Recycling in the United States
Encyclopedia
This article examines recycling
in the United States
. Since there is no national law that mandates recycling, state and local governments often introduce recycling requirements. A number of U.S. state
s, including California
, Connecticut
, Delaware
, Hawaii
, Iowa
, Maine
, Massachusetts
, Michigan
, Minnesota
, New York
, Oregon
, and Vermont
have passed laws that establish deposits
or refund values on beverage containers while other jurisdictions rely on recycling goals or landfill bans of recyclable materials. Some cities, such as New York City
and Seattle, have created laws that enforce fines upon citizens who throw away certain recyclable materials. There are also voluntary programs and educational programs to increase recycling where it is not mandated by law. The city of Ann Arbor, for example has contracted with a local non-profit organization Recycle Ann Arbor to provide curbside recycling services and public recycling centers.
The first recycling mill was Waste Techniques, built in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1972. Waste Techniques was sold to Frank Keel in 1978, and resold to BFI in 1981. Woodbury, New Jersey
was the first city in the United States to mandate recycling. Led by Rose Rowan 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.
(EPA) oversees a variety of waste issues. These include regulation of hazardous wastes, landfill regulations, and setting recycling goals. More specific recycling legislation is localized through city or state governments. Further regulation is reserved for individual states to create. State regulation falls into two major categories: landfill bans and recycling goals. Landfill bans make it illegal to dispose of enumerated items in a landfill. Most often these items include yard waste, oil, and recyclables easily collected in curbside recycling programs
. States with landfill bans of recyclables include Wisconsin
, Minnesota
, Michigan
, and North Carolina
. Other states focus on recycling goals. These include California
and Illinois
. Some ways that states encourage recycling of specific drink containers is by passing a bottle bill
.
A number of U.S. states, such as California, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa, Michigan and New York have passed these laws that establish deposits or refund values on beverage containers in order to promote reuse and recycling. Most are five cents per can or bottle. Michigan's deposit is 10 cents. Philadelphia has been rated as the #1 most recycling city in the nation.
; recycling efforts in New York City
cost $57 million per year in 2002. To refute this argument people pointed out that the benefits to society from recycling compensate for any difference in cost. Landfilling waste is an inefficient use of resources, contributes to global warming through the release of methane into the atmosphere and by the pollution of groundwater and waterways. The long term financial costs of remediating pollution caused by landfilling waste are often not taken into consideration.
However, in many areas there is now an economic incentive to recycle. As early as 2003 Fort Worth Texas was making $1,000,000 from their recycling program. Similarly, Waukesha County
's recycling program in Wisconsin began operating with positive revenues in 2004.
Most recently, Waukesha County began receiving a $6.50 per ton bonus for recyclables coming into their private MRF (Materials Recycling Facility). Combining that with average revenue from the sale of the materials and the extra cost incurred if the items were landfilled, the average total lost revenue (county's share) for recyclables thrown in the landfill is $112.50.
, Earth911.com, and Be SMART. Other creators of curriculum include governmental offices. Some of these include Oregon, California, and Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Also, some non-profit organizations have partnered with sections of the government to collaborate on educational materials. For example, The Keystone Center partnered with the United States Department of Energy
and the National Energy Technology Laboratory
to create curriculum on global warming
.
Some private companies have taken on the task of educating children and adults on the benefits of recycling. Among them is award-winning Recology
, a San Francisco-based resource recovery company. A growing collection of MyEcoVille websites are also available to the public and have been developed by the private company, Emerge Knowledge. These websites are licensed to public and non-profit organizations for the purpose of educating adults and children about local recycling.
Started by the recycling sector organization National Recycling Coalition in 1997, America Recycles Day has been a program of Keep America Beautiful since 2009. It is sponsored by private and public entities, including global aluminum company Novelis
, stationery firm Staples
, waste firm Waste Management Recycle America, the American Beverage Association
and the EPA.
Although America may not enjoy much of a reputation for environmentalism on the global stage, in some US cities recycling levels are much higher than, for example, in the UK.
, John Tierney
claimed that government mandated recycling wastes more resources than it saves. Some highlights from the article:
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". 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. 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." 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." In 2002, WNYC
reported that 40% of the garbage that New York City residents separated for recycling actually ended up in landfills.
In 2003, Daniel K. Benjamin (a professor of economics at Clemson University) published a paper through the Property & Environment Research Center that reiterated many of the points brought up in the New York Times article, backing them up with a detailed inquery into the recycling industry of the US. In 2010, he followed up on that with an updated look into the recycling policies of the US, finding that not much has changed.
Tires are not desired at landfills, due to their large volumes and 75% void space, which quickly consumes valuable space. As of 2003, 38 states banned whole tires from landfills, 35 allowed shredded tires, 11 banned all tires from landfills, 17 allowed processed tires in mono-fills, and 8 states had no restrictions on scrap tires in landfills.
The United States has decreased the number of waste tires in storage from 700-800 million in 1994, down to 275 million tires in 2004 primarily due to state scrap management programs.
Local government
US state laws and regulations dealing with scrap tires are currently enacted in 48 states. Here are some common features of state programs that deal with scrap tires: source of funding for the program; licensing or registration of scrap tire haulers, processors, and end users; manifests for scrap tire shipments; limitations on who may handle scrap tires; financial assurance requirements for scrap tire handlers; and market development activities. Some state programs are now supported by fees charged to the consumer at purchase or disposal of each tire. These fees, sometimes called “tipping fees”, help to support recycling costs. When the disposal rates charged to consumers are set high, this in turn discourages landfill disposal, a simple solution encouraging more affordable tire recycling programs.
Recycling
Recycling is 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 and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Since there is no national law that mandates recycling, state and local governments often introduce recycling requirements. A number of U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
s, including California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Oregon
Oregon Bottle Bill
The Oregon Bottle Bill is container-deposit legislation passed in the U.S. state of Oregon in 1971 and amended in 2007. It requires cans, bottles, and other containers of carbonated soft drink, beer, and water sold in Oregon to be returnable with a minimum refund value...
, and Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
have passed laws that establish deposits
Container deposit legislation
Container-deposit legislation is any law that requires collection of a monetary deposit on soft-drink, juice, milk, water, alcoholic-beverage, and/or other containers at the point of sale...
or refund values on beverage containers while other jurisdictions rely on recycling goals or landfill bans of recyclable materials. Some cities, such as New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Seattle, have created laws that enforce fines upon citizens who throw away certain recyclable materials. There are also voluntary programs and educational programs to increase recycling where it is not mandated by law. The city of Ann Arbor, for example has contracted with a local non-profit organization Recycle Ann Arbor to provide curbside recycling services and public recycling centers.
The first recycling mill was Waste Techniques, built in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania in 1972. Waste Techniques was sold to Frank Keel in 1978, and resold to BFI in 1981. Woodbury, New Jersey
Woodbury, New Jersey
Woodbury is a city in Gloucester County, New Jersey, in the United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, 10,307 residents were counted. Woodbury is the county seat of Gloucester County....
was the first city in the United States to mandate recycling. Led by Rose Rowan 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
Mobro 4000
The Mobro 4000 was a barge made infamous in 1987 for hauling the same load of trash along the east coast of North America from New York to Belize and back until a way was found to dispose of the garbage...
barge hauled garbage from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
; where it was denied. It was then sent to Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
; 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.
Government involvement
On a national level, the United States Environmental Protection AgencyUnited States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
(EPA) oversees a variety of waste issues. These include regulation of hazardous wastes, landfill regulations, and setting recycling goals. More specific recycling legislation is localized through city or state governments. Further regulation is reserved for individual states to create. State regulation falls into two major categories: landfill bans and recycling goals. Landfill bans make it illegal to dispose of enumerated items in a landfill. Most often these items include yard waste, oil, and recyclables easily collected in curbside recycling programs
Kerbside collection
Curbside collection, or kerbside collection is a service provided to households, typically in urban and suburban areas, of removing household waste...
. States with landfill bans of recyclables include Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, and North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. Other states focus on recycling goals. These include California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Some ways that states encourage recycling of specific drink containers is by passing a bottle bill
Container deposit legislation
Container-deposit legislation is any law that requires collection of a monetary deposit on soft-drink, juice, milk, water, alcoholic-beverage, and/or other containers at the point of sale...
.
A number of U.S. states, such as California, Hawaii, Oregon, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Iowa, Michigan and New York have passed these laws that establish deposits or refund values on beverage containers in order to promote reuse and recycling. Most are five cents per can or bottle. Michigan's deposit is 10 cents. Philadelphia has been rated as the #1 most recycling city in the nation.
Financial implications
When recycling was a newer industry recycling cost as much or more than trash disposal. Some opponents of recycling argued that state support for recycling may be more financially expensive in the short term than alternatives such as landfillLandfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
; recycling efforts in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
cost $57 million per year in 2002. To refute this argument people pointed out that the benefits to society from recycling compensate for any difference in cost. Landfilling waste is an inefficient use of resources, contributes to global warming through the release of methane into the atmosphere and by the pollution of groundwater and waterways. The long term financial costs of remediating pollution caused by landfilling waste are often not taken into consideration.
However, in many areas there is now an economic incentive to recycle. As early as 2003 Fort Worth Texas was making $1,000,000 from their recycling program. Similarly, Waukesha County
Waukesha County, Wisconsin
Waukesha County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of 2008, the population was 380,629. Its county seat is Waukesha.-History:The part of Wisconsin that Waukesha County now occupies was a part of Michigan when Milwaukee County was organized in September 1834. On July 4, 1836, the...
's recycling program in Wisconsin began operating with positive revenues in 2004.
Most recently, Waukesha County began receiving a $6.50 per ton bonus for recyclables coming into their private MRF (Materials Recycling Facility). Combining that with average revenue from the sale of the materials and the extra cost incurred if the items were landfilled, the average total lost revenue (county's share) for recyclables thrown in the landfill is $112.50.
Recycling education
Integrating recycling into K-12 educational system has become a goal for many educators. Usually it is integrated into science or social studies classrooms. This is due to its inclusion in the national education standards for both of these subject areas. Common areas that recycling is integrated into the curriculum include areas such as the study of natural resources, general environmental units, soil units, water units, community units, economic units, and geography units. Although interest is growing, major textbook publishers do not always include recycling in a textbook so teachers are left to supplement the textbooks with outside curriculum to meet the national standards. For example, in a unit about trees or natural resources teachers could include supplemental curriculum about recycling because in the textbook it is never explicitly covered. Non-profit organizations as well as governmental organizations have created supplemental curriculum for teachers to fill this void. Some purely non-profit groups include the Center for a New American DreamCenter for a New American Dream
The Center for a New American Dream is a nonprofit organization with a stated mission to “help Americans to reduce and shift their consumption to improve quality of life, protect the environment, and promote social justice." The organization works with individuals, institutions, communities, and...
, Earth911.com, and Be SMART. Other creators of curriculum include governmental offices. Some of these include Oregon, California, and Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Also, some non-profit organizations have partnered with sections of the government to collaborate on educational materials. For example, The Keystone Center partnered with the United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy
The United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
and the National Energy Technology Laboratory
National Energy Technology Laboratory
The National Energy Technology Laboratory is a science, technology, and energy laboratory owned and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy . As part of DOE's national laboratory system, NETL supports DOE's mission to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States...
to create curriculum on global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
.
Some private companies have taken on the task of educating children and adults on the benefits of recycling. Among them is award-winning Recology
Recology
Recology, Inc.is an integrated resource recovery company headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company collects and processes municipal solid waste, reclaiming useful materials that would have otherwise been buried in a landfill. The company also runs transfer stations, materials recovery...
, a San Francisco-based resource recovery company. A growing collection of MyEcoVille websites are also available to the public and have been developed by the private company, Emerge Knowledge. These websites are licensed to public and non-profit organizations for the purpose of educating adults and children about local recycling.
America Recycles Day
America Recycles Day (ARD) is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. ARD is celebrated November 15. The World Recycling Day celebrated in most countries, though falls on July 8. Hundreds of events are held across the U.S. to raise awareness about the importance of recycling and to encourage Americans to sign personal pledges to recycle and buy recycled products.Started by the recycling sector organization National Recycling Coalition in 1997, America Recycles Day has been a program of Keep America Beautiful since 2009. It is sponsored by private and public entities, including global aluminum company Novelis
Novelis
Novelis Inc. is a global aluminum company. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Novelis produces 17 percent of the world’s flat-rolled aluminum products and is the global leader in recycling used beverage cans....
, stationery firm Staples
Staples, Inc.
Staples Inc. is a large office supply chain store, with over 2,000 stores worldwide in 26 countries. Based in Framingham, Massachusetts, United States, the company has retail stores, serving customers under its original name in Austria, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Norway,...
, waste firm Waste Management Recycle America, the American Beverage Association
American Beverage Association
American Beverage Association is a trade organization that represents the beverage industry in the United States. Its members include producers and bottlers of soft drinks, bottled water, and other non-alcoholic beverages....
and the EPA.
Although America may not enjoy much of a reputation for environmentalism on the global stage, in some US cities recycling levels are much higher than, for example, in the UK.
Recycling statistics
Recycling statistics:- 251 million – tons of trash in the United States
- 53.4 – percentage of all paper products recycled in the United States
- 32.5 – percentage of total waste that is recycled in the United States
- 100 – approximate percentage of increase in total recycling in the United States during the past decade
- 8,660 – number of curbside recycling programs in the United States in 2006
- 8,875 – number of curbside recycling programs in the United States in 2003
- 95 – percentage of energy saved by recycling an aluminum can, compared with manufacturing a new one
- 4.6 – pounds of trash per person per day in the United States (most in the world)
- 1.5 – pounds of recycled materials per person per day in the United States
Criticism
In a 1996 article in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, John Tierney
John Tierney (journalist)
John Marion Tierney is a journalist and author who has worked for the New York Times since 1990.-Career and background:...
claimed that government mandated recycling wastes more resources than it saves. 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.
- Adopting a 'pay as you throwPay as you throwPay as you throw is a usage-pricing model for disposing of municipal solid waste. Users are charged a rate based on how much waste they present for collection to the municipality or local authority.A variety of models exist depending on the region and municipality...
' scheme would motivate people to find out "what's worth diverting to a recycling bin" so there would be no need for recycling laws. This has been supported by some environmental groups as well. - 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 (91.4 m) deep, by the year 3000 this national garbage heap will fill a square piece of land 35 miles (56.3 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 miles (56.3 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 150000 square miles (388,498.2 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". In 2003, the city of Santa Clarita, California
Santa Clarita, California
Santa Clarita is the fourth largest city in Los Angeles County, California, United States and the twenty-fourth largest city in the state of California. The 2010 US Census reported the city's population grew 16.7% from the year 2000 to 176,320 residents. It is located about northwest of downtown...
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. In a 2007 article, Michael Munger, the Chair of Political Science at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
, 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." In a 2002 article for The Heartland Institute, Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
, 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." In 2002, WNYC
WNYC
WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...
reported that 40% of the garbage that New York City residents separated for recycling actually ended up in landfills.
In 2003, Daniel K. Benjamin (a professor of economics at Clemson University) published a paper through the Property & Environment Research Center that reiterated many of the points brought up in the New York Times article, backing them up with a detailed inquery into the recycling industry of the US. In 2010, he followed up on that with an updated look into the recycling policies of the US, finding that not much has changed.
Tires
The Environmental Protection Agency reports 290 million scrap tires were generated in 2003. Of the 290 million, 45 million of these scrap tires were used to make automotive and truck tire re-treads. With landfills minimizing their acceptance of whole tires and the health and environmental risks of stockpiling tires, many new markets have been created for scrap tires. Growing markets exist for a majority of scrap tires produced every year, being supported by State and Local Government. Tires are also often recycled for use on basketball courts and new shoe products. However material recovered from waste tires, known as "crumb" is generally only a cheap "filler" material and is rarely used in high volumes.Tires are not desired at landfills, due to their large volumes and 75% void space, which quickly consumes valuable space. As of 2003, 38 states banned whole tires from landfills, 35 allowed shredded tires, 11 banned all tires from landfills, 17 allowed processed tires in mono-fills, and 8 states had no restrictions on scrap tires in landfills.
The United States has decreased the number of waste tires in storage from 700-800 million in 1994, down to 275 million tires in 2004 primarily due to state scrap management programs.
Local government
US state laws and regulations dealing with scrap tires are currently enacted in 48 states. Here are some common features of state programs that deal with scrap tires: source of funding for the program; licensing or registration of scrap tire haulers, processors, and end users; manifests for scrap tire shipments; limitations on who may handle scrap tires; financial assurance requirements for scrap tire handlers; and market development activities. Some state programs are now supported by fees charged to the consumer at purchase or disposal of each tire. These fees, sometimes called “tipping fees”, help to support recycling costs. When the disposal rates charged to consumers are set high, this in turn discourages landfill disposal, a simple solution encouraging more affordable tire recycling programs.
See also
- Container-deposit legislation in the United States
- Environment of the United StatesEnvironment of the United StatesThe environment of the United States comprises diverse biotas, climates, and geologies. Environmental regulations and the environmental movement have emerged to respond to the various threats to the environment.-Animals:...
- Environmental issues in the United StatesEnvironmental issues in the United StatesAs with many other countries there are a number of environmental issues in the United States.-Climate change:The United States is the second largest emitter, after China, of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. The energy policy of the United States is widely debated; many call on the...
- Keep America BeautifulKeep America BeautifulKeep America Beautiful is a U.S. based nonprofit organization founded in 1953. It is the largest community improvement organization in the United States, with approximately 589 affiliate organizations and more than 1,000 community organizations that participate in their programs.Keep America...
- ecyclerEcyclerecycler is an environmental technology company and brand that provides a marketplace for discarders and collectors of recyclable waste in areas where no organized pickup is available.-Profile:...
- Recycle It, Don't Trash It!Recycle It, Don't Trash It!Recycle It, Don't Trash It! is an anti-pollution slogan that was included on all arcade games imported into North America from 1992—2000. The message appeared during the attract modes of video games as well as on some pinball machines. It was established by United States Environmental Protection...
- Resin identification codeResin identification codeThe SPI resin identification coding system is a set of symbols placed on plastics to identify the polymer type. It was developed by the Society of the Plastics Industry in 1988, and is used internationally....
(plastic recycling numbers)