| GRN Recycle Talk FAQ Answer |
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 98 09:47 WET From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman) Subject: Re: Recycling (Sacha Ritter)
November 18, 1998
Dear Sacha Ritter,
The answer to why recycle is complex and has many answers, some of which you can get at the White House Recycling Challenge website at www.ofee.gov. To summarize some of those reasons:
- if you recycle, you don't waste previous manufacturing processes, raw materials, and the environmental costs of originally making them.
- in a mature recycling economy (which we are still trying to attain) it will be profitable to recycle sometimes, and a break-even form of waste management other times, and unprofitable at still other times, the same as it is in manufacturing with virgin materials.
- it is an environmental sane way of dealing with resources
- it avoids the costs of disposal at landfills and incinerators
- manufacturing with recycled raw materials emits much less greenhouse gasses, much less air emissions (usually but not always) to the atmosphere.
- energy savings in manufacturing with recycled raw materials are significnat.
- etc.
What is done in the process of recycling?
- Educating
- Collecting
- Transporting
- Sorting and processing into useable raw materials streams
- Remanufacturing into new products or composites
- Discarding unuseable elements
- Sale and purchase (procurement) of recycled content materials
- Technological development
- Investment in recycling
What types are needed?
More markets for everything now recycled.
More procurement of everything now produced.
Development of food waste composting, electronics reuse and recycling, Construction debris reuse and recycling.
More cost-efficient ways of recycling plastics, tires, etc.
- Research Library for RCRA