Editor’s Note: We’re excited to announce that beginning with this issue, Umbra Fisk of Grist magazine will answer reader questions, and our esteemed corps of “eco-experts” is moving on to contribute to feature articles and other departments.

Recycling Myths

Q: My friend has the notion that recycling programs lose money. I can imagine situations where that could be the case, but in most cities there seems to be plenty of material being recycled to justify the collection infrastructure. Surely there are markets for more recycled content than we currently produce. Why does the myth persist that recycling doesn’t make sense? And are there items that don’t pay for themselves?
--Mike from Lexington, Kentucky

A: Cities promote and support recycling programs for two reasons: public demand and financial good sense. (In special, hippie-filled cities like mine, Seattle, recycling programs also meet municipal sustainability goals, but that’s kinda unusual.) If a recycling program fits those criteria, then the program as a whole will make sense.

It’s not that easy to pick out the financial aspect from the public-demand aspect. In 2002, New York City cut its recycling program in an attempt to reduce secondhand smoke in bars—no, no. Actually, Mayor Mike Bloomberg cut the curbside recycling program in an attempt to ameliorate the city’s budget woes. Lo and behold, now the recycling program is slowly being reinstated. Stuffing the landfill didn’t save Bloomberg the $40 million he expected, although the debate on whether the program loses money continues. Public demand, however, has helped force bins back onto curbsides in the Big Apple.

The persistence of the recycling-doesn’t- make-sense myth is perplexing. We don’t have that same concern over garbage programs; when was the last time you argued with someone about whether city trash hauling should be continued? Still, people are highly suspicious of their local recycling programs. The myths circulate freely: that it’s all just thrown away, that there’s no market for products, that it’s a hoax. There’s a lot of suspicion and indignation. Ignorance of the recycling process may breed these urban legends.

Household-based municipal recycling generally looks like this: The city of Trashville, interested in reducing costs, meeting public demand, and/or fostering altruistic eco-love, decides it wants a recycling program. It designs the program and sets a general budget. A contract goes up for bid and is won by ReBorn Hauling. ReBorn Hauling picks up curbside recycling and takes it to a private or public material recovery facility, or MRF (say “murph”), where materials are sorted by dexterous hands and machines. Plastic, paper, and aluminum are baled like hay. Glass is broken into pieces called cullet. A processing facility buys Trashville’s now-valuable sorted materials, previously considered worthless by ignorant Trashvillites who don’t know how to make their own polar fleece. Trashville’s recyclables are then sold to the highest bidder. So that’s four separate players in the recyclables marketplace: the city, the hauler, the sorter, and the processor.