IS RECYCLING COST EFFECTIVE?

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IS RECYCLING COST EFFECTIVE?
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• In elementary school, you may have heard the
  phrase Reduce, reuse, recycle. With current
  rates of sustainability, this phrase may become
  more relevant than chanting the phrase in a third
  year classroom. As a reminder, recycling is the
  process of changing a used product into one or
  more usable products. This is usually done by
  melting down or grinding up the original
  product and re-purposing it. Recycling isnt just
  a boost for the environment, though it can be
  beneficial to your pockets, as well.
• Humankind has been recycling for much of its time
  here. It has been a practice since at least 400
  BC. During WWI and WWII, recycling was
  cost-effective even then as it made new equipment
  for the war. However, manufacturing has gotten
  much more efficient over the last 50 years, so
  the question arises is recycling cost-effective?

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Recycling Creates Jobs
Recycling creates more jobs than landfill sites.
According to the U.S. Recycling Economic
Informational Study, over 50,000 recycling plants
have created over a million jobs in the United
States. In a time where the amount of jobs is
limited, this is a priceless resource all on its
own. For comparison, the United States
Environmental Protection Agencys studies have
concluded that for every 10,000 tons of waste
dumped into a landfill, one job is created.
However, for the same amount of waste going to a
recycling plant creates 10 jobs specifically
recycling, or 75 jobs pertaining to material
reuse. The Green Economy Survey for California
states that recycling jobs create a substantial
27 of the 433,000 green economy jobs in the
state. These jobs are held by a wide demographic,
including retirees, veterans, and military
personnel.
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Recycling Lowers Landfill Costs

• Additionally, recycling cuts landfill costs.
  Building a new landfill incurs several costs
  between 500,000 to 1,000,000 for the design and
  engineering alone. The lining what keeps waste
  from seeping into the ground and contaminating it
  will cost about 75,000 per acre. This money
  comes from tax funds, meaning that taxpayers are
  the ones who fund these expensive facilities.
  Even if no new landfills were made, it still
  costs millions of dollars per year to run. A
  solution to this has actually been implemented in
  Sweden for the last decade burn landfill waste
  for energy. This has proven so effective that
  Sweden is looking to import trash from other
  countries because they have little left to burn.
  This saves money in two departments, both energy
  and waste.

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E-Recycling Lowers Manufacturing Costs

• One very important method of recycling that many
  people overlook is e-recycling. E-recycling is
  the specific recycling of things like old cell
  phones, CDs, floppy discs, old cables and cords,
  and much more. Considering how fast our
  technology is growing, older devices can become
  obsolete within a year. So what to do with them?
  Some store these older devices to use as a
  backup, some trade their old devices for new
  ones, and some simply throw them away. According
  to Duke University, e-recycling costs are a
  fraction of those incurred simply disposing the
  material. This makes recycling very
  cost-effective for many businesses, making it
  more attractive to upgrade outdated, slower
  machines.
• Another form of recycling that is often
  overlooked is scrap. For example, at the time of
  this writing, on average aluminum cans can be
  traded in for 0.35 per pound. For anything above
  100 pounds, this comes up to 0.35 Aluminum wire
  sells for between 0.26 to 0.58. Old automobile
  batteries can be sold for 7, and many other
  metals such as lead, copper, brass and iron sell
  for 1 a pound and up.
• In short, recycling our waste, be it on a small
  scale in the home or office or on a large scale
  like the nations landfills will potentially cut
  millions of dollars a year millions of dollars
  that can be put into other important programs. Is
  recycling cost-effective? It saves tax money and
  has potential to pay you for your old electronics
  and junk. From analysis, it would seem so.

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Questions? Comments?

• We are happy to help you!

• Website http//www.allgreenrecycling.com
• All Green Recycling
• info_at_allgreenrecycling.com
• [phone] 
•  
• Source
• http//dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/
  296 (pdf)
• http//www.epa.gov/region9/newsletter/feb2011/gree
  njobs.html
• http//dnr.mo.gov/env/swmp/pubs-reports/rececon.ht
  m
• https//en.wikipedia.org/?titleRecyclingCost.E2.
  80.93benefit_analysis
• http//www.allgreenrecycling.com/blog/is-recycling
  -cost-effective/