Waste Not

I've just finished separating the plastics from the glassware and newspapers for this week's recycling collection and - as he does most weeks - my husband commented that my efforts are wasted because much of the cardboard, glass and plastic I carefully set aside for recycling ends up going to the dump anyway.

I like recycling - it makes me feel that I'm making a contribution to the environmental cause and taking an active part in caring for the planet. At the same time, I'm also very aware of the commentary about what really happens to the recyclables that others - like me - carefully separate and put out for collection each week.

The most recent piece I've seen on this issue is Michael Laws' 'Sunday Star-Times' column. Along with US liberal political commentator and filmmaker Michael Moore, he is a vocal opponent of recycling - which, they both claim, is a farce.

As a society, we are probably more ecologically aware today than we have ever been. Terms like 'global warming', 'climate change', and 'carbon footprint' barely raise an eyebrow when used in day-to-day conversation. We have been made aware - by politicians, broadcasters, activists, scientists and more - of the detrimental effect we are having on the planet and of what we need to do to reverse this as much as we can.

The truth is that much of what we put into our recycling bins ends up in the same place as the contents of our general waste rubbish bags: the local landfill. In fact, all glass put out for recycling in the South Island ends up being buried - because it is cheaper to do so than to ship it all the way to the country's only glass recycling plant in Auckland. It all comes down to money - do the benefits outweigh the costs?

By these tokens, it would appear that we aren't actually making a difference at all by recycling. The growth of landfills - which recycling was supposed to help alleviate - is obviously going to continue, given that the same amount of waste - recyclable and not - is being poured into them as before.

While many believe that recycling is a relatively new phenomenon, it has been around for decades - in the US, current recycling levels are below those of the 1930s and 1940s. The US currently recycles paper, glass and plastics - and materials like lead and copper are increasingly being re-used.

As a global society, we have also been conditioned to believe that all recycling is good - hence the meticulous sorting of waste and recyclables that goes on in homes around the country the night before rubbish collection.

Recycling, we are told, is the best and most effective way to save resources and avoid waste. But what about the preservation of resources? And is recycling a good investment of these resources?

To begin with, one of the most recyclable materials in the world today is paper - but paper is a renewable resource.

International studies have indicated that it could well cost more money to recycle paper than to produce new paper. It has been speculated by some researchers that it may be possible to save more resources, not by recycling but, by burning old paper at incineration plants - harnessing the heat to fell more trees to make new paper rather than expending energy to collect old paper, sorting it, preparing it and then filtering it.

Whether or not such ideas would work better in the long run than the action we are taking now, the fact is that all options should be considered. We should all play a part in caring for the environment, but it should be through initiatives that actually do something - rather than those which simply pay lip service to the issue. We all know what the Greens say, but here's a quote from Michael Moore.

"No real recycling was taking place. We were being conned. So I stopped recycling. I came to the conclusion that when I recycled, what I was really doing was letting myself off the hook. As long as I did my little paper-glass-metal separation duty, I wasn't required to do anything else to save Planet Earth. Once my bottles and cans and newspapers were deposited in the appropriately colored barrels, I could press reset on my conscience and trust that someone else would do the rest of the job. Out of sight, out of mind, back inside my gas-guzzling minivan." - Michael Moore.