the debate over the economic viability of recycling
DESCRIPTION
Northern California Compactors Inc. offers installation and support services for waste recycling equipment such as trash compactors, balers, shredders & conveyor systems. Established in 1981, it offers waste management solutions across the United States. Website: www.norcalcompactors.netTRANSCRIPT
The Debate Over TheEconomic Viability OfRecycling
Presented By
Erich Lawson
Quick Outline PART 1 Introduction
PART 2 True Cost of Landfill and Recycling
PART 3 What is Waste?
PART 4 Economics of Recycling
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RECYCLE
EVERYTHING
SORT THE WASTE
WASH THE WASTE
The general view about recycling is that it is extremely beneficial to
the environment. The majority of websites pertaining to environmental
policies, be it private agency or government, say that a good citizen
with moral credibility must do three things:
Introduction
it is now essential to critically examine and ensure that we are recycling with a
purpose because not all products are beneficial to nature when they are
recycled. For example, in the case of green glass wine bottles, simply crushing
them and using the cullet for manufacturing more glass is an expensive affair
and causes more pollution. It would be more beneficial to nature and our
economy to simply throw those bottles in landfills and use sand to
manufacture fresh bottles. Reusing the bottles would be the best alternative,
but they are usually just thrown away because they could easily break and cut
someone and they are very difficult to clean and sanitize. However, products
such as aluminium, most types of paper, and cardboard still have tons of value
in the recycling world.
Contrary topopular belief
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Landfilling prices are artificially maintained to promote wastemanagement and recycling is subsidized to promote environmental
friendliness among the citizens. At the same time, this makes it difficult
to evaluate the true profit or loss in landfilling and recycling. Recycling
is heavily subsidized and there are special color-coded bins, work
crews, and unique trucks to collect garbage as if it were gold. Since
the general belief is that recycling brings a significant amount of value
to the community, desired expectations continue to be set at high
governmental levels. However, since there is no set definition of
“desired expectations”no one can truly be aware of the true costs
involved.
True Cost of Landfilland Recycling
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Recycling is justified economically if it costs less than that of landfill
disposal. By under-pricing landfill space, we are simply persuading
people to divert waste to recycling. Those who argue that unaided
markets can manage the problem arising from the artificial pricing are
partly wrong as prices have to be right for the markets to function.
Therefore, to arrive at the true cost of recycling, we must first analyze the
price being paid. People can sell some recyclable products such as
aluminium because it has a market and there is value attached to it.
If recycling and landfilling are the only alternatives for waste
management, then landfilling should be priced at the sum of the
opportunity cost of the space used for the landfill and the externalities
and costs of managing pollution resulting from landfill disposal.
Economics of Recycling
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The general public generally refuses to throw glass bottles in the landfill
trash because they believe it can be put to good use. Over the past two
decades the concept of waste has been greatly magnified and endlessly
debated. Different parts of the country have different views and
regulations in regards to waste. For example, California encourages its
citizens to simply use the wet waste for making compost. However, the
residents of Durham, North Carolina pay $60/month to have their wet
waste collected at a central compost factory. (Not only is that expensive,
but that plan backfired when it caught fire and cost the city over $1
million dollars to relocate the compost)
What is Waste?
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Contact
Compactor Management Company
32420 Central Ave. Union City, CA 94587
www.norcalcompactors.net
We are now Compactor Management Company.Since 1981, Northern California Compactors, Inc. hasbeen providing all types of business’s with industrialtrash and garbage compactors and balers in an effort toreduce their monthly garbage bills and generate thehighest rates of recycling revenue.
Compactor Management Company, Inc. has installedover 4,000 systems throughout the United States, withthe majority of the installations done in California.However, with our nationwide network of technicians,we also have performed installations in Oregon, BritishColumbia, Hawaii, Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee,Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, Nevada,Idaho and Washington.