{"id":18939,"date":"2015-10-10T12:40:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-10T16:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=18939"},"modified":"2015-10-12T11:57:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T15:57:46","slug":"the-waste-biz-john-tierney-questions-the-importance-of-recycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/the-waste-biz-john-tierney-questions-the-importance-of-recycling\/","title":{"rendered":"The Waste Biz: John Tierney Questions The Importance Of Recycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"is<\/a><\/p>\n

Most weeks, I have to take a look at a number of stories\/events, and decide what’s most important for our weekly Waste Biz round-up<\/a>. This week, the challenge was significantly less difficult: John Tierney’s NYT op-ed from last Sunday, “The Reign of Recycling<\/a>,” generated a lot of discussion around the web. If you didn’t read Tierney’s piece (or don’t want to), the “too long\/didn’t read” version is that we recycle more because it gives us a sense of moral superiority rather than creating economic and environmental benefits. Beyond\u00a0cardboard, and some paper, metals, and plastics, Tierney argues, we tend to overstate the importance of recycling.<\/p>\n

As you might imagine, that drew some ire. A number of respondents pointed to Tierney’s ideological leanings – he identifies as a libertarian – as clouding the facts he presents. Others argued that his facts are just plain wrong. From my own perspective, one of the biggest problems I see with his argument (as well as those of many recycling proponents) is that he considers the concept outside of the larger “reduce, reuse, recycle” framework. I do think recycling gets oversold in many cases, but sending materials to the landfill isn’t the only other alternative (as Tierney seems to suggest). More stringent life cycle analysis<\/a> that internalizes all costs would give us a much better picture of both economic and environmental realities. Encouraging design for reuse would also help. \u00a0But this isn’t an either\/or proposition, as Tierney’s piece suggest.<\/p>\n

Among the better responses to Tierney’s editorial that I found,<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Grist<\/em> digs into what it identifies as Tierney’s “5 most misleading arguments<\/a>“;<\/li>\n
  2. Waste Dive<\/a><\/em> published a few industry responses from Twitter, and conducted a short follow-up interview with Tierney;<\/li>\n
  3. The Closed Look Fund<\/a> published an annotation of Tierney’s article<\/a>, pointing out what it labels “inaccurate statements and misrepresentations about the economic and environmental impact of the recycling industry” (via @makower<\/a>);<\/li>\n
  4. A new one: Terracycle’s Tom Szaky responds at Treehugger<\/a><\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you follow the waste industry at all, you also probably have an opinion on Tierney’s analysis and argument. Tell us what you think in the comments…<\/p>\n

    And, yes, there was other news this week:<\/p>\n

    Dell Increases\u00a0Recycling Commitment:<\/strong> Demonstrating that it’s one-time title of “Greenest Company in the US” was no fluke, the Texas-based IT company<\/a> has increased its commitment to recycling plastics, and reclamation of carbon fiber material through revamping its supply chains for 35 products. (Disclaimer: Dell brought me down to Round Rock in 2011 to participate in one of its CAP panels). (via Triple Pundit<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n

    EPA Funds Circuit Board Recycling Technology:<\/strong>\u00a0Advanced Recovery and Recycling of New York received $100,000 from the EPA<\/a> to develop its technology for recycling circuit board components further.<\/p>\n

    Photo credit: Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    John Tierney raised a ruckus with a NYT op-ed arguing that the importance of recycling is overstated by well-meaning but underinformed consumers and politicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":18940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[8040,8596,8594,3963,1145,8475,8593,1585,2004,39,8595,159,7795],"yoast_head":"\nIs The Importance Of Recycling Overstated? #wastebiz<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"John Tierney raised a ruckus with a NYT op-ed arguing that the importance of recycling is overstated by well-meaning but underinformed consumers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/the-waste-biz-john-tierney-questions-the-importance-of-recycling\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is The Importance Of Recycling Overstated? 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