Recycling Effort: Not a Cure to All Environmental Problems

CINDY LUO
JOSEPH NEY-JUN
Staff Writers

In the 1980s, people became increasingly aware of the effects of garbage and pollution on the environment. The three big R’s, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, were introduced as the main concept of the conservation effort to make the planet greener.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, recycling creates more job opportunities and is more cost effective than trash collection. Recycling reduces the need for landfills and decreases the greenhouse gas emissions. It also supplies raw material to be reused and saves energy. There will also be more natural resources available for future generations.

“Recycling is effective, and if more people did it, we would benefit from [on a larger] scale,” environmental science teacher Daniel Hyke said. “[For example], recycling an aluminum can [save] a huge amount of energy over making a new one.”

However, controversy over the benefits of recycling began to arise in 1996 when New York Times journalist John Tierney stated that “recycling is garbage.”

“Rinsing out tuna cans and tying up newspapers may make you feel virtuous, but recycling could be America’s most wasteful activity,” Tierney said.

A considerable amount of resources are used to transport billions of bottles to the site of recycling. Once the bottles are broken down to be reused, manufacturers are typically unable to build a bottle out of recycled plastic alone. The average plastic bottle made from recycled materials contains more virgin plastic, which is plastic that has never been recycled before, than anything else. This partially negates the benefits of going green.

The energy and money required to recycle, through labor and transportation, is greater than the energy saved by recycling. The equipment used for recycling occupies more space than the recycled items.

“We can just use [fewer] bottles. There are so many [reusable] bottles for sale; buying one of those can replace many plastic bottles,” ERAS Vice President Marilyn Bach said.

According to HowStuffWorks, of the 10 percent of bottles that do get recycled each year, they do not offset the energy consumed and pollution produced by the original manufacturing and transportation process. There are a diversity of materials that are difficult to sort, according to Columbia University’s Earth Institute. For this reason, many companies choose to throw away recyclable materials instead of sorting them.

Recycling is healthier for the environment than simply landfilling, but current plans for recycling might not be energy or cost effective.