Free Market Recycling

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:14:32 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Many places have "laws" requiring certain materials, usually plastic & metal food packaging materials and paper, be recycled. I haven't heard of anyone being prosecuted for putting these recyclable materials in their landfill-destined trash, but it wouldn't surprise me. What I don't understand is why, if recycling is such a good thing, any "law" is necessary to require it. If there were actually a shortage of landfill space, the price of sending your recyclables to the landfill would exceed the price of sending them to a recycling center. If the items were truly recyclable, i.e. it were cheaper to recycle than to make brand new packaging materials, the manufacturers would be willing to pay for the recycled materials, and that would cause the recycling companies to be willing to pay consumers for them. So consumers would have a choice of paying somebody to take away their recyclable materials as trash or being paid to sell them to a recycling company. I'd certainly do the latter.

I know very little about the economics of recycling, except that I remember reading once that only aluminum can currently be recycled for cheaper than making new. Am I missing something?

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Comments (5):

New plan

Submitted by Kent McManigal on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:31:18 GMT

Just send the stuff to the landfills. When recycling becomes truly viable, old landfills will become gold mines; full of every conceivable resource. Buy them now, and pass them on to your kids. (As long as government doesn't decide to fine you for owning "toxic waste" or something. Government craps on everything.)

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Recycling isn't about

Submitted by Ken Hagler on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:09:17 GMT

Recycling isn't about economics or practicality--it's a sacrament of environmentalism.

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oh you read something once?

Submitted by pat on Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:06:19 GMT

oh you read something once? Well you sir must be the fucking expert on the environment then! Dumbest website ever.

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tragedy of the commons. we

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:00:47 GMT

tragedy of the commons. we all like clean air and water, but if there's no cost to ruin clean air and water, then people are economically inclined to do so. same reason you have to pay to have your trash taken to the landfill: we could elect leaders to pass laws that we could just dump our trash in city parks, but that would suck (it would, however, be one less bill you had to pay), so we don't do that.

although you could make an argument that in this particular case (plastic), the environmental penalty we all pay is less than the cost you pay to recycle.

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There's no delimma here.

Submitted by tim maguire on Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:03:51 GMT

Chances are, your recyclables go to the landfill anyway. What you're paying for is simply the cost of feeling good about yourself for saving the environment.

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