Promotion of Recycling

Introduction

Recycling can be defined as the entire chain of activities involved in the collection and utilization of all or part of old products in the manufacture of new products. Therefore, the business of recycling involves all concerns along the recycling value chain, including product design, recycling processes, reliability of secondary raw material supplies, markets for recycled goods, regulatory mandates/legislation, and the overall economics of recycling.

Concerns about declining availability of landfill space, water and air pollution from landfills and incinerators, and resource depletion led to the initiation of municipal recycling efforts. These in turn increased the supply of post consumer materials, necessitating the need for more use of such materials in products, thereby “closing the loop.” Increased material complexity of products has complicated recycling and affected its economics, however (Randall, 23 - 50).

Discussion

Millions of Americans are familiar with the phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle." The slogan became popular in the late 1980s, when many people, environmentalists in particular, were sounding the alarm over a perceived waste-disposal crisis. Many studies had shown that the U.S. was on the brink of running out of landfill space to dump the millions of tons of waste generated in the country each day. Americans were urged to reduce the amount of waste-generating products they used, reuse what they could and recycle their trash in order to prevent the country from becoming a coast-to-coast garbage dump.

Millions of Americans have since embraced recycling programs in which they separate their plastic, glass, newspaper and metal waste--all items that can be recycled--from their regular garbage, such as food scraps. There are now more than 7,000 curbside recycling programs in the U.S., compared with fewer than 1,000 just eight years ago. The growth of those programs is attributed to state and federal regulations that have prodded communities into recycling, as well as to wide popular support. Many feel that recycling is one of the most practical and immediate ways that the average person can help the environment and preserve resources such as forests for future generations (Jirang & Forssberg, 243-263).

However, an increasing number of policy analysts say that the public's zeal for recycling has gone too far. They chide environmentalists and others for failing to consider or even recognize the downsides of recycling, especially the economic ones. Those negatives include high costs to municipalities that are already strapped for cash, extra garbage trucks rumbling down residential streets to pick up recyclables and low demand for recycled goods. In most cases, municipalities spend more money collecting recycled materials than they make selling them to companies that complete the recycling process. Opponents also allege that recycling is more destructive to the environment than dumping the same materials into landfills, which they say are plentiful and are now environmentally safe.

Critics urge municipalities to stop subsidizing the costs of recycling with public funds and say that states should repeal or soften their laws that mandate recycling. Many opponents of recycling laws contend that in a deregulated market, waste would be disposed of or recycled at ...