The Problem with Recycling – It’s Ineffective to Fight Climate Change

The Problem with Recycling, as presently practised throughout the EU, is it's ineffective to fight climate change.

It's not just the WastersBlog saying this. The UK Environment Agency has been saying it! Nothing has changed since we first posted the following article on this subject back in 2007, except that the problems are now more acute!

What recycling is really worth doing to achieve is to reduce the need for new mined and grown materials. Every ton of recycled material which is used instead of being discarded in a landfill is a ton less which needs to be dug out of the ground or grown.

By recycling, you are doing something worthwhile to preserve the environment by reducing quarrying for raw materials. Along the way some fossil fuel energy will most likely also be saved, reducing its use. The less fossil fuel that is used (combusted or burnt) the less carbon dioxide will be emitted. That's really worthwhile to help prevent our planet from overheating.

Article first published 22 May 2007:

UK Environment Agency Dismisses Recycling Efforts to Fight Climate Change – Problem with Recycling

Just days before the release of a new English waste strategy, the Environment Agency has issued a statement that “recycling does not really contribute much to tackling climate change”.

The statement came from its chief executive, Barbara Young, who also challenged people who say that recycling is their main contribution to tackling climate change to “further raise the stakes”.

“People want to care for the planet, but recycling does not really contribute much to tackling climate change. “
– Barbara Young, Environment Agency

It appeared to contradict research from WRAP that suggests UK recycling has a similar impact in fighting climate change to taking 3.5 million cars off the road.

Baroness Young was commenting on the results of an Agency/MORI poll said to be the nation's biggest survey on climate change. It found that 41% of people have altered their behaviour to reduce their carbon footprint, while 23% of these said recycling was their primary means of doing so.

Baroness Young said:

“That's a signal that people want to care for the planet, but recycling does not really contribute much to tackling climate change.”

She suggested householders adopt a range of “equally simple measures” including drying your washing outdoors and making sure appliances are not left on stand-by. The chief executive added:

“Many people might already be taking these actions alongside recycling, but if you're not, now is the time to start.”

Baroness Young voiced her opinion [regarding the problem with recycling] ahead of the revised England Waste Strategy now expected to be published next week, which has been delayed by six months to fit in with the government's climate change policies.

More Problems with Recycling:

Recycling is in trouble and you may be part of the problem

[First published January 2018.]

If you are recycling at home, you are probably doing it wrong. Read about this problem with recycling:

That is why a worker lunged to grab a garden hose off the conveyor belt at a Waste Management recycling facility here Wednesday before it got caught in a giant sorting machine. Such tangles frequently require the plant to stop the waste processing line and clean out the jaws by hand.

“Our contamination changes by the season,”

said Mike Taylor, the company's director of recycling operations here. Since it's spring, the facility is getting a lot of garden hoses. Around the holidays, they get broken strands of Christmas lights, another choking hazard for the sorting line.

And all day every day there are plastic shopping bags (recyclable at a grocery store but not from a household), chunks of styrofoam, diapers, syringes, food-contaminated containers … a nearly endless litany of things that residents throw into their kerbside recycling carts figuring they are or ought to be recyclable.

One worker grabs the remnants of a screen door off the sorting line while another snags a wire rack from a DIY shelving unit. via Recyclingtrouble

China has stopped accepting recycling from other nations – and that's a problem for recycling globally