Austin-American Statesman: Paper or Plastic: Which Has Better Recycling “Payoff”?
Filed under: Earth 911 - June 2, 2008
By Peter Mongillo
I’ve seen several notes in the paper recently from people so frustrated with the recycling process in Austin that they have quit trying. Perhaps what would help is a rank ordering of what is most important to recycle (biggest payoff for the environment, most cost-effective). I assume that aluminum cans would come first. What would be second, third, etc.? —T.K.
It depends on your definition of “payoff for the environment.” There are many issues to consider, including use of non-renewable resources, landfill space and the energy that goes into both the production of new materials as well as the recycling process.
I posed this question to a couple of different sources: Jill Mayfield, spokeswoman for the City of Austin Solid Waste Services, and the knowledgeable folks at Earth911.org, a Web site dedicated to providing information on recycling and other environmental issues. Both agreed that aluminum recycling is the most efficient when it comes to preserving a natural resource, saving energy and cost: A recycled beer can can become a new beer can in a very short amount of time, and making new aluminum cans from recycled cans uses 95 percent less energy than making cans from virgin ore, according to Earth911. Sale of used aluminum is also extremely profitable relative to the other items in your blue bin.
Two other items we leave on the curb, paper and glass, yield good results, but not as good as aluminum and other metal. Glass containers are completely recyclable, so glass that is recycled represents an equal amount of raw materials that are not used to make new glass, and recycled glass requires less energy to produce. Recycled paper reduces some of the raw materials used in producing paper, and paper mills producing recycled paper use 40 percent less energy than when using fresh lumber, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.
In contrast, the environmental benefits of recycling plastic bottles (water, juice and sports drinks), are not as great. Recycled plastic bottles typically do not become new bottles, but they do become low-grade durable plastic used in things like carpet and clothing, according to Austin recycling firm Cycled Plastics. So though the plastic is reused, recycling is not going to stop new bottles from being made. It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil to produce a year’s supply of bottles for water, according to Earth911. Based on this, there is more environmental benefit from giving up bottled water than there is from recycling the bottles. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t recycle, as it will keep the bottles out of landfills. In a recent article, the American-Statesman’s Pamela LeBlanc pointed out that “about 15 percent of custom plastic bottles, which include water, juice, tea and sports drinks (not soda, which is counted differently), are recycled, according to the Container Recycling Institute. The rest —an estimated 45 billion plastic bottles a year— go into landfills or become litter. That’s almost 160 plastic bottles trashed per person per year, according to the institute.”