| GRN Recycle Talk FAQ Answer |
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 98 12:40 WET DST From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman) Subject: Re: Barriers to recycle (Robin)
April 7, 1998
Dear Robin,
There are many barriers to establishing a successful recycling program, too many to comprehensively list or explain. The one main one that almost all recycling failures cite is a failure to adequately assess its realistic markets in its time and place. But barriers include:
- supply and demand for recycled materials or their remanufactured or throughput products.
- inadequate market demand for supply
- overcompetition for too small a demand
- inadequate state and municipal support for each aspect
- propaganda and market diversions by virgin materials' manufacturers or brokers
- excessive costs for collection, storage and processing vis a vis price structure and price flexibility
- other economic climatge barriers
- reliance on low end, or too small a mix of recyclables whose markets and demand fluctuates
- failure to achieve a mix of consistent demand (like export programs) along with fluctuating demand (like overcompeted or oversupplied domestic markets)
- federal, state, and local tax coes which have price supports or tax breaks built in for some virgin materials
- absence of quality and up to date information
- technical barriers to particular substances, e.g. 'stickies' removal from paper or labels and adhesives removal from plastics )
These are only some barriers, however, they probably omit few that are experienced widely.
I must also point out that there are imaginary barriers or propagandistic ones. There are Foundations, Institutes, and Consulting firms who are employed over and over again by trade associations to knock recycling, typically in the pages of e.g. Fortune Magazine or The Wall Street Journal. The claims about barriers in these pages have repetively been rebutted, yet it is still profitable for these Foundations, Institutes, etc. to get reemployed in the service of anti-recycling.
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