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Can anyone back up his comment about recycling with any indisputable or at least convincing evidence/statistics? "Even if you, your neighbors, and everyone you

Can anyone back up his comment about recycling with any indisputable or at least convincing evidence/statistics? "Even if you, your neighbors, and everyone you've ever met recycled everything and reduced your waste output to zero, it wouldn't even make an observable impact on overall waste production in the world. Household waste and garden residue account for less than 3% of all waste produced in the US. That's less than the average statistical margin of error, and most people don't even come close to producing zero waste." I've always suspected that this is correct, but I'd like to be able to back that up with some evidence.

xlpz 15y ago
I've seen some estimates saying that the total percentage of waste coming from households can be as lows as 2%, depending on how you count. For example, this cites an EPA study: http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm The same page mentions a higher bound of 20%, but in any case it seems reasonably well established that the vast majority of the waste produced (at least in the US) comes from the manufacturing/industrial process itself, not from households. A book that goes into quite a bit of detail about this is "Gone tomorrow" by Heather Rogers.
- morsch 15y ago
  Huh. Looking at statistics from Germany, the total waste is seperated into four categories: waste from building demolition and construction, waste from industrial processes, waste from mining, waste from private households and offices. Waste from demolition and construction makes up more than half of the total waste, the remaining three categories are split about evenly. I'm surprised that the construction waste is that high. Apart from that, it seems that manufacturing and construction waste is less dominant over here than it is in the US. Odd! Maybe I'm reading the numbers wrong or they're counting really differently. FWIW, Wikipedia says that the per capita waste amount is about 500 kg, referring to just the category of private households/offices I assume. Ref: http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfallaufkommen_2008.pdf http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfal... (German)
- screwt 15y ago
  tl;dr: Building waste is mostly rubble (not really necessary to recycle); these stats are by weight (density of rubble >> density of household waste). Treat these stats & suggestions of "no point doing any household recycling" with caution. I think these statistics are somewhat misleading. Waste from building tends to be rubble and dirt. Some of this can be re-used (eg filler for roads), but also the environmental impact of disposing of dirt is not much. More importantly, the stats on the link above give waste measured by weight. A skip full of rubble (densely-packed stone) weighs far more than a skip full of general trash (loose-packed plastic bottles). A comparison by volume would be more informative[1]. That doesn't go for all building waste, and I don't know what comprises most industrial waste. All in all, I suspect cutting everyone's household waste to zero would make a significant impact on reducing the volume of waste produced nationwide; I don't know though whether it would make as much as a 50% impact. [1] Obviously there are difficulties comparing by volume since household waste can be compacted to a great degree - my point is that comparison by weight skews heavily to the side of building waste.
- acqq 15y ago
  I'd still like to have any real quotation. EPA claims about "Municipal Solid Waste": "We estimated residential waste (including waste from apartment houses) to be 55 to 65 percent of total MSW generation. Waste from commercial and institutional locations, such as schools, hospitals, and businesses, amounted to 35 to 45 percent." http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2009-fs.pdf http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2009-fs... See also what screwt writes: the rubble, for example, is not the kind of waste that has an environmental impact of the household waste (e.g. batteries with toxic materials etc). The important thing is environmental impact, not the absolute weight of the waste. I agree however that EPA seems to be too silent about the waste produced by factories.
nickik 15y ago
I highly doute it. Im from Switzerland and we do alot of recycling. In our 3 person household we probebly reduce garbage produced by more then 50%. Switzerland is small but if everybody did this spezially ameria it would make much more then a statisticall margin error. Of all the daily garbage we seperate out: paper carton organic stuff (compost) batteries cans Plastic bottle glas Edit: Most buissnesses do this too.
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  I'm sort of looking for statistics rather than anecdotes. As far as I can see, the figures for America look reasonably accurate. No idea about Switzerland though...
- wladimir 15y ago
  His point is that even if you, and all other households managed to get their waste to 0% (unlikely), that still only would make 3% difference in the total amount. Which is better than nothing but still only a drop in the bucket.
  - nickik 15y ago
    Like I said in the edit most buisnesses do this too, its not just households.
mambodog 15y ago
Perhaps this is more of an indictment on the obscene volumes of waste produced by the US (and others).
wladimir 15y ago
97% of waste is industrial? That's pretty shocking to me. I wonder what part of this waste is from production of our cherished technological gadgets and computer equipment, replacing the gadgets of yester-year. Which are generally still working fine, but are replaced by something incrementally better...
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  Or commercial in general. Offices, small businesses, etc.
- mason55 15y ago
  I wonder what part of this waste is from production of our cherished technological gadgets and computer equipment, replacing the gadgets of yester-year If we're talking about waste produced in the US? Probably not a ton. There is a lot of high-tech manufacturing in the US but it's generally industrial components (airplanes, solar cells) that companies keep around until they no longer work. There's not much in the way of consumer electronics manufactured in the US. Now if you want to talk worldwide...
  - wladimir 15y ago
    I mean worldwide. Excluding the waste caused by production (in China, Taiwan, etc) of things consumed in the western world would be a more than a bit hypocritical.
toddmorey 15y ago
Related point: I think it's unfair to entirely separate manufacturing waste from household waste. I think it's more about the combined waste generated in the production and consumption of household goods. What I hate about recycling is that it's so much less effective than the other r's: reducing and reusing. I wish the focus was much more on those two; think of the impact possible if consumers just demanded less packaging, for example.
pingswept 15y ago
The fraction of the total waste stream that you can affect is irrelevant when deciding whether to recycle. Any single industrial waste creator could make the same argument-- my company only creates 0.001% of the waste stream, so it doesn't matter what I do. This has to be wrong, because we know that the total outcome is nothing other than the aggregated behaviors of all of us, and the total outcome matters. The important question is whether the impact of recycling the waste you create is a net gain or loss, after you take into account all the work needed to do the recycling. From an energy perspective, most recycling is a massive saver of energy [1], but that doesn't mean it's economical. England, for example, imports a lot of glass, but does very little glass manufacturing. Recycling glass there is probably not a valuable service, but that says nothing about its value where you live (unless you happen to live in England). Waste stream sorting technology is still developing; I wouldn't be surprised if that reduces costs in the future such that sorting waste in your house isn't worth it-- you'll just dump everything in the bin and let robots pick out the valuable stuff later. [1]: http://www.economist.com/node/9249262 http://www.economist.com/node/9249262 (Money quote: "Recycling aluminium, for example, can reduce energy consumption by as much as 95%. Savings for other materials are lower but still substantial: about 70% for plastics, 60% for steel, 40% for paper and 30% for glass.")
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  Knowing the percentage of waste that is house hold waste is extremely important. If it's 50%, then getting people to recycle is essential. If it's 3%, maybe there are better things we can be concentrating on to reduce the overall amount of waste. In tech, we call it premature optimisation.
  - CognitiveLens 15y ago
    Your argument only holds if the "effort" of recycling displaces effort/attention better directed toward other things. Some people might think that recycling absolves them from other environmentally irresponsible behavior, but I don't think that the effort to increase recycling is really an optimization problem since it doesn't really introduce meaningful costs into most everyday lives.
JamisonM 15y ago
There are a lot of interesting responses to this comment but I think the whole percentage of waste thing is a red herring. As household waste is recycled it extends the life of landfills around populated ares significantly which means that the current landfills have a longer life and thus a higher current value from local government perspectives. This has a very significant impact on how much is invested in keeping them from polluting groundwater as well as preventing new landfills from occupying otherwise usable space. This argument alone is enough to justify residential recycling programs, they do help the local environment (the environment most would regard as most important to themselves) and waste reduction comes close to paying for itself in saved municipal costs (which would be reflected in local taxes). In places where energy costs are high and land very valuable recycling makes economic sense without any concern for the environment.

xlpz 15y ago

I've seen some estimates saying that the total percentage of waste coming from households can be as lows as 2%, depending on how you count. For example, this cites an EPA study: http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm http://www.zerowasteamerica.org/Statistics.htm The same page mentions a higher bound of 20%, but in any case it seems reasonably well established that the vast majority of the waste produced (at least in the US) comes from the manufacturing/industrial process itself, not from households. A book that goes into quite a bit of detail about this is "Gone tomorrow" by Heather Rogers.

morsch 15y ago
Huh. Looking at statistics from Germany, the total waste is seperated into four categories: waste from building demolition and construction, waste from industrial processes, waste from mining, waste from private households and offices. Waste from demolition and construction makes up more than half of the total waste, the remaining three categories are split about evenly. I'm surprised that the construction waste is that high. Apart from that, it seems that manufacturing and construction waste is less dominant over here than it is in the US. Odd! Maybe I'm reading the numbers wrong or they're counting really differently. FWIW, Wikipedia says that the per capita waste amount is about 500 kg, referring to just the category of private households/offices I assume. Ref: http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfallaufkommen_2008.pdf http://www.bmu.de/files/pdfs/allgemein/application/pdf/abfal... (German)
screwt 15y ago
tl;dr: Building waste is mostly rubble (not really necessary to recycle); these stats are by weight (density of rubble >> density of household waste). Treat these stats & suggestions of "no point doing any household recycling" with caution. I think these statistics are somewhat misleading. Waste from building tends to be rubble and dirt. Some of this can be re-used (eg filler for roads), but also the environmental impact of disposing of dirt is not much. More importantly, the stats on the link above give waste measured by weight. A skip full of rubble (densely-packed stone) weighs far more than a skip full of general trash (loose-packed plastic bottles). A comparison by volume would be more informative[1]. That doesn't go for all building waste, and I don't know what comprises most industrial waste. All in all, I suspect cutting everyone's household waste to zero would make a significant impact on reducing the volume of waste produced nationwide; I don't know though whether it would make as much as a 50% impact. [1] Obviously there are difficulties comparing by volume since household waste can be compacted to a great degree - my point is that comparison by weight skews heavily to the side of building waste.
acqq 15y ago
I'd still like to have any real quotation. EPA claims about "Municipal Solid Waste": "We estimated residential waste (including waste from apartment houses) to be 55 to 65 percent of total MSW generation. Waste from commercial and institutional locations, such as schools, hospitals, and businesses, amounted to 35 to 45 percent." http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2009-fs.pdf http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/msw2009-fs... See also what screwt writes: the rubble, for example, is not the kind of waste that has an environmental impact of the household waste (e.g. batteries with toxic materials etc). The important thing is environmental impact, not the absolute weight of the waste. I agree however that EPA seems to be too silent about the waste produced by factories.

nickik 15y ago

I highly doute it. Im from Switzerland and we do alot of recycling. In our 3 person household we probebly reduce garbage produced by more then 50%. Switzerland is small but if everybody did this spezially ameria it would make much more then a statisticall margin error. Of all the daily garbage we seperate out: paper carton organic stuff (compost) batteries cans Plastic bottle glas Edit: Most buissnesses do this too.

mike-cardwell 15y ago
I'm sort of looking for statistics rather than anecdotes. As far as I can see, the figures for America look reasonably accurate. No idea about Switzerland though...
wladimir 15y ago
His point is that even if you, and all other households managed to get their waste to 0% (unlikely), that still only would make 3% difference in the total amount. Which is better than nothing but still only a drop in the bucket.
- nickik 15y ago
  Like I said in the edit most buisnesses do this too, its not just households.

mambodog 15y ago

Perhaps this is more of an indictment on the obscene volumes of waste produced by the US (and others).

wladimir 15y ago

97% of waste is industrial? That's pretty shocking to me. I wonder what part of this waste is from production of our cherished technological gadgets and computer equipment, replacing the gadgets of yester-year. Which are generally still working fine, but are replaced by something incrementally better...

waterlesscloud 15y ago
Or commercial in general. Offices, small businesses, etc.
mason55 15y ago
I wonder what part of this waste is from production of our cherished technological gadgets and computer equipment, replacing the gadgets of yester-year If we're talking about waste produced in the US? Probably not a ton. There is a lot of high-tech manufacturing in the US but it's generally industrial components (airplanes, solar cells) that companies keep around until they no longer work. There's not much in the way of consumer electronics manufactured in the US. Now if you want to talk worldwide...
- wladimir 15y ago
  I mean worldwide. Excluding the waste caused by production (in China, Taiwan, etc) of things consumed in the western world would be a more than a bit hypocritical.

toddmorey 15y ago

Related point: I think it's unfair to entirely separate manufacturing waste from household waste. I think it's more about the combined waste generated in the production and consumption of household goods. What I hate about recycling is that it's so much less effective than the other r's: reducing and reusing. I wish the focus was much more on those two; think of the impact possible if consumers just demanded less packaging, for example.

pingswept 15y ago

The fraction of the total waste stream that you can affect is irrelevant when deciding whether to recycle. Any single industrial waste creator could make the same argument-- my company only creates 0.001% of the waste stream, so it doesn't matter what I do. This has to be wrong, because we know that the total outcome is nothing other than the aggregated behaviors of all of us, and the total outcome matters. The important question is whether the impact of recycling the waste you create is a net gain or loss, after you take into account all the work needed to do the recycling. From an energy perspective, most recycling is a massive saver of energy [1], but that doesn't mean it's economical. England, for example, imports a lot of glass, but does very little glass manufacturing. Recycling glass there is probably not a valuable service, but that says nothing about its value where you live (unless you happen to live in England). Waste stream sorting technology is still developing; I wouldn't be surprised if that reduces costs in the future such that sorting waste in your house isn't worth it-- you'll just dump everything in the bin and let robots pick out the valuable stuff later. [1]: http://www.economist.com/node/9249262 http://www.economist.com/node/9249262 (Money quote: "Recycling aluminium, for example, can reduce energy consumption by as much as 95%. Savings for other materials are lower but still substantial: about 70% for plastics, 60% for steel, 40% for paper and 30% for glass.")

mike-cardwell 15y ago
Knowing the percentage of waste that is house hold waste is extremely important. If it's 50%, then getting people to recycle is essential. If it's 3%, maybe there are better things we can be concentrating on to reduce the overall amount of waste. In tech, we call it premature optimisation.
- CognitiveLens 15y ago
  Your argument only holds if the "effort" of recycling displaces effort/attention better directed toward other things. Some people might think that recycling absolves them from other environmentally irresponsible behavior, but I don't think that the effort to increase recycling is really an optimization problem since it doesn't really introduce meaningful costs into most everyday lives.

JamisonM 15y ago

There are a lot of interesting responses to this comment but I think the whole percentage of waste thing is a red herring. As household waste is recycled it extends the life of landfills around populated ares significantly which means that the current landfills have a longer life and thus a higher current value from local government perspectives. This has a very significant impact on how much is invested in keeping them from polluting groundwater as well as preventing new landfills from occupying otherwise usable space. This argument alone is enough to justify residential recycling programs, they do help the local environment (the environment most would regard as most important to themselves) and waste reduction comes close to paying for itself in saved municipal costs (which would be reflected in local taxes). In places where energy costs are high and land very valuable recycling makes economic sense without any concern for the environment.