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The answer to this question will vary depending on where you live, and comparing recycling program and waste disposal costs is a complex undertaking. Disposal fees for landfills, waste transfer stations, and incinerators vary across the country, but in many areas, particularly on the heavily populated East Coast, they are significant expenses. Costs and returns for recycling programs also vary greatly, depending on the local resources and demand for the recovered materials.

Recycling does cost money, but so does waste disposal. Communities must pay to collect trash and manage a landfill or incinerator and so also should expect to pay for recycling. Assessing how recycling will impact your community requires a full appraisal of the environmental and economic benefits and costs of recycling, as compared to the one-way consumption of resources from disposing of used products and packaging in landfills and incinerators. Analyzing all of these factors together will help you determine if recycling is more cost effective in your community.

The report, Anti-Recycling Myths: Commentary on Recycling is Garbage, by John F. Ruston and Richard A. Denison, Ph.D. of the Environmental Defense Fund, provides one point of view on the costs and benefits of recycling and waste disposal.

The Business and the Environment Allied for Recycling (BEAR) is conducting a value chain assessment that analyzes the costs of curbside recycling and bottle bills. The report will be available through BEAR’s Web site.

SOURCE: US EPA Municipal Solid Waste

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Recycling is one of the best environmental success stories of the late 20th century. Recycling, which includes composting, diverted over 72 million tons of material away from landfills and incinerators in 2003, up from 34 million tons in 1990 – doubling in just 10 years. Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. As a matter of fact, collecting recyclable materials is just the first step in a series of actions that generate a host of financial, environmental, and societal returns. There are several key benefits to recycling.

Recycling:
• Protects and expands U.S. manufacturing jobs and increases U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace.
• Reduces the need for landfilling and incineration.
• Saves energy and prevents pollution caused by the extraction and processing of virgin materials and the manufacture of products using virgin materials.
• Decreases emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.
• Conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals.
• Helps sustain the environment for future generations.

Recycling not only makes sense from an environmental standpoint, but also makes good financial sense. For example, creating aluminum cans from recycled aluminum is far less energy-intensive, and less costly, than mining the raw materials and manufacturing new cans from scratch.

Because recycling is clearly good for human health, the nation’s economy, and the environment, many people wonder why the federal government does not simply mandate recycling. The primary reason is that recycling is a local issue—the success and viability of recycling depends on a community’s resources and structure. A community must consider the costs of a recycling program, as well as the availability of markets for its recovered materials. In some areas, not enough resources exist to make recycling an economically feasible option. State governments can assess local conditions and set appropriate recycling mandates. For information about recycling in your state, contact your EPA regional office, or your state agency.

SOURCE: US EPA Municipal Solid Waste

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