Kite & Key Media
Published 24 May 2022Recycling is essential to protecting the environment, right? Well … it’s complicated. Many of our recycling practices are largely ineffective. And many of the materials it would be most beneficial to reuse barely get recycled at all.
In the 1980s, the recycling movement really took off thanks to the viral story about a trash barge called the Mobro.
In 1987, the Mobro floundered at sea for six months trying to find a port that would accept its load of garbage. The Mobro was rejected by port after port because of unsubstantiated rumors that it was carrying hazardous medical waste.
The Mobro‘s journey put the issue of waste management in the forefront of Americans’ minds. We were told recycling would solve our waste management woes — reducing trash in landfills and facilitating the reuse of plastics. Turns out, recycling isn’t the panacea we imagined it would be.
For starters, we’re not running out of landfill space. If you took just the land in the country that’s available for grazing — and then used just one-tenth of one percent of it — it could hold all the waste Americans will produce over the next 1,000 years.
As for recycling … well, it’s complicated. Take plastic, for instance. Making new plastic is actually cheaper than recycling old plastic. And the newest, high-tech methods of recycling plastic generate carbon emissions 55 times higher than just putting it in a landfill.
Many localities that used to profit from their recycling programs are losing money. Prince George’s County, Maryland, made $750,000 on its recyclables in 2017. A year later, they lost $2.7 million. Recycling has become so expensive that hundreds of local governments have stopped doing it.
Fortunately, there is one area of recycling that has potential: electronic waste. In recent years, only about 30% of e-waste — the remains of discarded computers, cell phones, TVs, etc. — has been recycled, which doesn’t make much sense. It’s packed with valuable metals and rare earths that we rely on for everything from consumer electronics to military technology.
Adding e-waste to the mix could save recycling as we know it. It could make the practice profitable again. And it could be better for the environment.
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