Much of the difficulty inherent in recycling comes from the fact that most products are not designed with recycling in mind. In the USA around 6 to 7 percent of plastic is recycled. The concept of
sustainable design aims to solve this problem, and was laid out in the 2002 book
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by architect
William McDonough and chemist
Michael Braungart. They suggest that every product (and all packaging it requires) should have a complete "closed-loop" cycle mapped out for each component—a way in which every component either returns to the natural ecosystem through
biodegradation or is recycled indefinitely. While recycling diverts waste from entering directly into landfill sites, current recycling misses the dispersive components. Critics believe that complete recycling is impracticable as highly dispersed wastes become so diluted that the energy needed for their recovery becomes increasingly excessive. As with
environmental economics, care must be taken to ensure a complete view of the costs and benefits involved. For example,
paperboard packaging for food products is more easily recycled than most plastic, but is heavier to ship and may result in more waste from spoilage. Economic expenses can incentivize fraud.
Net environmental benefits Critics dispute the net economic and environmental benefits of recycling over its costs, and suggest that proponents of recycling often make matters worse and suffer from
confirmation bias. Specifically, critics argue that the costs and energy used in collection and transportation detract from (and outweigh) the costs and energy saved in the production process; also that the jobs produced by the recycling industry can be a poor trade for the jobs lost in logging, mining, and other industries associated with production; and that materials such as paper pulp can only be recycled a few times before material degradation prevents further recycling. The amount of energy saved through recycling depends upon the material being recycled and the type of energy accounting that is used. Correct accounting for this saved energy can be accomplished with
life-cycle analysis using real energy values, and in addition,
exergy, which is a measure of how much useful energy can be used. In general, it takes far less energy to produce a unit mass of recycled materials than it does to make the same mass of virgin materials. Some scholars use
emergy (spelled with an m) analysis, for example, budgets for the amount of energy of one kind (exergy) that is required to make or transform things into another kind of product or service. Emergy calculations take into account economics that can alter pure physics-based results. Using emergy life-cycle analysis researchers have concluded that materials with large refining costs have the greatest potential for high recycle benefits. Moreover, the highest emergy efficiency accrues from systems geared toward material recycling, where materials are engineered to recycle back into their original form and purpose, followed by
adaptive reuse systems where the materials are recycled into a different kind of product, and then by-product reuse systems where parts of the products are used to make an entirely different product. Some critics argue that it takes more energy to produce recycled products than it does to dispose of them in traditional landfill methods, since the curbside collection of recyclables often requires a second waste truck. However, recycling proponents point out that a second timber or logging truck is eliminated when paper is collected for recycling, so the net energy consumption is the same. An emergy life-cycle analysis on recycling revealed that fly ash, aluminum, recycled concrete aggregate, recycled plastic, and steel yield higher efficiency ratios, whereas the recycling of lumber generates the lowest recycle benefit ratio. Hence, the specific nature of the recycling process, the methods used to analyse the process, and the products involved affect the energy savings budgets. It is difficult to determine the amount of energy consumed or produced in waste disposal processes in broader ecological terms, where causal relations dissipate into complex networks of material and energy flow. How much energy is used in recycling also depends on the type of material being recycled and the process used to do so. Aluminium is generally agreed to use far less energy when recycled rather than being produced from scratch. The EPA states that "recycling aluminum cans, for example, saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from its virgin source,
bauxite." In 2009, more than half of all aluminium cans produced came from recycled aluminium. Similarly, it has been estimated that new steel produced with recycled cans reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 75%. Economist
Steven Landsburg has suggested that the sole benefit of reducing landfill space is trumped by the energy needed and resulting pollution from the recycling process. Others, however, have calculated through life-cycle assessment that producing recycled paper uses less energy and water than harvesting, pulping, processing, and transporting virgin trees. When less recycled paper is used, additional energy is needed to create and maintain farmed forests until these forests are as self-sustainable as virgin forests. Other studies have shown that recycling in itself is inefficient to perform the "decoupling" of economic development from the depletion of non-renewable raw materials that is necessary for sustainable development. The international transportation or recycle material flows through "... different trade networks of the three countries result in different flows, decay rates, and potential recycling returns". As global consumption of a natural resources grows, their depletion is inevitable. The best recycling can do is to delay; complete closure of material loops to achieve 100 percent recycling of nonrenewables is impossible as micro-trace materials dissipate into the environment causing severe damage to the planet's ecosystems. Historically, this was identified as the metabolic rift by
Karl Marx, who identified the unequal exchange rate between energy and nutrients flowing from rural areas to feed urban cities that create effluent wastes degrading the planet's ecological capital, such as loss in soil nutrient production. Energy conservation also leads to what is known as
Jevon's paradox, where improvements in energy efficiency lowers the cost of production and leads to a rebound effect where rates of consumption and economic growth increases.
Economic costs Journalist
John Tierney notes that it is generally more expensive for municipalities to recycle waste from households than to send it to a landfill and that "recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America." The amount of money actually saved through recycling depends on the efficiency of the recycling program used to do it. The
Institute for Local Self-Reliance argues that the cost of recycling depends on various factors, such as
landfill fees and the amount of disposal that the community recycles. It states that communities begin to save money when they treat recycling as a replacement for their traditional waste system rather than an add-on to it and by "redesigning their collection schedules and/or trucks". In some cases, the cost of recyclable materials also exceeds the cost of raw materials. Virgin plastic resin costs 40 percent less than recycled resin. while a
USGS report shows that the cost per ton of raw silica sand from years 1993 to 1997 fell between $17.33 and $18.10. Comparing the market cost of recyclable material with the cost of new raw materials ignores economic
externalities—the costs that are currently not counted by the market. Creating a new piece of plastic, for instance, may cause more pollution and be less sustainable than recycling a similar piece of plastic, but these factors are not counted in market cost. A
life cycle assessment can be used to determine the levels of externalities and decide whether the recycling may be worthwhile despite unfavorable market costs. Alternatively, legal means (such as a
carbon tax) can be used to bring externalities into the market, so that the market cost of the material becomes close to the true cost.
Working conditions and social costs earn their living by collecting and sorting garbage and selling them for recycling. The recycling of waste electrical and electronic equipment can create a significant amount of pollution. This problem is specifically occurrent in India and China. Informal recycling in an underground economy of these countries has generated an environmental and health disaster. High levels of lead (Pb),
polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs),
polychlorinated dioxins, and
furans, as well as polybrominated dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs and PBDD/Fs), concentrated in the air,
bottom ash, dust, soil, water, and sediments in areas surrounding recycling sites. These materials can make work sites harmful to the workers themselves and the surrounding environment. In some countries, recycling is performed by the entrepreneurial poor such as the
karung guni,
zabbaleen, the
rag-and-bone man,
waste picker, and
junk man. With the creation of large recycling organizations that may be profitable, either by law or
economies of scale, the poor are more likely to be driven out of the recycling and the
remanufacturing job market. To compensate for this loss of income, a society may need to create additional forms of societal programs to help support the poor. Like the
parable of the broken window, there is a net loss to the poor and possibly the whole of a society to make recycling artificially profitable, e.g. through the law. However, in Brazil and Argentina, waste pickers/informal recyclers work alongside the authorities, in fully or semi-funded cooperatives, allowing informal recycling to be legitimized as a paid public sector job. Because the social support of a country is likely to be less than the loss of income to the poor undertaking recycling, there is a greater chance for the poor to come in conflict with the large recycling organizations. This means fewer people can decide if certain waste is more economically reusable in its current form rather than being reprocessed. Contrasted to the recycling poor, the efficiency of their recycling may actually be higher for some materials because individuals have greater control over what is considered "waste". One labor-intensive underused waste is electronic and computer waste. Because this waste may still be functional and wanted mostly by those on lower incomes, who may sell or use it at a greater efficiency than large recyclers. Some recycling advocates believe that
laissez-faire individual-based recycling does not cover all of society's recycling needs. Thus, it does not negate the need for an organized recycling program. Local government can consider the activities of the recycling poor as contributing to the ruining of property. == Public participation rates ==