Does Recycling Make Cents?

Column for week of June 2, 2014

     I hadn't thought much about recycling for some time. 
Then I saw a bag with a message.  "PLEASE REUSE OR
RETURN THIS BAG TO A PARTICIPATING STORE FOR
RECYCLING."  At least the bag wasn't threatening me with
great bodily harm if I didn't honor its request.  It was behaving
in a far more civil manner than former New York mayor
Blomberg.

     Should I heed the bag's plea?   Perhaps the bag was
merely homesick and wanted to hitch a ride home.  Plastic bags
aren't famous for their brilliance.  Is it even possible that
someone put those words in the bag's mouth?  I probably don't
even need to mention that the bag was green.

     Recycling isn't new.  It is older than any of us.  The new
part is coerced recycling.

     I remember paper drives from my early years in grade
school.  The students collected newspapers and magazines to sell
to raise money for various projects.  The junkyard paid about 50
cents for a hundred pounds of newspapers and a little more for
magazines.  Fifty cents then was worth more than five of today's
dollars.

     No one was coerced to participate in recycling.  Everyone
gained by doing it.  Recycling made sense because it made
cents.

     Then someone decided that recycling was virtuous, no
mater what it cost.  It didn't matter to them how much recycling
cost.  At least the cost didn't matter as long as someone else
paid.

     The recyclers might have paid others to bear the  burden
of recycling that didn't make cents.  The joy they gained from
recycling wasn't enough to motivate them to pay for it.  They
were perfectly willing to force others to pay with their time and
money.

     What are the benefits from that green bag returning
home?  That depends on what it does when it gets there.  If it is
reused it saves the making of another bag.  Considering the
potential for the bag to be damaged or contaminated, I doubt that
many stores are going to send the bags on a second mission.

     The remaining options include burn, bury and process
into new bags.  The key question is, How many resources does it
take to reprocess the bag?  If it takes more resources to
reprocess the old bag than it does to make a new one from
scratch, recycling doesn't make cents or sense.  It doesn't take
much scratch to make a bag.

     Resources used in reprocessing include the time, energy
and effort used by the consumer in returning the old bag. 
Considering the small cost of making a new bag from scratch, it
doesn't make cents or sense to invest much effort in recycling
bags.

     Another approach is to eliminate the disposable bags.  A
city in California tried that.  People reused durable bags for
hauling home their food.  One of the side effects was a
noticeable increase in the incidents of food poisoning.  The
reused bags became contaminated and poisoned the food put in
them.

     The resources consumed or destroyed by a single case of
food poisoning would be enough to make many disposable bags. 
Fans of forced recycling fail to consider the total cost and waste
from forced recycling.

     Recycling can make sense.  Free people will figure out
when recycling makes sense and do it.  They won't waste
resources on recycling that doesn't make cents.  Feel good
recycling that wastes resources isn't environmentally friendly.  It
is a senseless waste.  Recycling is one more thing "Do it my
way, or I will hurt you" government shouldn't touch.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
                                 * * * * *
                                  * * * *
                                   * * *
                                    * *
                                     *
Copyright 2014
Albert D. McCallum