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Why Do We Recycle?: Markets, Values, and Public Policy
The earnest warnings of an impending "solid waste crisis" that permeated the 1980s provided the impetus for the widespread adoption of municipal recycling programs. Since that time America has witnessed a remarkable rise in public participation in recycling activities, including curbside collection, drop-off centers, and commercial and office programs. Recently, however, a backlash against these programs has developed. A vocal group of "anti-recyclers" has appeared, arguing that recycling is not an economically efficient strategy for addressing waste management problems. In Why Do We Recycle? Frank Ackerman examines the arguments for and against recycling, focusing on the debate surrounding the use of economic mechanisms to determine the value of recycling. Based on previously unpublished research conducted by the Tellus Institute, a nonprofit environmental research group in Boston, Massachusetts, Ackerman presents an alternative view of the theory of market incentives, challenging the notion that setting appropriate prices and allowing unfettered competition will result in the most efficient level of recycling. Among the topics he considers Ackerman explains why purely economic approaches to recycling are incomplete and argues for a different kind of decisionmaking, one that addresses social issues, future as well as present resource needs, and non-economic values that cannot be translated into dollars and cents. Backed by empirical data and replete with specific examples, the book offers valuable guidance for municipal planners, environmental managers, and policymakers responsible for establishing and implementing recycling programs. It is also an accessible introduction to the subject for faculty, students, and concerned citizens interested in the social, economic, and ethical underpinnings of recycling efforts.
222 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1996
3 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Frank Ackerman
28 books2 followersFrank Ackerman received a BA in mathematics and economics from Swarthmore College in 1967. After serving for two years as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he entered graduate school, and received a PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1975.
He was a founder of Dollars & Sense magazine, where he worked as a writer, editor, and business manager from 1974 to 1982. After two years as a visiting professor (at the University of Massachusetts’ Amherst and Boston campuses) and one year as a computer programmer, he joined Tellus Institute, where he studied the economics of energy systems, and of solid waste and recycling, from 1985 to 1995.
From 1995 to 2007 he worked at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE). He was an editor of GDAE’s Frontier Issues in Economic Thought book series, a coauthor of GDAE’s macroeconomics textbook, and director of the institute’s Research and Policy program. For several of his years at GDAE, he also taught in the Tufts Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.
From 2007 through 2012 he was at the Stockholm Environment Institute’s U.S. Center, also at Tufts University, where he directed the Climate Economics Group.
In late 2012 he is joining Synapse Energy Economics, a public interest-oriented consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He was a co-founder, and is a member of the steering committee, of Economics for Equity and Environment (E3 Network). He is a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, an organization offering progressive scholarship and writing on environmental law and regulation.
In addition to his day job, he is a (very amateur) trumpet player in the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band (SLSAPS), playing New Orleans-style and other music at community events and good causes in the Boston area.
He was a founder of Dollars & Sense magazine, where he worked as a writer, editor, and business manager from 1974 to 1982. After two years as a visiting professor (at the University of Massachusetts’ Amherst and Boston campuses) and one year as a computer programmer, he joined Tellus Institute, where he studied the economics of energy systems, and of solid waste and recycling, from 1985 to 1995.
From 1995 to 2007 he worked at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE). He was an editor of GDAE’s Frontier Issues in Economic Thought book series, a coauthor of GDAE’s macroeconomics textbook, and director of the institute’s Research and Policy program. For several of his years at GDAE, he also taught in the Tufts Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.
From 2007 through 2012 he was at the Stockholm Environment Institute’s U.S. Center, also at Tufts University, where he directed the Climate Economics Group.
In late 2012 he is joining Synapse Energy Economics, a public interest-oriented consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He was a co-founder, and is a member of the steering committee, of Economics for Equity and Environment (E3 Network). He is a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, an organization offering progressive scholarship and writing on environmental law and regulation.
In addition to his day job, he is a (very amateur) trumpet player in the Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band (SLSAPS), playing New Orleans-style and other music at community events and good causes in the Boston area.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 24, 2009
Although the book is slightly out of date (about 10 years now), it is still relevant to the discussion, and really the only book I could find that addresses the issues comprehensively. Some may say that the author is too liberal, but I think he's really practical and covers all angles. He's not trying to sugar-coat recycling where it shouldn't be. Here is the closing bit from the book:
Why do we recycle? In the short run, before we are all dead, we recycle (and reduce waste and reuse things) partly in order to avoid the need for new landfills and incinerators. But there is much more to it than dislike of disposal facilities. At times, recycling saves money; the struggle to make it cost-effective is a vital and ongoing one. But advocates push, very often successfully, to extend recycling beyond the point at which it pays for itself. Recycling lessens the need for virgin materials, and reduces pollution from material extraction and manufacturing. Some types of recycling prevent litter or reduce landfill emissions. Local recycling efforts may provide a basis for new businesses to use recovered materials, creating local jobs and incomes.
As important as all these benefits are, they are not the whole story. The well-defined short-run advantages cannot explain the passion or the extent of involvement in recycling. For that we must turn to the vague feelings about consumption and waste, the desires for frugality and public participation, the belief that materials are ultimately scarce and must be conserved. In the long run, the materials we use freely today will be scarce, and our descendants will have to create a strikingly different, renewable economy. Contemporary recycling points toward that far-off future.
The last dangling question, from the beginning of this chapter, remains unanswered. Will the sustainable economy of the future have the feel of late twentieth-century affluence, or the frugal, hard-working mood of the nineteenth-century household recycling? There are too many uncertainties on the road to sustainability to offer a definite answer this early in the journey. But the practice of recycling pushes us in the right direction, toward the development of the technologies of sustainable material use, and toward the creation of less materialistic, more socially and environmentally engaged ways of living. There is no greater hope in any other direction. Indeed, in the long run there is nowhere else to go.
Why do we recycle? In the short run, before we are all dead, we recycle (and reduce waste and reuse things) partly in order to avoid the need for new landfills and incinerators. But there is much more to it than dislike of disposal facilities. At times, recycling saves money; the struggle to make it cost-effective is a vital and ongoing one. But advocates push, very often successfully, to extend recycling beyond the point at which it pays for itself. Recycling lessens the need for virgin materials, and reduces pollution from material extraction and manufacturing. Some types of recycling prevent litter or reduce landfill emissions. Local recycling efforts may provide a basis for new businesses to use recovered materials, creating local jobs and incomes.
As important as all these benefits are, they are not the whole story. The well-defined short-run advantages cannot explain the passion or the extent of involvement in recycling. For that we must turn to the vague feelings about consumption and waste, the desires for frugality and public participation, the belief that materials are ultimately scarce and must be conserved. In the long run, the materials we use freely today will be scarce, and our descendants will have to create a strikingly different, renewable economy. Contemporary recycling points toward that far-off future.
The last dangling question, from the beginning of this chapter, remains unanswered. Will the sustainable economy of the future have the feel of late twentieth-century affluence, or the frugal, hard-working mood of the nineteenth-century household recycling? There are too many uncertainties on the road to sustainability to offer a definite answer this early in the journey. But the practice of recycling pushes us in the right direction, toward the development of the technologies of sustainable material use, and toward the creation of less materialistic, more socially and environmentally engaged ways of living. There is no greater hope in any other direction. Indeed, in the long run there is nowhere else to go.
January 7, 2009
A fantastic general intro to the recycling industry. Covers some common goals and methods of community participation in recycling, costs and benefits of recycling compared to disposal, materials that are not economically viable to recycle, recycling programs in Europe, the role of bottle bills (the mandated consumer tax and refund on some cans/bottles), and the treatment of organic waste (grass clippings, etc.).
January 17, 2015
This book is definitely dated in the details, but the foundation of economic theory and the history of recycling remains as relevant as ever. It's a good introduction into the factors to consider when thinking about waste management, as well as a general overview into how to think about the future sustainable economy.
November 9, 2013
Dated, but still useful. The economics of recycling are fascinating (well, if you're into that sort of thing).
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews