The Debate Over TheEconomic Viability OfRecycling

Presented By

Erich Lawson

Quick Outline PART 1 Introduction

PART 2 True Cost of Landfill and Recycling

PART 3 What is Waste?

PART 4 Economics of Recycling

Compactor

Management

Company

02

RECYCLE

EVERYTHING

SORT THE WASTE

WASH THE WASTE

The general view about recycling is that it is extremely beneficial to

the environment. The majority of websites pertaining to environmental

policies, be it private agency or government, say that a good citizen

with moral credibility must do three things:

Introduction

it is now essential to critically examine and ensure that we are recycling with a

purpose because not all products are beneficial to nature when they are

recycled. For example, in the case of green glass wine bottles, simply crushing

them and using the cullet for manufacturing more glass is an expensive affair

and causes more pollution. It would be more beneficial to nature and our

economy to simply throw those bottles in landfills and use sand to

manufacture fresh bottles. Reusing the bottles would be the best alternative,

but they are usually just thrown away because they could easily break and cut

someone and they are very difficult to clean and sanitize. However, products

such as aluminium, most types of paper, and cardboard still have tons of value

in the recycling world.

Contrary topopular belief

Compactor

Management

Company

07

Landfilling prices are artificially maintained to promote wastemanagement and recycling is subsidized to promote environmental

friendliness among the citizens. At the same time, this makes it difficult

to evaluate the true profit or loss in landfilling and recycling. Recycling

is heavily subsidized and there are special color-coded bins, work

crews, and unique trucks to collect garbage as if it were gold. Since

the general belief is that recycling brings a significant amount of value

to the community, desired expectations continue to be set at high

governmental levels. However, since there is no set definition of

“desired expectations”no one can truly be aware of the true costs

involved.

True Cost of Landfilland Recycling

Compactor

Management

Company

04

Recycling is justified economically if it costs less than that of landfill

disposal. By under-pricing landfill space, we are simply persuading

people to divert waste to recycling. Those who argue that unaided

markets can manage the problem arising from the artificial pricing are

partly wrong as prices have to be right for the markets to function.

Therefore, to arrive at the true cost of recycling, we must first analyze the

price being paid. People can sell some recyclable products such as

aluminium because it has a market and there is value attached to it.

If recycling and landfilling are the only alternatives for waste

management, then landfilling should be priced at the sum of the

opportunity cost of the space used for the landfill and the externalities

and costs of managing pollution resulting from landfill disposal.

Economics of Recycling

Compactor

Management

Company

12

The general public generally refuses to throw glass bottles in the landfill

trash because they believe it can be put to good use. Over the past two

decades the concept of waste has been greatly magnified and endlessly

debated. Different parts of the country have different views and

regulations in regards to waste. For example, California encourages its

citizens to simply use the wet waste for making compost. However, the

residents of Durham, North Carolina pay $60/month to have their wet

waste collected at a central compost factory. (Not only is that expensive,

but that plan backfired when it caught fire and cost the city over $1

million dollars to relocate the compost)

What is Waste?

Compactor

Management

Company

12

Contact

Compactor Management Company

32420 Central Ave. Union City, CA 94587

www.norcalcompactors.net

sales@compactormc.com

We are now Compactor Management Company.Since 1981, Northern California Compactors, Inc. hasbeen providing all types of business’s with industrialtrash and garbage compactors and balers in an effort toreduce their monthly garbage bills and generate thehighest rates of recycling revenue.

Compactor Management Company, Inc. has installedover 4,000 systems throughout the United States, withthe majority of the installations done in California.However, with our nationwide network of technicians,we also have performed installations in Oregon, BritishColumbia, Hawaii, Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee,Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Nevada,Idaho and Washington.