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American Heritage Dictionary:
re·cy·cle |
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
recycling |
For more information on recycling, visit Britannica.com.
Barron's Business Dictionary:
recycle |
| Recruitment Bonus, Recruitment, Recruiters | |
| Red Ink, Red Tape, Redact |
Gale Encyclopedia of Small Business:
Recycling |
Over the past few decades, recycling has become a central component of many business operations in the United States. Recycling is valued for the cost-savings associated with some programs as well as its general environment-friendly aspects. Recycling programs are comprised of three elements in a continuum represented by the well-known "chasing arrows" symbol that adorns recyclable products: 1) collection of recyclable materials from the waste stream; 2) processing of those materials into new products; and 3) purchasing of products containing recycled materials.
The Growth of Recycling in the Business World
The importance of recycling programs in the business world to the environment can hardly be over-stated. Businesses account for approximately one-third of the United States' total solid waste. As of 2000, for example, a study cited in the Business Journal—Milwaukee indicated that each office worker in America produced between 120 and 150 pounds of recyclable office paper per year, only 10 percent of which was typically recycled. Not surprisingly, paper accounts for a higher percentage (an estimated 40 percent) of the American waste stream than any other material. Many corporate recycling programs reflect this reality, and even businesses with exceedingly modest recycling programs sometimes take steps to collect wastepaper for recycling.
Recycling first emerged as an ongoing component of business operations in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as concerns about the pace at which the United States and other nations were consuming natural resources became widespread. (Previous recycling campaigns, such as the ones introduced in America during World War II, were relatively short-term efforts that were not predicated on environmental concerns.) The first national Earth Day celebration in 1970 heralded anti-litter campaigns, the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the introduction of some of the first municipal and corporate recycling programs.
Legislation during that period provided an additional impetus for recycling programs, especially in the federal government. The Solid Waste Disposal Act had established resource recovery goals as a priority for U.S. environmental and energy conservation programs. The Resource Recovery Act of 1970 amended the previous legislation, mandating paper recycling and procurement of recycled products in federal agencies wherever economically feasible. The well-known Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 completely revised both acts, imposing requirements regarding hazardous waste disposal and mandating the recycling of non-hazardous waste in federal facilities. The legislation included the requirement that federal agencies "purchase items that contain the highest percentage of recovered materials practicable given their availability, price and quality." Around the same time, deposit laws that encouraged recycling of glass beverage bottles were passed in several states around the country.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the General Services Administration (GSA), which were jointly charged with administration of the program, launched "Use It Again, Sam," an earnest and widespread federal office paper recycling program, in 1976. Within two years, 90 federal agencies and their 115,000 employees were recycling, their efforts guided by a comprehensive, EPA-issued manual. The federal recycling program declined in the 1980s. Many state and local governments around the country stepped in to fill this void in the ensuing decade, but overall, low disposal costs relegated recycling to little more than an afterthought of solid waste management in the 1970s and early 1980s.
In the late 1980s, however, several factors converged to revive interest in recycling as an attractive alternative to traditional disposal. Growing concerns about both the proliferation and toxic characteristics of landfills around the country brought closures, increased regulation, higher costs, and public opposition to location and expansion of landfills. Other options, such as incinerators, were explored, but these proved controversial as well. Another important factor was a general increase in anxiety about the state of America's (and the world's) environment. Finally, growing numbers of companies came to see environmental friendliness as a viable means of attracting consumers.
By the late 1980s, a number of eastern states had adopted mandatory recycling legislation. This trend toward recycling legislation, combined with increasing consumer demand for environmental responsibility and corporate frustration with rising waste disposal expenses, prompted a modest revitalization of recycling programs in the 1990s.
Defining "recyclable" and "recycled Content"
Given the popularity of recycled products and the various benefits that accrue from being known as a good corporate citizen, most businesses are eager to use terms like "recyclable" and "recycled content" on their packaging and in their advertising. But as J. Stephen Shi and Jane M. Kane pointed out in Business Horizons, the government has clearly defined those terms to prevent businesses from making misleading or fraudulent recycling claims. "For a product to be labeled recyclable," wrote Shi and Kane, "the product must be easily collected, separated, or otherwise recovered from what would generally be considered trash and then used for making a new package or product." They go on to note that companies also have a responsibility to qualify whether it is the product or the packaging (or both) that is recyclable, or to qualify claims of responsibility if the product is purchased in an area with limited recycling facilities.
"Recycled content," meanwhile, refers to goods made out of materials that would have otherwise been thrown out for good, relegated to a landfill or incinerator. "To qualify as having recycled content," wrote Shi and Kane, "the materials can come from waste produced in either the manufacturing process or post-consumer use [materials recycled by consumers]…. Again, manufacturers must be careful to indicate exactly what part—the product or the package—is made from recyclable material. If there is more than one component to the packaging, the manufacturer must indicate exactly which part of the packaging is made from recycled content. An example of this type of packaging is a paperboard box that is made of recycled materials covered by plastic shrink wrap that is not." Finally, they warn that manufacturers are guilty of misleading consumers if they claim that a product is composed of recycled content in instances where the company was merely following normal industry practice. "A manufacturer that routinely gathers spilled raw materials after trimming finished products and then adds the trimmings to virgin material for further production of the same product cannot claim that its product is made out of recycled content," they explained.
Business consultants, officials, and environmental groups all recognize that some of the regulations regarding permissible recycling/environmental claims are complex, but they urge business owners not to let this fact scare them off. Full descriptions of the rules governing recycling claims are available, and the potential benefits—both to the business and the environment—can often make the additional research an ultimately worthwhile endeavor.
Initiating and Maintaining Effective Recycling Programs
The federal government's Office Recycling Program Guide notes five basic, interconnected components of a comprehensive recycling program: education, collection, marketing, procurement, and monitoring and evaluation.
EDUCATION. Education encompasses training of both leaders and participants in recycling practices. Not surprisingly, the most successful recycling programs are ones that have the active involvement of business owners and managers and the full participation of employees. Observers of successful recycling initiatives note that this involvement is much more likely to occur if the company owners and work force are well-informed about the reasons for recycling and the ways in which recycling practices can be effectively instituted. There are a wide variety of resources available to businesses interested in organizing recycling programs. Regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offices and state-affiliated natural resource departments throughout the country offer information packets and recycling kits.
After learning about recycling in general, business owners and managers should continue the education process by studying the operational factors that will be unique to their company's recycling efforts. One of the most effective ways in which this can be accomplished is through the use of a "waste audit." A waste audit should note the sources, amounts, and types of trash generated; the current methods and cost of disposal; and the volume of potentially recyclable trash. Based on these findings, leaders of recycling programs can determine which materials to target. Some experts advise beginning recyclers to limit their programs to one type of waste, usually high-quality bond and computer paper. Once participants have grown accustomed to recycling, the program can be expanded to include aluminum, newspaper, plastics, glass, cardboard and other materials. The types and volumes of materials to be recycled will govern the methods of collection employed.
COLLECTION. Collection comprises the nuts-and-bolts logistics of separating, gathering, and storing recyclables from trash at their source. The most common methods of collection employed in the workplace are the desktop container, a series of designated containers, or a central collection area, but some businesses employ vendor sorting, where mixed recyclables are stored together and sorted off-site by the waste hauler. These containers are usually brought by janitorial or mailroom staff to a storage area, where they are kept until they are picked up. Some companies dealing with sensitive, proprietary, or confidential information may also need to consider destruction (by shredding, for example) as part of this step.
Maintenance of quality standards is paramount to this facet of a successful recycling program. Similar materials, like white and colored paper, may have a market separately, but are nearly worthless when mixed. Processors of most types of paper discourage commingling of "stickies" (labels, stickers and tape), food, and other contaminants. Although source separation has proven to be the best collection method, new technological advances will almost certainly relieve some of this separation pressure in the future.
MARKETING. Marketing recyclable materials to a processor involves research and contracting. Dealers in waste paper—the most commonly recycled material—can be found in local phone directories or through contact with the Paper Stock Institute of America. The EI Environmental Services Directory, "the nation's largest, most in-depth directory of environmental service providers," lists and describes over 2,000 vendors. There are many variables that entrepreneurs and small business owners should heed when seeking a buyer for their recyclable materials, however. Foremost among these is usually cost. "The quality of a particular collected material greatly affects the price that interested buyers are willing to pay," stated the Encyclopedia of the Environment. "Uncontaminated materials—for example, glass that is free of stones, ceramics, or other material—command prices substantially greater than contaminated materials. To help in evaluating the quality of a material, government and industry organizations have developed numerous quality standards. The actual price of a material depends on additional factors such as its relative abundance and the subsequent cost of transporting it to manufacturers."
PROCUREMENT. Although it is sometimes over-looked, procurement is a vital component of recycling programs. Procurement helps "close the recycling loop," for it is the process whereby companies arrange to purchase and use supplies made from recycled materials. Most analysts of recycling programs contend that implementation of this stage of recycling often lags behind other stages. Recent studies indicate that while an overwhelming majority of businesses do have recycling collection systems of one kind or another in place, a far lower percentage of those businesses purchase recycled materials for use in their own operations.
This is due in part to the costs associated with developing additional capacity to use "secondary"—rather than virgin—materials. As the Encyclopedia of the Environment observed, "market conditions must be appropriate for companies to even consider new investments, credit must be available for financing projects, and sites have to be found and regulatory permits obtained."
MONITORING AND EVALUATION. Each aspect of the recycling program should be monitored and evaluated for efficiency and progress. This is especially important for smaller companies, where flawed practices can have a more pronounced impact on fundamental business health. A cost-benefit analysis of the program can strengthen management support and encourage expansion to other areas of the company and/or other products in the waste stream.
Further Reading:
Cichonski, Thomas J., and Karen Hill. Recycling Sourcebook. Gale Research, Inc., 1993.
Curry, Gloria. "Increasingly Cost-Effective, Recycling Programs Continue to Grow." Office. August 1993.
Eblen, Ruth A., and William R. Eblen, eds. The Encyclopedia of the Environment. Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Kimball, Debi. Recycling in America: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO, 1992.
Office Recycling Program Guide. Office of Administrative and Management Services, 1993.
Ortbal, John. "How to Cultivate an Office Recycling Program." Modern Office Technology. April 1991.
"Set Up an Office Recycling System." Business Journal—Milwaukee. February 11, 2000.
Shi, J. Stephen, and Jane M. Kane. "Green Issues." Business Horizons. January-February 1996.
Steuteville, Robert. "Corporate Recycling Reaps Savings." BioCycle. August 1993.
Webb, Nan. "Recycling Tasks Are Part of the Job." Purchasing World. March 1991.
Oxford Dictionary of Geography:
recycling |
The reuse of renewable resources in an effort to maximize their value, reduce waste, and reduce environmental disturbance. In Britain, the 1980s saw an increase in recycling, notably with regard to glass and paper. The recycling of scrap metal is a major source of metal in refineries from Ghana to the Netherlands.
Gale Encyclopedia of US History:
Recycling |
The term "recycling" was virtually unused outside of industry before the late 1960s when voluntary programs were formed by counterculture communities. The emerging culture of hippies reapplied the age-old practice of collecting and reusing materials. For centuries, rag pickers collected worn out cloth and sold it to those who made paper. Not until the mid-nineteenth century did the demand for paper outstrip the quantity of rags. It was then that the method of making paper from wood was invented. Wood soon replaced textile fiber entirely in paper manufacturing, preparing the way for paper to become the most plentiful item in twentieth-century landfills.
The United States evolved from a nation of people who saved pieces of twine and reused nails (as Henry David Thoreau did, when building his cabin at Walden Pond) to a "throwaway society" of people who discarded containers, furniture, appliances, and even automobiles by the mid-twentieth century. The need to conserve and reuse materials, while stressed as a patriotic duty during World War II, was forgotten in the postwar boom.
"Fast food" emerged, sold in plastic and foam containers which, like so much else, was considered "disposable." Then, on the heels of the 1960s movements for civil rights and peace, came "the greening of America," a political movement to save the environment. The size of the environmental movement became apparent on 22 April 1970 when 20 million people turned out to celebrate the first Earth Day. Months later, Congress created the Environ-mental Protection Agency (EPA). Soon books like Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome (1972) began making the case that our American way of life was not sustainable.
The Truth About Consequences: Hard Choices
Recycling is the most obvious way individuals can assist in waste management, though source reduction can also be practiced. The "diaper wars" of the late 1980s exemplify the latter, reducing the amount of waste by using cloth diapers. But the makers of disposable diapers argued that washing cloth diapers used energy and water, offsetting any benefit. Making choices that "save the Earth" turned out to be complex.
Another hard choice for consumers was the "paper or plastic" question at the grocery store. This apparently ethical question became moot when it was discovered that neither would decompose in a landfill. Marketers promoted items as good for the environment because they were biodegradable, but consumers later found that the term had little meaning. One researcher dug up ten-year old chicken bones in a landfill, demonstrating that in the absence of light and air, even organic waste does not decompose.
Recycling Goes Mainstream
In the late 1980s, news reports began referring to a "land-fill crisis" and showed images of medical waste washing up on beaches. Support for recycling spread beyond the minority of environmentalists to the general population. By then most of the voluntary programs, unable to accommodate the quantity of recyclables and fluctuating prices, had disappeared. In their stead, large, efficient trash collection companies had begun to offer curbside recycling (often required by municipalities). This combination of widespread concern and the convenience of curbside collection led to increasing quantities of recycled trash.
Recycling is, of course, only one of many interrelated environmental issues, but it is the one to which everyone can contribute directly. Americans began to associate it with groundwater pollution, topsoil erosion, deforestation, and global warming. "Do you recycle?" became an ethical question, and curbside recycling grew rapidly in urban areas. By 1999, curbside recycling was available to over half the population of the United States. It was much more widespread in the urban Northeast (83 percent) than in the more rural South (39 percent), with the West and Midwest averaging 48 percent.
Thus the quantity of household waste which was recycled increased significantly in the United States. In 1980, the average weight of materials recycled per person per day was 0.35 pounds; it increased to 0.70 by 1990 and to 1.30 by 1999. At the same time, the amount of generated waste increased from 3.7 in 1980 to 4.5 in 1990; however, that figure stopped growing as rapidly and was only 4.6 pounds in 1999.
On Earth Day 1990, about 200 million people in 137 countries showed support. Recycling was declared "more popular than democracy" by the editor of Resource Recycling who claimed that more people recycled than voted in the November 1991 elections (September 1992 issue; qtd. in Ackerman, p. 8). Indeed, recycling had become so significant in the American conscience that a Wall Street Journal article connected the act of recycling with religious ritual: "For many, a little trash sorting has become a form of penance to acknowledge that the values of our high-consumption society don't always nurture the soul" (19 January 1995; quoted in Ackerman, pp. 9–10). The title of the article, "Curbside Recycling Comforts the Soul, But Benefits Are Scant," suggests one of the basic points of contention: should recycling be profitable?
To Recycle or Not: the Argument
Challengers to recycling argue that we should allow the market to determine what is recycled. For the most part, curbside recycling does not pay for itself except for aluminum cans. The environmental advocates, however, list two kinds of benefits. First, in waste management, recy-cling reduces the amount of waste, thereby reducing both pollution from landfills and litter from improper disposal; second, on the production end, recycled materials reduce pollution and energy costs and extend the life of raw materials which cannot be replaced.
The "anti-recyclers" argue that the "landfill crisis" of the 1980s was largely exaggerated and that even with the added cost of containment, landfills are cheaper than recycling. However, many people balk at locating landfills near where they live: the NIMBY response ("Not In My Back Yard"). Further, recycling advocates point out, we must weigh the social value of recycling rather than measure it solely by economics, and if we do use economics, we must consider the hidden costs (such as cleaning up pollution and end-of-life disposal) and not just the immediate ones.
The continuing dialogue about recycling is well illustrated by the February 2002 response of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC)—one of many groups formed around this issue—to the white paper put out by the EPA. The NRC finds much to approve of in the EPA recommendations but returns to the fundamental issue of sustainability: can we go on producing and consuming and disposing of material goods at an ever-increasing rate?
Bibliography
Ackerman, Frank. Why Do We Recycle: Markets, Values, and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
Alexander, Judd H. In Defense of Garbage. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993.
Strasser, Susan. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.
Strong, Debra L. Recycling in America: A Reference Handbook. 2d ed. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1997.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
recycling |
Waste Disposal and Recycling
For many years direct recycling by producers of surplus and defective materials constituted the main form of recycling. However, indirect recycling, the recycling of materials after their use by consumers, became the focus of activity in the 1990s. For some time, most solid waste has been deposited in landfills or dumps. Landfills are filling up, however, and disposal of wastes in them has led to environmental problems. Also, government (which had little authority over disposal of wastes until the 1970s) now has extensive regulatory powers.
A growing alternative to such disposal is recycling. Industry has found that when it undertakes serious recycling programs, the savings can sometimes be considerable. In addition to reducing manufacturing and materials costs, such programs can insulate the companies from liability for environmental violations. Agriculture, which is the cause of much environmental degradation, can use organic recycling, or the reuse of manure and crop residues (sometimes called "green manure").
Water, in one sense, is always recycled, inasmuch as there is a finite amount of it available on earth and it constantly moves through its cycle of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Deliberate programs for recycling water include use of wetlands as areas to filter harmful wastes from the substance, or using partly treated sewage for raising fish. Municipal sewage- and water-treatment plants, of course, are fundamental recycling agents.
The individual consumer plays a large part in recycling. Originally, household containers such as beverage cans and bottles were recycled as a matter of course, with a glass beer container or milk bottle being refilled as many as 30 times; in 1935, brewers began putting their products in nonrefillable, "one-way" cans for the convenience of customers, and soon glass containers were declared disposable as well. With the rise of environmentalism in the early 1970s, recycling regained favor. Several states instituted deposit laws for beverage containers; a 5- or 10-cent deposit was charged the consumer at the time of purchase for each can or bottle, then refunded when the container was returned to a store or recycling center. Newspapers take up much volume in landfills, and some recycling programs seek to collect them (along with other sorted categories of waste, such as organic matter, bones, and plastic).
Use of Recycled Materials
In 1996, 27% of solid waste in the United States was recycled. Products that are recycled in large quantities include paper and paperboard, ferrous metals, aluminum and other nonferrous metals, glass, plastics, and yard wastes. Although many local communities have instituted comprehensive recycling programs, these remain expensive. Because the quality of recycled items is often inferior (often due to the mixture or age of the materials in the items being recycled) and not suitable for their original purpose, the price for many recycled materials remains low and makes recycling economically nonviable in some instances. In an attempt to solve this problem, new uses have been created for recovered waste material. Crushed glass, for instance, can be substituted for gravel or sand in road surfacing and other construction applications; the resulting product is called "glassphalt." Scientists and entrepreneurs are also working on ways to turn the world's growing piles of discarded automobile tires into new products or to use them to generate safe energy.
Bibliography
See R. E. Easterling, Reuse of Disposables (1983); W. U. Chandler, Materials Recycling (1983); C. Polprasert, Organic Waste Recycling (1989).
Marine Corps Dictionary:
Recycle |
A boot camp term meaning that a recruit is removed from his or her platoon and placed in another platoon in order to repeat some portion of training. It usually occurs because the recruit did not successfully complete a required training item or in order to improve the recruit's physical conditioning or, in some cases, because the recruit's attitude is bad. This is a traumatic event for the recruit and means that they will spend more time in training but it is not the end of the world and often turns out to be a good thing.
Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry:
recycle |
| rectus, rectification, rectangular hyperbola | |
| red drop, red muscle, red shift |
Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'recycling' |
Rhymes:
recycler |
Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary:
recycle |
See crossword solutions for the clue Recycler.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Recycling |
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Recycling is processing used materials (waste) 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 reduction and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" waste hierarchy.
There are some ISO standards relating to recycling such as ISO 15270:2008 for plastics waste and ISO 14001:2004 for environmental management control of recycling practice.
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 the strictest sense, recycling of a material would produce a fresh supply of the same material—for example, used office paper would be converted into new office paper, or used foamed polystyrene into new 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., paperboard) 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.
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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 19th century to at least 1914.
Industrialization spurred demand for affordable materials; aside from rags, ferrous scrap metals were coveted as they were cheaper to acquire than was virgin ore. Railroads both purchased and sold scrap metal in the 19th century, and the growing steel and automobile industries purchased scrap in the early 20th century. Many secondary goods were collected, processed, and sold by peddlers who combed dumps, city streets, and went door to door looking for discarded machinery, pots, pans, and other sources of metal. By World War I, thousands of such peddlers roamed the streets of American cities, taking advantage of market forces to recycle post-consumer materials back into industrial production.[5]
Resource shortages caused by the world wars, and other such world-changing occurrences greatly encouraged recycling.[6] 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. For example in 1939, Britain launched the programme Paper Salvage to encourage the recycling of materials to aid the war effort. 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.
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.[7]
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 percent 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]
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 [trade]able 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][8]
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]
A number of different systems have been implemented to collect recyclates from the general waste stream. These systems 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 National 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 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]
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 recycling. A 30 percent increase in recycling rates has been seen in the areas where these plants exist.[9]
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 corrugated fiberboard 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]
Although many government programs are concentrated on recycling at home, a large portion of waste is generated by industry. The focus of many recycling programs done by industry is the cost-effectiveness of recycling. The ubiquitous nature of cardboard packaging makes cardboard a commonly recycled waste product by companies that deal heavily in packaged goods, like retail stores, warehouses, and distributors of goods. Other industries deal in niche or specialized products, depending on the nature of the waste materials that are present.
The glass, lumber, wood pulp, and paper manufacturers all deal directly in commonly recycled materials. However, old rubber tires may be collected and recycled by independent tire dealers for a profit.
Levels of metals recycling are generally low. In 2010, the International Resource Panel, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published reports on metal stocks that exist within society[10] and their recycling rates.[11] The Panel reported that the increase in the use of metals during the 20th and into the 21st century has led to a substantial shift in metal stocks from below ground to use in applications within society above ground. For example, the in-use stock of copper in the USA grew from 73 to 238 kg per capita between 1932 and 1999.
The report authors observed that, as metals are inherently recyclable, the metals stocks in society can serve as huge mines above ground. However, they found that the recycling rates of many metals are very low. The report warned that the recycling rates of some rare metals used in applications such as mobile phones, battery packs for hybrid cars and fuel cells, are so low that unless future end-of-life recycling rates are dramatically stepped up these critical metals will become unavailable for use in modern technology.
The military recycles some metals. The U.S. Navy's Ship Disposal Program uses ship breaking to reclaim the steel of old vessels. Ships may also be sunk to create an artificial reef. Uranium is a very dense metal that has qualities superior to lead and titanium for many military and industrial uses. The uranium left over from processing it into nuclear weapons and fuel for nuclear reactors is called depleted uranium, and it is used by all branches of the U.S. military use for armour-piercing shells and shielding.
The construction industry may recycle concrete and old road surface pavement, selling their waste materials for profit.
Some industries, like the renewable energy industry and solar photovoltaic technology in particular, are being proactive in setting up recycling policies even before there is considerable volume to their waste streams, anticipating future demand during their rapid growth.[12]
In order to meet recyclers' needs while providing manufacturers a consistent, uniform system, a coding system is developed. The recycling code for plastics was introduced in 1988 by plastics industry through the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc.[13] Because municipal recycling programs traditionally have targeted packaging – primarily bottles and containers – the resin coding system offered a means of identifying the resin content of bottles and containers commonly found in the residential waste stream.[14]
| Material | Energy savings | Air pollution savings |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminium | 95%[2][7] | 95%[2][16] |
| Cardboard | 24% | — |
| Glass | 5-30% | 20% |
| Paper | 40%[7] | 73% |
| Plastics | 70%[7] | — |
| 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.[17] A study conducted by the Technical University of Denmark found that in 83 percent of cases, recycling is the most efficient method to dispose of household waste.[4][7] 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.[18]
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. About 4000 minerals are known, of these only a few hundred minerals in the world are relatively common.[19] At current rates, current known reserves of phosphorus will be depleted in the next 50 to 100 years.[20][21] 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[who?] 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 almost always advise against government intrusion in any market with little or no externalities.[22]
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 percent of computers destined for recycling are actually not recycled.[23][24] 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.[25] 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.[26] 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 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.[27]
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Complete recycling is impossible from a practical standpoint. In summary, substitution and recycling strategies only delay the depletion of non-renewable stocks and therefore may buy time in the transition to true or strong sustainability, which ultimately is only guaranteed in an economy based on renewable resources[28]:21
Much of the difficulty inherent in recycling comes from the fact that most products are not designed with recycling in mind.[citation needed] The concept of sustainable design aims to solve this problem, and was 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.[29]
The following are criticisms of many popular points used for recycling.
The amount of energy saved through recycling depends upon the material being recycled. Some, such as aluminum, save a great deal, while others may not save any. 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."[30] Some critics argue that it takes more energy to produce recycled products than it does to dispose of them in traditional landfill methods, since the curbside collection of recyclables often requires a second waste truck. However, recycling proponents point out that a second timber or logging truck is eliminated when paper is collected for recycling, so the net energy consumption is the same.
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."[31][32] In 2009 more than half of all aluminium cans produced came from recycled aluminium.[33]
Every year, millions of tons of materials are being exploited from the earth's crust, and processed into consumer and capital goods. After decades to centuries, most of these materials are "lost". With the exception of some pieces of art or religious relics, they are no longer engaged in the consumption process. Where are they? Recycling is only an intermediate solution for such materials, although it does prolong the residence time in the anthroposphere. For thermodynamic reasons, however, recycling cannot prevent the final need for an ultimate sink.[34]:1
“Every year, millions of tons of materials are being exploited from the earth's crust, and processed into consumer and capital goods. After decades to centuries, most of these materials are "lost". With the exception of some pieces of art or religious relics, they are no longer engaged in the consumption process. Where are they? Recycling is only an intermediate solution for such materials, although it does prolong the residence time in the anthroposphere. For thermodynamic reasons, however, recycling cannot prevent the final need for an ultimate sink” (Brunner, 1999, p. 1).
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.[35] 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.[36] When less recycled paper is used, additional energy is needed to create and maintain farmed forests until these forests are as self-sustainable as virgin forests.
Other studies have shown that recycling in itself is inefficient to perform the “decoupling” of economic development from the depletion of non-renewable raw materials that is necessary for sustainable development.[37] When global consumption of a natural resource grows by more than 1 percent per annum, its depletion is inevitable[citation needed], and the best recycling can do is to delay it by a number of years. Nevertheless, if this decoupling can be achieved by other means, so that consumption of the resource is reduced below 1 percent per annum, then recycling becomes indispensable—indeed recycling rates above 80 percent are required for a significant slowdown of the resource depletion.
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."[38]
In some cases, the cost of recyclable materials also exceeds the cost of raw materials. Virgin plastic resin costs 40 percent less than recycled resin.[39] Additionally, a United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study that tracked the price of clear glass from July 15 to August 2, 1991, found that the average cost per ton ranged from $40 to $60,[40] 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.[41]
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.[42] 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."[43]
Tierney also points out that "the prices paid for scrap materials are a measure of their environmental value as recyclables. Scrap aluminum fetches a high price because recycling it consumes so much less energy than manufacturing new aluminum."
However, comparing the market cost of recyclable material to the cost of new raw materials ignores economic externalities - the costs that are currently not counted by the market. Creating a new piece of plastic, for instance, may cause more pollution and be less sustainable than recycling a similar piece of plastic, but these factors will not be counted in market cost. A life cycle assessment can be used to determine the levels of externalities and decide whether the recycling may be worthwhile despite unfavorable market costs. Alternatively, legal means (such as a carbon tax) can be used to bring externalities into the market, so that the market cost of the material becomes close to the true cost.
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.[44]
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."[45]
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."[46]
The recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment in India and China generates a significant amount of pollution. Informal recycling in an underground economy of these countries has generated an environmental and health disaster. High levels of lead (Pb), polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), polychlorinated dioxins and furans, as well as polybrominated dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs and PBDD/Fs) concentrated in the air, bottom ash, dust, soil, water and sediments in areas surrounding recycling sites.[47] Critics also argue that while recycling may create jobs, they are often jobs with low wages and terrible working conditions.[48] 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
Economist Steven Landsburg, author of a paper entitled "Why I Am Not an Environmentalist," [49] 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.[50] Similar arguments were expressed in a 1995 article for The Free Market.[51]
When foresting companies cut down trees, more are planted in their place. Most paper comes from pulp forests grown specifically for paper production.[43][51][52][53] 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.[54] 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.
Wood from tropical rainforests is rarely harvested for paper. Rainforest deforestation is mainly caused by population pressure demands for land.[55]
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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, Zabaleen, 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,[56][57] 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.[58] 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. However, as seen in Brazil and Argentina, waste pickers/informal recyclers are able to work alongside governments, in (semi)funded cooperatives, allowing informal recycling to be legitimized as a paying government job.[59]
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.[60][61] 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.”[58]
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.[58] Local government often consider the activities of the recycling poor as contributing to property blight.
"Between 1960 and 2000, the world production of plastic resins increased 25-fold, while recovery of the material remained below 5%."[62]:131 Many studies have addressed recycling behaviour and strategies to encourage community involvement in recycling programmes. It has been argued [63] that recycling behaviour is not natural because it requires a focus and appreciation for long term planning, whereas humans have evolved to be sensitive to short term survival goals; and that to overcome this innate predisposition, the best solution would be to use social pressure to compel participation in recycling programmes. However, recent studies have concluded that social pressure is unviable in this context.[64] One reason for this is that social pressure functions well in small group sizes of 50 to 150 indiviudals (common to nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples) but not in communities numbering in the millions, as we see today. Another reason is that individual recycling does not take place in the public view. In a study done by social psychologist Shawn Burn,[65] it was found that personal contact with individuals within a neighborhood is the most effective way to increase recycling within a community. In his study, he had 10 block leaders talk to their neighbors and convince them to recycle. A comparison group was sent fliers promoting recycling. It was found that the neighbors that were personally contacted by their block leaders recycled much more than the group without personal contact. As a result of this study, Shawn Burn believes that personal contact within a small group of people is an important factor in encouraging recycling. Another study done by Stuart Oskamp [66] examines the effect of neighbors and friends on recycling. It was found in his studies that people who had friends and neighbors that recycled were much more likely to also recycle than those who didn’t have friends and neighbors that recycled.
In 2002, WNYC reported that 40% of the garbage that New York City residents separated for recycling actually ended up in landfills.[67]
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Look up recycling in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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Translations:
Recycle |
Dansk (Danish)
v. tr. - genbruge, genindvinde
Français (French)
v. tr. - (Écol) recycler, (Fin) réinvestir
Deutsch (German)
v. - wiederverwerten, wiederaufbereiten
Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - ανακυκλώνω (υλικά)
Português (Portuguese)
v. - reciclar
Русский (Russian)
перерабатывать
Español (Spanish)
v. tr. - reciclar
Svenska (Swedish)
v. - återvinna
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
使再循环, 再制, 再利用
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. tr. - 使再循環, 再制, 再利用
한국어 (Korean)
v. tr. - 재순환 시키다, ~을 재생 이용하다
日本語 (Japanese)
v. - 再生利用する
n. - リサイクル
العربيه (Arabic)
(فعل) يعيد تصنيع, يعيد تدوير
עברית (Hebrew)
v. tr. - מיחזר
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