There is a virtuous fervor to recycling -- it's a type of middle class moral purification ritual, something that counterbalances high levels of consumption, eve

There is a virtuous fervor to recycling -- it's a type of middle class moral purification ritual, something that counterbalances high levels of consumption, even when it wastes more scarce resources than putting trash in a landfill. This is a great article: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-of-recycling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/the-reign-... Certainly recycling some things makes a lot of sense. For example, scrap metal. But the push to recycle everything has lead to exploding costs and mounting subsidies. For example, the article cites New York spending $300 million on subsidizing recycling, about half the park department budget, rather than what it would cost to put waste into landfills. By lowering recycling costs, China has played the role of enabler, allowing many middle class households to continue to obtain consumption indulgences at below market rates. If China stops subsidizing this stuff, I hope there is some pushback from communities, or at least from most communities, because we've gone full crazy on recycling.