Recycled Markets

Source: Developing Markets for Recyclable Materials: Policy and Program Options
Prepared by Mt. Auburn Associates, Inc. and Northeast-Midwest Institute for U.S. E.P.A. 1993

Synopsis: For recycling to be effective, it must provide a consistent material that can be utilized by manufacturers, and manufacturers must provide a steady market for those materials. This source explores how that market can and has broken down in the past and offers recommendations for addressing those problems.

Reflection:

Recycling must be one of the most misunderstood programs connected to conservation and sustainability efforts. Even those who are stalwart recyclers probably don’t understand what happens to their #2 plastic once they dump it into the recycling bin. What is most easily understood about recycling is putting an item into one bin rather than the garbage. It isn’t a process that encourages deep thought. This is not a good thing.

The fact is, in order to get as much from recycling as possible, it does require some deeper thinking and analysis. For example, what is the difference between a #2 and a #3 plastic? The law of averages says recyclers are not chemical engineers, so the average recycler isn’t going to know that #2 is high density polyethylene and #3 is polyvinyl chloride and that those have fundamental differences in composition, so they will need to be processed differently and must be separated at some point if a usable end product is desired. We know there is an inverse correlation between participation in recycling programs and the amount of thought and/or effort required for a given recycling program. Single sort recycling is much lauded, but it’s also much more expensive. Equating time with money, we’ve just moved the expense from the homeowner to the recycling center in order to get better participation. Furthermore, how many of us recognize that the goal of recycling isn’t just to keep waste out of a landfill, but to provide a material that can be remanufactured? We see one bin, and we see the garbage can, and we feel good putting stuff into the former. End of thought process. In a perfect world, one in which people had both the time and inclination to get into recycling, we’d have recycling bins for each kind of plastic, metal, glass color, and all the separation would take place in the home and each of those materials would enter a processing stream that is as smooth as possible. In this world, participation in such a recycling program would be low.

We need to close the loop. Regarding raw materials, we’re already beyond the carrying capacity of this planet, but somewhere we forgot that materials don’t have to be raw. In addition to maintaining this blog, the other requirement for this class is reading a book from a list of approved titles. I selected Cradle to Cradle, by McDonough and Braunart. I haven’t made enough progress therein to get any more insight from that resource other than this is exactly the subject of that book, taken to the next level. In Cradle to Cradle, the authors argue that, rather than making stuff, using stuff, producing waste, and then staring at that waste wondering what to do with it, we can begin at the other end of the process and design stuff such that we already know what can be done with it when it’s used up, closing the loop. Cradle to Cradle represents a level of thinking to which we’re still aspiring. Recycling represents a level of thinking that is going to help us bridge the gap from where we are now to that level.

As an aside, I’d also like to mention another title tangentially related to recycling and reusing, Mongo: Adventures in Trash, by Ted Botha. In that book, Botha explores the subculture of dumpster diving, exploring the people who in some way make their living off the waste of others, from so-called “freegans,” who eat nothing but the perfectly good food deemed garbage by expiration dates, to antique collectors/sellers. My enduring understanding from that book was astonishment that I lived in a society that produced so much waste there was an entire subculture that revolved around it. Again, with a slight change in thinking and some innovation, waste becomes raw material, and we transform from a disgustingly wasteful society to one rich in those raw materials.

And, after some more reflection time and a couple of proof-reads, I realized I’ve strayed a little from our point. What does recycling have to do with sustainable business practices? First, in many of our resources, we’re told it can be most effective to go for the “low-hanging fruit” first. Because recycling is relatively mainstream, it’s likely that improving the recycling efforts of an organization will be relatively easy. Second, it’s possible that such efforts in the workplace will spill over into the homes of employees. In many cases, there is a threshold of effort that needs to be overcome in order for habits to change. When an employee sees how easily many things are recycled, it might be enough to overcome that threshold. Finally, if we do approach recycling as a way of producing raw materials, it’s conceivable it could become a source of income for a business. In our old bike shop, we separated our aluminum scrap because it was one of the few scrap metals that collectors were still paying for (although that’s changed). It wasn’t much, but it paid for a few cups of coffee or a round at the bar after quitting time. That counts.