I Recycle!
Market Prices Compel Us to Recycle when Recycling Is Appropriate
I spoke recently to a group of college students on the economics of environmental protection. As I spoke of the market’s amazing ability to conserve natural resources, one young man asked me, “Do you recycle?”
“No,” I answered.
“Well, thanks for the effort,” he replied with bitter sarcasm.
Before I could explain my answer, he gathered his books angrily and marched from the room. While no one else left, I could tell that most of the remaining students shared the sentiments of the student who had left. My talk’s conclusion was awkward and unsuccessful.
Only later did I realize that I’d given the wrong answer. In fact, I recycle every day of my life!
Consider a typical day.
After I awaken, I shower and dry myself with a towel that I’ve had for a few years. I use this towel day after day. I don’t discard it after one use. When it gets dirty, I toss it in the washing machine to clean it for further use. I recycle my towel.
Then I brew coffee and fix breakfast. Each day I use the same coffeemaker that I used the day before. I clean it after each use, recycling it for the next time. My wife and I drink the coffee from mugs that have been used many times in the past. (Actually, one set of our coffee mugs was handed down to us after my wife’s parents used them for several years.) We also eat our breakfasts using dishes and utensils that are recycled from countless past uses. After breakfast, we don’t throw our mugs, dishes, and utensils away; instead we put them in the dishwasher to be recycled for yet another use.
After breakfast, I dress myself in clothes that I’ve worn before and that I will wear again. My underwear, my pants, my shirt, my necktie, my belt, my coat, my shoes, my wristwatch—all are recycled from previous uses. And when I remove these clothes at day’s end, I’ll recycle them again, with the help of our automatic washer and dryer.
When my wife and I drive to work, we drive automobiles that we used the day before and that we’ll drive for the next few years. We don’t junk them after a single use. Instead, we recycle them, day in and day out.
The pots and pans that we use to prepare our meals—our toaster—our refrigerator—our television—our compact discs—our furniture—and, indeed, our house itself are all routinely recycled, use after use after use.
My family and I recycle a lot! And we’re not alone. Everyone recycles a lot.
Real Recycling
If I’d responded in this way to that student he probably would have asserted, “That’s not recycling. Real recycling is re-using things that most of us think of as garbage.”
That student, like most people, thinks of recycling as dealing with a handful of items that are wrongly thought to be semi-precious: cans, bottles, plastic containers, and newspapers.
But why do I treat my clothing and dinner dishes different from my empty beer cans and day-old newspapers? The student who walked out on me sees that as a moral failing. I don’t.
No moral issue turns on recycling per se. It might well be immoral to waste things, but contrary to popular misconception, failure to recycle is not wasteful. Real waste happens when someone recycles for the sake of recycling—that is, recycles without weighing its costs and benefits. If it is immoral to waste, then it is immoral to recycle when the benefits of doing so are less than the costs of doing so, because such recycling is wasteful.
We recycle as much as we do because it makes good sense to do so. It would indeed be wasteful for me to discard my fine china after each use. So I don’t do it. And I don’t do it because the market reliably tells me that it’s wasteful to do so. I’m of no mind to purchase new china after each meal because the price of fine china far exceeds the value to me of the time I must spend cleaning and storing mine for future use. I’d quickly go broke if I refused to recycle most of the things that I regularly recycle. (Incidentally, I’ll bet that even Bill and Melinda Gates recycle their fine china.)
But I do discard paper plates after each use. The reason, at bottom, is no different from the reason I recycle my china rather than discard it: it would be wasteful to do otherwise. After all, I could recycle paper plates. Careful washing would enable my family and me to reuse paper plates a couple or three times. But notice what would be wasted: valuable labor and time. One important reason for using paper plates would be undermined. That reason, of course, is the importance of saving the time and effort that it would take to wash dishes following the meal. Time that I could spend playing with my son, relaxing with my wife, reading a good book, or fixing a leaky faucet would be wasted cleaning paper plates. And to what purpose? None. Paper plates are so expendable precisely because the materials necessary to make them are so abundant. This abundance is reflected accurately in their low price.
The market prices resources accurately enough for us to be confident that if the materials used to make any items that are not now recycled become sufficiently scarce, the prices of those materials will rise. These higher input prices will raise the prices paid by consumers for these items, giving consumers greater incentives to recycle them.
Reflecting on the impressive amount of recycling that actually takes place daily casts doubt on the prevailing misperception that people are naturally wasteful and mindlessly irresponsible. In fact, market prices compel us to recycle when recycling is appropriate—and to not recycle when recycling is inappropriate.
Donald Boudreauxis chairman of the economics department of George Mason University and former president of FEE.
Comment by HAMZA on 11 August 2009:
We can arrange to supply all kinds of recycling papers from USA,if you are interested please contact us.
Comment by guy on 23 October 2009:
You can’t recycle food-contaminated paper, retard.
Comment by Aaron on 16 December 2009:
The student was right to walk out on you. You confuse reUSE with reCYCLE when they are two different concepts, and proceed to list ways in which you reUSE items in your daily life to support your assertions about reCYCLING. This calls into question whether you’re qualified to even discuss recycling at all, since you haven’t even got the fundamental definition right. I’m glad the student was spared your misinformation.
Comment by K-Rod on 26 January 2010:
Aaron, since you have not substantiated why you are even “qualified to even discuss recycling at all” you only show your hypocrisy.
The first question to ask is: Why should I recycle item x?
BTW, Aaron, do you believe in MMGW?
Comment by Erich L on 8 April 2010:
It’s a shame so many people are so bitter about telling other people how to live. Good on you, Don, for sticking to the concepts and not the criticisms.
Pingback by We all recycle. « The Last Post for Freedom on 22 April 2010:
[...] Go to comments The next time you a self-righteous prude tells you to recycle tell them that you already do. Categories: Uncategorized Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment [...]
Comment by Deborah on 22 April 2010:
I agree that markets often impact recycling. For instance, if it is cheaper to buy an inexpensive watch than to buy a replacement battery, many will buy the watch. It makes more sense economically. In the US, most people don’t have to deal with trash and landfills. Out of sight, out of mind. In developing nations where trash is a bigger issue, even the poor recycle. In fact, the poor will pick through the trash to collect recyclable items because they can make money off if it. It makes sense for them to do so economically. (I’m not saying it’s a great job, just that recycling is economically driven in that case.) I also agree that reusing things is akin to recycling. In fact, it’s probably better. It doesn’t require money or energy from manufacturing companies to reprocess them! I do think it would be nice if people recycled more. It’s not hard to do, and in some cases, doesn’t require sorting at home.
Comment by Doc on 23 April 2010:
To Recylce or not to Recyle…. As the author states it boils down to value, value of time against the efforts and labor of recyling. It some country I have worked they recyle because as one reader states they are poor and the benefits of recyling save them money, therefore it is in their instance a worthwhile expenditure of time.
The students response by walking out is infantile, I was under the impression that university where seats of learning, therefore discourse was promoted, not blind dogma, no wonder the modern generation are so inept at dealing with real life issues, if they lack the abiltiy to engage and seek solutions through discourse then we are surely doomed, but that is evident by the behavior of congress (Both Sides) partisan politics, rigid adherence to their manifesto’s and sadly their total lack of connect with the average American, no wonder Congress and the Presidency have such low approval ratings, like the student who walked out they prefer to keep their blinkers on racing down the track in a sucidal belief that they have all the answers.
Comment by Pat Moffitt on 28 April 2010:
Professor-Fresh take on an old argument! Congrats.
And to Casimir Adler-Ivanbrook- Some people believe testing should follow “imagining” what will happen to CaCO3 dependant creatures–. Seems zooplankton flourish with increased CO2 . http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/320/5874/336.
Coral also responds really well to increased CO2.http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119393461/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
You seem to disparage the economist view as simplistic while your own seems to always end in apocalypse.
Comment by Guest on 11 May 2010:
Paper plates – use them, toss them, and it’ll be ground up. For the idiotic “guy” up there, know that recycling isn’t a direct process. What you toss in the recycle bin doesn’t go directly back on the shelves. Those paper plates are shredded, pulped, chlorinated/bleached/etc, and then it comes out as new. Nothing is contaminated in the end product.
People recycle yet consumption of materials is still up. It might be time to teach reusing. Old shirts as rags, newspaper as window cleaner. And in the end, these too can be recycled after a long cycle of repeated use. Reuse old items, less production, more resources around. Simple concept.
Comment by The thinker on 5 June 2010:
I agree with the earlier comment about the confusion in the article between reusing and recycling. The terms are(mistakenly) used interchangably in the paper plates example.
If you wash the paper plates and eat off them again, this is REUSE.
Put them in the recycling bin with other paper and cardboard products, this is RECYCLING.
It sounds like the author practices reusing and not recycling. I don’t know the waste collection arrangements are in his jurisdiction but in mine we have a separate bin for recycling products and general waste. Its not a huge time cost for me to separate my rubbish into the appropriate bin, so I RECYCLE.
Comment by Joe Hooker on 24 August 2010:
We continue to foolishly place reliance on markets to assess the true costs of our consumer oriented, wasteful society. markets are clearly inept at measuring long-term environmental costs. The time horizons are simply too short, focusing on short-term efficiencies, and our knowledge base is inadequate. We continue to accelerate the extent to which we acquire and throw stuff out. Meanwhile, we accelerate the speed with which we obliterate natural habitats- ecosystems ,of diminishing wildlife diversity, degredation of ecology. Stop expecting markets to do what they are incapable of doing- taking an ethical, prudent, humble approach to evaluating how we need to fit in with the natural world.
Comment by D. Saul Weiner on 24 August 2010:
Suppose that one were charged a market rate for waste removal and disposal based on how much garbage he generates (perhaps by volume, weight, or some combination), rather than paying a fixed fee which is independent of one’s output (waste socialism). Would that produce a different set of behaviors? Would we use fewer paper plates if we knew that it would cost an extra dollar to dispose of them for each family meal? (the dollar is illustrative; I have no idea what the true cost would be). I think that depending on the costs involved, it very well could, especially for the more economically-minded.
Pingback by A reciclagem e os preços de mercado « O Insurgente on 26 August 2010:
[...] under: Ambiente,Economia,Nanny State Watch,Política,Teoria — André Azevedo Alves @ 16:00 I Recycle! – Market Prices Compel Us to Recycle when Recycling Is Appropriate. Por Don Boudreaux. It might well be immoral to waste things, but contrary to popular misconception, [...]
Comment by Cas Adler-Ivanbrook on 7 October 2010:
Hi Pat,
“And to Casimir Adler-Ivanbrook- Some people believe testing should follow “imagining” what will happen to CaCO3 dependant creatures–. Seems zooplankton flourish with increased CO2 . http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/320/5874/336.
Coral also responds really well to increased CO2.http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119393461/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
You seem to disparage the economist view as simplistic while your own seems to always end in apocalypse.”
You appear to have me at a disadvantage. My original comment appears to have been deleted (for some reason), so it is hard for me to reply. However, I looked up the first reference you offered. It concerns one species of ZP. Are you really going to extrapolate to your conclusion on this, and two species of coral, subjected to labaratory conditions? OK. I argue a general proposition about increasing acidification of the oceans. You are welcome to argue that I am doing the same as you, but the proof will be in the pudding, as they say. If you are right–well done, and I bow to your superior scientific acumen. If I am right, lord help us. I repeat–neo-classical economics mostly assumes nicely behaved mathematically tractable functions. If one has a non-linear catastrophic event, one is not going to be able to smoothly differentiate one’s functions. There will not be a nice tractable tradeoff in the MRS in C or P or U. The good news is that if we do experience a catastrophic event, we won’t be throwing away paper plates anymore… we will be trying to eat them… Cheers
Comment by Chris Martin on 14 April 2012:
The author certainly is unable to understand the concept of recycling. We must understand that these people are lacking something in their makeup even if they are educated and intelligent people. The best way is to educate these idiots who choose not to understand or maybe we just have to recycle for them. This is done where I live in California by charging big bucks to haul away these dummies debris and sort it at an interim location. This provides work for those who can’t get a better job. So it all works out in the end, for all of the dummies.