recycled pulp mill is lost in pulping, due to
inefficiencies inherent in the process. According to the web site of
the U.K. chapter of Friends of the Earth^[43]
wood fiber can normally only be recycled up to five times due to damage
experienced to the fiber. Thus, unless the quantity of newsprint used
each year worldwide declines to reflect the lost fiber, a certain
amount of new (virgin) fiber is required each year globally, even if
the individual newsprint mill may continue to use 100% recycled fiber.

Additionally, some old newspapers never make it to a recycling
plant, being used for a variety of household and industrial
applications or simply ending up in landfill. Recycle rates (the
percentage of annual newsprint consumption which is then recycled) vary
from country to country and, within countries, from city to rural areas
as well as from city to city. The American Forest & Paper
Association estimates that more than 72% of newsprint produced in North
America in 2006 was recovered for re-use or export, with about 58% of
that going back to a paper or paperboard mill for re-use, 16% being
used by molded pulp mills (to make products such as egg cartons) and
the balance being shipped offshore. Of the percentage that is re-used
by a North American paper or paperboard mill, AFPA estimates that about
a third goes back into newsprint manufacture. Recycle rates can also
vary over time with the price paid by the market for old newspapers,
which can be quite volatile. As an example, in recent years, with China
growing as a manufacturer of various kinds of paper and packaging –
using significant quantities of recycled fiber imported from the U.S.
and elsewhere – its demand for old newspapers has at times been strong
enough to influence recycled fiber prices worldwide. While high
recycled fiber prices are good news for the goal of reducing landfill
quantities, they can affect the profitability of newsprint mills using
recycled fibers.

An important consideration in fiber selection by newsprint mills
aside from cost is the high speeds of both modern newsprint machines
and modern newspaper printing presses. There are newsprint machines in
the U.S. operating at speeds approaching 1,400 meters per minute,
according to industry information group RISI Inc., while the newest
machines in the world (including some recently installed in China) can
have speeds topping 1,800 meters per minute. Modern newspaper presses
can run at speeds of up to 90,000 copies per hour (according to
publishing industry association IFRA), with a few approaching 100,000
cph.

Such high speeds place severe demands on the strength of the sheet,
both on the paper machine during the manufacturing process and on the
press during printing. A number of newsprint mills around the world
manufacture commercially acceptable qualities of newsprint using 100%
recycled fiber. However, such mill operators must be very selective
about the purity of the waste stream, making sure they employ a minimum
of contaminants and include as much long-fibered old newsprint as
possible. Virgin newsprint is made from long-fibered (softwood) trees
such as spruce, fir, balsam and pine, while some paper and paperboard
products are manufactured from shorter-fibered hardwood species.
Newsprint mills prefer to use old newspapers, or a mix of old
newspapers and old magazines, rather than recycling other paper grades.
As U.S. municipalities have recently moved toward “single stream”
recycling – collecting various waste products in a single compartment
of a vehicle – mills have been forced to spend more money to procure a
clean, appropriate waste stream for pulping purposes.

In the United States

In a 1996 article in The New York Times, John Tierney claimed that government mandated recycling wastes more resources than it saves.^[21] Some highlights from the article:

• In cases where recycling truly does save resources, such as with
  large scraps of aluminium, this will be reflected in market prices, and
  voluntary recycling will take place. Thus, there is no need for the
  government to mandate it.
• Tree farmers plant more trees than they cut down.
• Government mandated recycling is more expensive than putting the garbage into landfills.
• Some small towns with landfills are happy to import garbage from
  other cities and states because it provides jobs and tax revenue.
• Today's modern landfills are much cleaner and safer, and much less likely to leak and pollute than the landfills of the past.
• Incinerators
  make more energy than recycling saves. Also, some things, such as
  glossy paper, can't be recycled, and it is better to burn such
  materials for energy.
• Regarding the claim that the U.S. is running out of landfill space,
  Tierney wrote, "A. Clark Wiseman, an economist at Gonzaga University in
  Spokane, Washington, has calculated that if Americans keep generating
  garbage at current rates for 1,000 years, and if all their garbage is
  put in a landfill 100 yards (91 m) deep, by the year 3000 this national
  garbage heap will fill a square piece of land 35 miles (56 km) on each
  side. This doesn't seem a huge imposition in a country the size of
  America. The garbage would occupy only 5 percent of the area needed for
  the national array of solar panels proposed by environmentalists. The
  millennial landfill would fit on one-tenth of 1 percent of the range
  land now available for grazing in the continental United States. And if
  it still pains you to think of depriving posterity of that 35-mile
  (56 km) square, remember that the loss will be only temporary.
  Eventually, like previous landfills, the mounds of trash will be
  covered with grass and become a minuscule addition to the nation's
  150,000 square miles (390,000 km²) of parkland."

Tierney's article received a referenced critique from the Environmental Defense Fund,
which noted that "the article relied heavily on quotes and information
supplied by a group of consultants and think tanks that have strong
ideological objections to recycling".^[44] In 2003, the city of Santa Clarita, California
was paying $28 per ton to put garbage into a landfill. The city then
adopted a mandatory diaper recycling program that cost $1,800 per ton.^[45] In a 2007 article, Michael Munger, the Chair of Political Science at Duke University,
wrote, "... if recycling is more expensive than using new materials, it
can't possibly be efficient... There is a simple test for determining
whether something is a resource... or just garbage... If someone will
pay you for the item, it's a resource... But if you have to pay someone
to take the item away... then the item is garbage."^[46] In a 2002 article for The Heartland Institute, Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute,
wrote, "If it costs X to deliver newly manufactured plastic to the
market, for example, but it costs 10X to deliver reused plastic to the
market, we can conclude the resources required to recycle plastic are
10 times more scarce than the resources required to make plastic from
scratch. And because recycling is supposed to be about the conservation
of resources, mandating recycling under those circumstances will do
more harm than good."^[47] In 2002, WNYC reported that 40% of the garbage that New York City residents separated for recycling actually ended up in landfills.^[48]

Common recyclables

Many different materials can be recycled but each type requires a different technique.

Aggregates and concrete

Concrete aggregate collected from demolition sites is put through a crushing machine,
often along with asphalt, bricks, dirt, and rocks. Smaller pieces of
concrete are used as gravel for new construction projects. Crushed
recycled concrete can also be used as the dry aggregate for brand new
concrete if it is free of contaminants. This reduces the need for other
rocks to be dug up, which in turn saves trees and habitats.^[49]

Batteries

The large variation in size and type of batteries makes their recycling
extremely difficult: they must first be sorted into similar kinds and
each kind requires an individual recycling process. Additionally, older
batteries contain mercury and cadmium, harmful materials which must be
handled with care. Because of their potential environmental damage,
proper disposal of used batteries is required by law in many areas.
Unfortunately, this mandate has been difficult to enforce.^[50]

Lead-acid batteries, like those used in automobiles,
are relatively easy to recycle and many regions have legislation
requiring vendors to accept used products. In the United States, the
recycling rate is 90%, with new batteries containing up to 80% recycled
material.^[50]

Biodegradable waste

Kitchen, garden, and other green waste can be recycled into useful material by composting. This process allows natural aerobic bacteria to break down the waste into fertile topsoil.
Much composting is done on a household scale, but municipal green-waste
collection programs also exist. These programs can supplement their
funding by selling the topsoil produced.

Clothing

Recycling clothes via consignment or swapping has become increasingly popular. In a clothing swap, a group of people gather at a venue to exchange clothes amongst each other. In organizations like Clothing Swap, Inc., unclaimed clothing is donated to a local charity.

Electronics disassembly and reclamation

The direct disposal of electrical equipment—such as old computers
and mobile phones—is banned in many areas due to the toxic contents of
certain components. The recycling process works by mechanically
separating the metals, plastics, and circuit boards
contained in the appliance. When this is done on a large scale at an
electronic waste recycling plant, component recovery can be achieved in
a cost-effective manner.

Ferrous metals

Iron and steel are the world's most recycled materials, and among
the easiest materials to reprocess, as they can be separated
magnetically from the waste stream. Recycling is via a steelworks:
scrap is either remelted in an electric arc furnace (90-100% scrap), or used as part of the charge in a Basic Oxygen Furnace (around 25% scrap).^[51]
Any grade of steel can be recycled to top quality new metal, with no
'downgrading' from prime to lower quality materials as steel is
recycled repeatedly. 42% of crude steel produced is recycled material.^[52]

Non-ferrous metals

Aluminium is one of the most efficient and widely-recycled materials.^[53][54] Aluminium
is shredded and ground into small pieces or crushed into bales. These
pieces or bales are melted in an aluminium smelter to produce molten
aluminium. By this stage the recycled aluminium is indistinguishable
from virgin aluminium and further processing is identical for both.
This process does not produce any change in the metal, so aluminium can
be recycled indefinitely.

Recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy cost of processing new aluminium.^[6]
This is because the temperature necessary for melting recycled, nearly
pure, aluminium is 600 °C, while to extract mined aluminium from its
ore requires 900 °C. To reach this higher temperature, much more energy
is needed, leading to the high environmental benefits of aluminium
recycling. Americans throw away enough aluminium every year to rebuild
their entire commercial air fleet. Also, the energy saved by recycling
one aluminium can is enough to run a television for three hours.^[12]

Glass

Glass bottles and jars are gathered by a curbside collection truck
and bottle banks, where the glass may be sorted into color categories.
The collected glass cullet is taken to a glass recycling plant
where it is monitored for purity and contaminants are removed. The
cullet is crushed and added to a raw material mix in a melting furnace.
It is then mechanically blown or molded into new jars or bottles. Glass
cullet is also used in the construction industry for aggregate and
glassphalt. Glassphalt
is a road-laying material which comprises around 30% recycled glass.
Glass can be recycled indefinitely as its structure does not
deteriorate when reprocessed.

Paint

Paint is often collected at government-run Household Hazardous Waste
facilities. From there, it is taken to paint recyclers, where it is
sorted by quality. Uses for paint that cannot be reprocessed and resold
varies by recycler.

Paper

Paper can be recycled by reducing it to pulp
and combining it with pulp from newly harvested wood. As the recycling
process causes the paper fibres to break down, each time paper is
recycled its quality decreases. This means that either a higher
percentage of new fibres must be added, or the paper downcycled into
lower quality products. Any writing or colouration of the paper must
first be removed by deinking, which also removes fillers, clays, and fibre fragments.^[55]

Almost all paper can be recycled today, but some types are harder to
recycle than others. Papers coated with plastic or aluminium foil, and
papers that are waxed, pasted, or gummed are usually not recycled
because the process is too expensive. Gift-wrap paper also cannot be
recycled due to its already poor quality.^[55]

Sometimes recyclers ask for the removal of the glossy inserts from
newspapers because they are a different type of paper. Glossy inserts
have a heavy clay coating that some paper mills cannot accept. Most of
the clay is removed from the recycled pulp as sludge which must be
disposed of. If the coated paper is 20% by weight clay, then each ton
of glossy paper produces more than 200 kg of sludge and less than
800 kg of fibre.^[55]

Plastic

Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste
plastics and reprocessing the material into useful products. Compared
to glass or metallic materials, plastic poses unique challenges.
Because of the massive number of types of plastic, they each carry a resin identification code,
and must be sorted before they can be recycled. This can be costly;
while metals can be sorted using electromagnets, no such 'easy sorting'
capability exists for plastics. In addition to this, while labels do
not need to be removed from bottles for recycling, lids are often made
from a different kind of non-recyclable plastic.

To help in identifying the materials in various plastic items, resin
identification code numbers 1-6 have been assigned to six common kinds
of recyclable plastic resins, with the number 7 indicating any other
kind of plastic, whether recyclable or not. Standardized symbols are available incorporating each of these resin codes.

Textiles

When considering textile recycling one must understand what the
material consists of. Most textiles are composites of cotton
(biodegradable material) and synthetic plastics. The textile's
composition will affect its durability and method of recycling.

Workers
sort and separate collected textiles into good quality clothing and
shoes which can be reused or worn. There is a trend of moving these
facilities from developed countries to developing countries either for
charity or sold at a cheaper price.^[56]
Many international organisations collect used textiles from developed
countries as a donation to those third world countries. This recycling
practise is encouraged because it helps to reduce unwanted waste while
providing clothing to those in need.^[57]
Damaged textiles are further sorted into grades to make industrial
wiping cloths and for use in paper manufacture or material suitable for
fibre reclamation and filling products. If textile reprocessors receive
wet or soiled clothes however, these may still be disposed of in a
landfill, as the washing and drying facilities are not present at
sorting units.^[58]

Fibre reclamation mills sort textiles according to fibre type and
colour. Colour sorting eliminates the need to re-dye the recycled
textiles. The textiles are shredded into "shoddy" fibres and blended
with other selected fibres, depending on the intended end use of the
recycled yarn. The blended mixture is carded to clean and mix the
fibres and spun ready for weaving or knitting. The fibres can also be
compressed for mattress production. Textiles sent to the flocking
industry are shredded to make filling material for car insulation,
roofing felts, loudspeaker cones, panel linings and furniture padding.

Timber

Recycling timber has become popular due to its image as an
environmentally friendly product, with consumers commonly believing
that by purchasing recycled wood the demand for green timber
will fall and ultimately benefit the environment. Greenpeace also view
recycled timber as an environmentally friendly product, citing it as
the most preferable timber source on their website. The arrival of
recycled timber as a construction product has been important in both
raising industry and consumer awareness towards deforestation and
promoting timber mills to adopt more environmentally friendly practices.

Wood recycling is a subject which has in recent years taken an ever
greater role in our lives. The problem, however, is that although many
local authorities like the idea of recycling, they do not fully support
it. One of the countless examples, which has been in the news is the
concept of actually recycling wood which is growing in the cities.
Namely, recycling timber, trees and other sources.^[59]

Other techniques

Several other materials are also commonly recycled, frequently at an industrial level.

Ship breaking
is one example that has associated environmental, health, and safety
risks for the area where the operation takes place; balancing all these
considerations is an environmental justice problem.

Tire recycling is also common. Used tires can be added to asphalt for producing road surfaces or to make rubber mulch
used on playgrounds for safety. They are also often used as the
insulation and heat absorbing/releasing material in specially
constructed homes known as earthships.

See also

• Biodiversity
• Chemetco
• Global warming
• Ecology
• Earth Science
• Natural environment
• Blue bag
• Design for Environment
• Digger gold
• Electronic Waste Recycling Fee
• I-recycle
• ReCellular Inc.
• Recycle It, Don't Trash It!
• Recycling criticism
• Sustainability
• Trashware
• Urban lumberjacking
• WeCycle
• Container-deposit legislation

Types of recycling

• Creative reuse
• Full Depth Recycling
• Ship-Submarine recycling program
• Single-stream recycling
• Thermal depolymerization
• Chemical reclamation, for example hydrochloric acid regeneration

General topics

• Environmentalism
• Waste hierarchy
  • Energy conservation
  • Waste minimisation
  • Pollution Prevention
  • Reuse
    • Regiving
    • Freecycle
  • Waste management
    • Extended producer responsibility
    • Pay As You Throw

Trade associations

• International Solid Waste Association
• Solid Waste Association of North America
• Chartered Institute of Wastes Management

Further reading

• Ackerman, Frank. (1997). Why Do We Recycle?: Markets, Values, and Public Policy. Island Press. ISBN 1559635045, 9781559635042
• Porter, Richard C. (2002). The economics of waste. Resources for the Future. ISBN 1891853422, 9781891853425

References

External links

Look up recycling in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Recycling at the Open Directory Project

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