{"id":48789,"date":"2019-06-08T05:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-06-08T09:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=48789"},"modified":"2019-06-07T21:48:52","modified_gmt":"2019-06-08T01:48:52","slug":"the-sad-economics-of-recycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/06\/08\/the-sad-economics-of-recycling\/","title":{"rendered":"The sad economics of recycling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kimdutoit.com\/2019\/06\/07\/bullshit-then-bullshit-now\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kim du Toit<\/a> on the actual economic value of most recycling efforts:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Do-not-recycle-symbol.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Do-not-recycle-symbol.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-44199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Do-not-recycle-symbol.jpg 100w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Do-not-recycle-symbol-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Turns out that aluminum cans are actually worth recycling \u2014 in that they are 100% recyclable (requiring nothing other than melting and reformulating) and it costs less \u2014 much less \u2014 to recycle than to produce new aluminum.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s almost true of newsprint too, except that while pulping it is fine \u2014 hardly any energy is used for that \u2014 the pulp also has to be bleached, and in the pulping \/ bleaching process, about 15% of the original paper is lost.  And as raw paper production (i.e. from logged wood) has become more efficient over the years, and as trees can be grown to replace those felled, the only real benefit from recycling paper is that overall paper production is less vulnerable to hiccups in supply of fresh wood \u2014 such as caused by forest fires, disease and drought.<\/p>\n<p>And, he added, when it comes to recycling other stuff, glass is little better than plastic \u2014 which surprised me, but it actually costs much more to recycle glass than simply to produce it new.  And the old \u201cplastic into park benches\u201d spiel is likewise stupid, because it costs so much to produce such stuff, and creates so much atmospheric pollution thereby, that it\u2019s easier just to toss plastic into a properly-lined landfill and let nature take its course.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing all that, I\u2019ve always been skeptical of the benefits of recycling \u2014 it\u2019s always been about feeewings rather than utility<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kim du Toit on the actual economic value of most recycling efforts: Turns out that aluminum cans are actually worth recycling \u2014 in that they are 100% recyclable (requiring nothing other than melting and reformulating) and it costs less \u2014 much less \u2014 to recycle than to produce new aluminum. That\u2019s almost true of newsprint [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,65,9,13],"tags":[1159,443,649,1238],"class_list":["post-48789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","category-law","category-usa","tag-materials","tag-pollution","tag-recycling","tag-virtuesignalling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-cGV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48790,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48789\/revisions\/48790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}