[Khrushchev's Other Shoe]

Originally Posted by Dragon Star

Some of it, I skimmed through and discovered that it seemed to have an "recycling is not the answer" attitude from the teacher's experiment, and I explained why I think it is incorrect.

The author of the article used the teacher's experiment as an illustration; I certainly don't get the idea that the conclusion was drawn from the illustration.

At this point, let me point out that I have not stated that I agree with the article; in fact, there are certain points with which I do not agree. There are many other points where I do not feel I have the expertise to decide whether they are correct or not. There is one point with which I definitely agree, though, and that is that environmental policy is often designed to produce emotional satisfaction rather than a higher quality environment. To that end, I think the following are legitimate questions that ought to be considered:

a) Is there a crisis? That is, how long before the mountains of crap to which you refer are an issue? Is this something we should be worried about within the next ten years? The next one hundred years? The next one thousand years? The next one million years? Does anyone here have any analysis to this point?

b) Does the solution (mandatory recycling) solve the problem? That is, does it make the mountains of crap appear later, or sooner? Is it the most cost effective solution? If not, then the cost (in time, effort, and money) of recycling could be reallocated to uses with greater environmental impact.

Recycling will be the answer because it is the only answer as far as non biodegradable products go, we pretty much have no other choice.

If that is the case, then the solution proposed by the author (make people pay to dispose of their waste, thereby using a market allocation mechanism to find the most cost-effective way to eliminate the environmental damage from the waste) will lead to recycling. If there exists a more cost-effective way to eliminate the environmental damage from waste, then the mechanism proposed by the author will find that method instead, unless the superior method has been outlawed by mandatory recycling laws. Furthermore, regardless of the optimal method of handling the waste, charging for its disposal provides an incentive for individuals to produce less waste. In some places, waste disposal (be it by landfill or recycling) is a free government service, which completely eliminates the incentive to produce less waste.

They say that it made more waste by cleaning up garbage then just leaving it alone, but doing it once is not the answer at all, the point is to do it your entire life, and in the end it pays off.

If the claim made in the article (that the act of recycling often produces more environmental damage than it eliminates) is wrong, then that changes things. Is it wrong? What is the evidence to the point? I'm willing to listen, but I'm going to need some evidence to the point.

To sum up - is recycling a cost-effective solution to a real environmental problem? Or is it a low-cost guilt relief mechanism with little (or possibly negative) impact on the environment? If the latter, then the resources devoted to recycling could be diverted to other uses, such as improving the quality of the environment.