Recycle Smarter than a Third Grader!

We often associate recycling with curbside pickup operated by the local municipality. But can it possibly be a better environmental option for every recycled component picked up? It's true, many items are worth recycling from environmental perspective. And typically, environmental impact and costs correlate with each other most of the time due to the nature of energy.

Daniel Benjamin is a scholar at PERC. You can watch and read about his research below.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdV3zxoe8aA

For related resources, Design for Disassembly, Eco-Design, Environment and AD Technology guidelines related to this can be downloaded for free at:

http://www.activedisassembly.com/strategy

Recycle Smarter than a Third Grader! | Learn Liberty - YouTube
► 3:35	www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdV3zxoe8aA9 Apr 2014 - 4 min - Uploaded by Learn Liberty Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! All right? Maybe — maybe not, says scholar Daniel K. Benjamin ...

http://www.learnliberty.org/videos/recycle-smarter-than-a-third-grader/?utm_source=Video+Viewers&utm_medium=video+annotation&utm_content=Recycle+Smarter+Than+A+Third+Grader!+|+YT+Learn+More&utm_campaign=+General

OR

http://perc.org/articles/recycle-smarter-third-grader-learn-liberty

Daniel K. Benjamin: I’ve got a Kleenex in my hand — which is now a used Kleenex — and I’ve got to decide: should I put it in the trash, or should I recycle it? I’m going to put it in the trash. I’ve also got an aluminum beverage can here — which is now an empty aluminum beverage can — and again I’ve got the same choice: into the trash, or into the recycle bin? I’m gonna recycle it.

My name’s Dan Benjamin and I’ve been studying recycling since the 1980s, both as a college professor and as a senior fellow at PERC, in Bozeman, Montana. So why did I make the choice that I made with that piece of paper? If I had thrown it into the recycle bin, turning that piece of paper into new paper would have used up an enormous amount of resources and would have conferred very little environmental benefits. Hence, because I like to protect the environment and conserve resources, I put it in the trash.

With the can, on the other hand, by recycling it, when that can gets turned into a fresh new aluminum can, 95 percent of the energy used to make aluminum cans will have been saved, and as a result of that, I will have protected the environment and conserved resources. So, for me, the choice was easy: recycle that can.

Now you’ve probably always been told: recycling always conserves resources, that italways protects the environment. Which probably started with your third-grade teacher, is generally wrong.

Now, it is true that with large-scale industrial processes — for example, making frozen pizza or making aluminum cans — the firms recycle all the scraps that happen along the way of the production process. The pizza company takes the scrap dough, puts it back in the next mix, the aluminum company takes the scrap, puts it back into the next batch of aluminum. It conserves resources to do this, and it protects the environment.

It’s even true that for large household items such as refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, dishwashers, there’s enough recoverable material in there so that it conserves resources and protects the environment to recycle those items.

But what applies to refrigerators doesn’t necessarily apply to ordinary household trash — the sort of stuff that I was tossing in these bins here. How can you decide what to recycle? Well, here’s an experiment — I’ve done it myself — you can try it. The night before your trash is due to be picked up, put some items out by the trash can with a sign on them that says “free.” Try it with a bag of aluminum cans, a bag of plastic bottles, a bag of glass, a bag of paper. You might even put out there a lamp that no longer works or a small appliance like a toaster oven that doesn’t work.

Then, the next morning, go out there and see what’s still out there in the alley. During the night, someone has come through the alley, and without any direction from you, they’ve figured out, they know that given current market conditions and where you’re located, what makes sense to recycle and what doesn’t.

Now, however this experiment works out in your community, I’ll ask you to do one thing: whatever you find out, be sure you pass it on to your third-grade teacher.

If you’d like to learn more, please click here. You can read my policy series called Recycling Myths Revisited. Now you’ll have a choice: either read the paper version or the electronic version. The advantage of reading the paper version is that it increases the demand for trees and so more trees will be planted. On the other hand, if you use the electronic version, then you won’t have to make the tough choice: should I put it in the trash, or should I recycle it?