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Dear EarthTalk: I can’t understand why it is not
mandatory to recycle in the U.S. In my home we recycle 80
percent and toss 20 percent and I am trying to improve those
percentages. What needs to happen to make recycling the law
of the land? -- Vicki, Geneva, NY
 Mandatory
recycling is a hard sell in the US, where the economy runs
largely along free market lines and landfilling waste remains
inexpensive and efficient. When the research firm Franklin
Associates examined the issue a decade ago, it found that
the value of the materials recovered from curbside recycling
was far less than the extra costs of collection, transportation,
sorting and processing incurred by municipalities.
Plain and simple, recycling still costs more than landfilling
in most locales. This fact, coupled with the revelation that
the so-called “landfill crisis” of the mid-1990s
may have been overblown—most of our landfills still have
considerable capacity and do not pose health hazards to surrounding
communities—means that recycling has not caught on the
way some environmentalists were hoping it would.
However, many cities have found ways to recycle economically.
They have cut costs by scaling back the frequency of curbside
pickups and automating sorting and processing. They’ve also
found larger, more lucrative markets for the recyclables,
such as in developing countries eager to reuse our cast-off
items. Increased efforts by green groups to educate the public
about the benefits of recycling have also helped. Today, dozens
of U.S. cities are diverting upwards of 30 percent of their
solid waste streams to recycling.
While recycling remains an option for most Americans, a few
cities, such as Pittsburgh, San Diego and Seattle, have made
recycling mandatory. Seattle passed its mandatory recycling
law in 2006 as a way to counter declining recycling rates
there. Recyclables are now prohibited from both residential
and business garbage. Businesses must sort for recycling all
paper, cardboard and yard waste. Households must recycle all
basic recyclables, such as paper, cardboard, aluminum, glass
and plastic. Businesses with garbage containers “contaminated”
with more than 10 recyclables are issued warnings and eventually
fines if they don’t comply. Household garbage cans with
recyclables in them are simply not collected until the recyclables
are removed to the recycling bin. Meanwhile, a handful of
other cities, including Gainesville and Hawaii, require businesses
to recycle, but not yet residences.
In perhaps the most famous case of a city putting recycling
to the economic test, New York, a national leader on recycling,
decided to stop its least cost-effective recycling programs
(plastic and glass) in 2002. But rising landfill costs ate
up the $39 million savings expected. As a result, the city
reinstated plastic and glass recycling and committed to a
20-year contract with the country’s largest private recycling
firm, Hugo Neu Corporation, which built a state-of-the art
facility along South Brooklyn’s waterfront. There, automation
has streamlined the sorting process, and its easy access to
rail and barges has cut both the environmental and transportation
costs previously incurred by previously using trucks. The
new deal and new facility have made recycling much more efficient
for the city and its residents, proving once and for all that
responsibly run recycling programs can actually save money,
landfill space and the environment.
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