Should We Recycle?

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Also with recycling, the desire to reduce waste—defining waste as not using our resources efficiently—is a worthy goal. But source reduction confuses waste reduction with plans to abolish useful products. Ironically, attempts to eliminate useful products can increase refuse by eliminating packaging that prevents spoilage or product damage. For example, developing countries experience food spoilage of 30 percent to 50 percent because of inadequate packaging, storage, and distribution. With sophisticated packaging, storage, and distribution, developed nations experience food spoilage of only 2 percent to 3 percent. Manufacturers know that more efficient packaging—rather than its elimination—saves resources.

It makes more sense to use such market forces than to assume that government bureaucrats can mandate more efficient options. For example, between 1980 and 1998, manufacturers reduced the material necessary to make a two-liter plastic bottle from 65 grams to 48 grams, an aluminum can from 19 grams to 14 grams, a glass bottle from 255 grams to 170 grams, a steel can from 48 grams to 36 grams, and a plastic grocery sack from 9 grams to 6 grams.  

In the rush to serve the politically preferred goal of source reduction, some public officials seek to reduce disposable products, such as paper cups and utensils. But a Waste Policy Center report that reviewed 34 studies on disposable packaging highlights why this policy does not necessarily serve public health or environmental goals. The study found that disposables reduce exposure to dangerous bacteria. For example, one study examined a sample of utensils from restaurants, hotels, medical institutions, and schools. It found, on average, 410 bacterial colonies on reusable utensils compared with 2 bacterial colonies on disposable utensils.

Because it does not require washing, disposable packaging uses less water and produces less wastewater. For example, the Waste Policy Center study found that washing a china cup in the dishwasher just once produces more water pollution than the entire life cycle of a disposable cup. Reusable products are better for the environment (in regard to solid waste disposal, air pollution, and energy usage) if they are used several hundred times.