Throw away your recycling containers and forget those trips to the bottle return center, because recycling household waste is a load of, well, rubbish.  That, according to the Telegraph of London, which reports how five leading environmentalists in Sweden have reversed decades-old wisdom and now argue that burning garbage is better for the planet and the economy than recycling.  The Swedish group said that the vision of a booming recycling market is still just a dream, and note that collecting household cartons is quote "very unprofitable." they also pointed to technological improvements that have made incineration much cleaner, and [...]

When you think of items to place in the recycling bin, you no doubt think of tin cans, plastic bottles and newspapers.  But for the folks in spruce grove in Alberta, Canada, recycling also includes egg shells, corn husks, and old leftovers.  This is because of the town's new curbside "organics" recycling program, where residents can take material that once was alive, place it in a special aerated cart, and send it to a local composting facility.  This novel program has already diverted over 13,000 metric tons of residuals from the local landfill, which has then been sold to [...]

Is more government regulation necessary to increase recycling by industrial manufacturers?  Well not according to research done by associate professor Pierre Desrochers of the University of Toronto and the Montreal Economic Institute.  Comments Desrochers: "The profit motive has always enticed industrialists to find new ways of channeling as much of their waste as possible back through the economy, instead of dumping it in the backyard, the river, or the atmosphere.  Even Karl Marx acknowledged that turning waste products into something valuable was the second best way to increase profitability after large scale production.  So the best way to promote [...]

Recently, a bill in Congress was sponsored to charge consumers a fee on the purchase of computers and TVs to fund a nationwide recycling program. But a new study by Competitive Enterprise Institute Adjunct Scholar Dana Joel Gattuso says that government recycling mandates are the wrong way to go. "The best outcome for consumers and the environment is for government to get out of the recycling business altogether. Despite good intentions, government mandates only create barriers to successful private efforts to recycle and reuse electronics. Much of the waste can safely be landfilled, while the rest can and is [...]

We all know how to get rid of old files on our computers by sending them to the recycling bin.  But what about getting rid of our old computers themselves?  That's the issue raised in a recent article in The Baltimore Sun which notes that with technology spawning faster and cheaper computers every few years, so-called "e-waste" could soon become a problem of megabyte proportions.  Especially concerning is that thousands of discarded monitors contain tons of toxic lead necessary to shield users from radiation.  And when you consider as many as 600 million computers in the U.S. are obsolete, [...]

Having to sort tin cans, plastic bottles, and stinky leftovers is no fun for anyone.  But a new technology in Australia called the UR-3R may just end up disposing of this old-fashioned recycling by hand.  According to freelance author Chris Prunty, garbage trucks bring waste straight to the new facility, where huge magnets pick out the metal, and a conveyor quickly sorts organic from inorganic waste.  The organic material, like old foodstuff, is fed into percolators to be turned into compost, while the glass, paper, metal, and plastic is recovered for future use.  It's still a bit pricier than [...]

Throw away your recycling containers and forget those trips to the bottle return center, because recycling household waste is a load of, well, rubbish.  That, according to the Telegraph of London, which reports how five leading environmentalists in Sweden have reversed decades-old wisdom and now argue that burning garbage is better for the planet and the economy than recycling.  The Swedish group said that the vision of a booming recycling market is still just a dream, and note that collecting household cartons is "very unprofitable." they also pointed to technological improvements that have made incineration much cleaner, and conclude [...]

When you think of items to place in the recycling bin, you no doubt think of tin cans, plastic bottles and newspapers.  But for the folks in spruce grove in Alberta, Canada, recycling also includes egg shells, corn husks, and old leftovers.  This is because of the town’s new curbside “organics” recycling program, where residents can take material that once was alive, place it in a special aerated cart, and send it to a local composting facility.  This novel program has already diverted over 13,000 metric tons of residuals from the local landfill, which has then been sold to [...]

In the early 90's, many cities ushered in strict recycling goals, only to repeal them later because they were unreachable.  Now, it looks like another nice-sounding but impractical environmental policy — that of so-called “smart growth” — is also  starting to hit the skids.  According to Kenneth Orski writing in Eco-logic, citizens from Virginia and New Jersey to Colorado and, yes, even California are mounting legal challenges against these anti-sprawl measures that are increasingly being seen as exclusionary and elitist.  And the reason?  Because smart growth’s primary consequence has been to raise suburban housing prices, maximize developer profits, and [...]

A decade ago or so, no earth-friendly activity was more popular than recycling.  But now, with the alleged garbage crisis no longer making headlines and Americans finding other priorities, recycling has taken a downturn across the nation.  According to an article in USA Today, Americans recycled two-thirds of our aluminum beverage cans in 1992, but now, that number is less than half.  Plastic bottle recycling has also declined, from 37% in 1995, down to just over 20% today.  With many states dramatically missing the high recycling targets they set for themselves in the 1990's, it appears reality is settling [...]

A decade ago, many communities undertook massive recycling efforts to avert a so-called garbage crisis.  Now that millions have been spent creating new garbage recycling programs, it appears many communities are encountering a new pile of problems.  Take Buffalo, New York, for instance.  Recently the Buffalo News reported that for both the city itself and the 33 communities surrounding it, recycling programs were both costly and ineffective.  Whereas the state required a recycling goal of 40%, today the regional average is only around 10-25 percent, and many communities are paying hefty fees to incinerate the recyclables they generate because [...]

For many communities, recycling costs are simply astronomical.  But at the International Space Station which hovers far above the planet, recycling is simply a matter of necessity.  This is because nothing can go to waste in a place where resources are scarce.  The plumbing, for example, is laid out in a complex network of tubes, pipes and ducts between the station’s outer skin and inner walls. So like veins in the human body, it circulates the vital liquids and gases that keep the crew in good health.  Indeed, even the urine of the crew and animals is recycled and [...]

Politicians love to pontificate about the benefits of recycling.  But while millions of Americans dutifully sort their garbage to conserve resources and keep down the waste in our landfills, at least one house in Washington is having a hard time keeping up — the House of Representatives.  This, according to an article in Insight magazine, which notes that the U.S. Congress is one of the worst recyclers around.  Much of it stems from the sheer number of documents that are printed and distributed on Capitol Hill every day, coupled with a lack of careful waste sorting.  But with many [...]

We all know how to get rid of old files on our computers by sending them to the recycling bin.  But what about getting rid of our old computers themselves?  That’s the issue raised in a recent article in The Baltimore Sun which notes that with technology spawning faster and cheaper computers every few years, so-called “e-waste” could soon become a problem of megabyte proportions.  Especially concerning is that thousands of discarded monitors contain tons of toxic lead necessary to shield users from radiation.  And when you consider as many as 600 million computers in the U.S. are obsolete, [...]

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