The Green Guy: Recycling has many parts

Reduce, reuse, recycle … it’s stated so much that you probably give it little actual thought and instead just let it go in one ear and out the other.

Now there is nothing I have negative to say about the three R’s, as it outlines the exact concepts and hierarchy we need to strive for: giving greatest priority to reducing our overall waste creation in the first place then looking toward responsible management through reuse and recycling. But the three R’s don’t explain the benefits gained by recycling.

Let me address that.

Here we introduce the three E’s: energy, economy, and environment. This is the target we are making strides towards. Every time you bother to recycle, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, contributions are made that benefit the three E’s. Here are some numbers to make sense of that.

Starting with the big picture, the profit alone from recycling is significant in our state. According to a 2013 review on recycling by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, more than 2.5 million tons were collected in that year and provided over $690 million in profit. For scale, Carlton County’s expenditures for 2018 was a mere $58 million while Duluth’s in the same year was nearly $295 million.

Consider now that about 1.2 million tons of reclaimable materials were thrown away but could have easily been recycled to provide a profit of $285 million. Adding insult to injury, we paid over $200 million to throw it away into landfills. This amounts to a $485 million net loss which is 70 percent of the $690 million we gained from what was actually collected.

Said another way, we could have saved $1 billion by simply bothering to recycle properly. Imagine what that could be used for and how that could bolster our public projects.

Let me point out too that about 37,000 jobs were supported via the reclaimed material sector and provided nearly $2 billion in wages statewide

Now let’s get a quick glance at the efficiency here. It takes 90 percent less energy to make an aluminum can from recycled material compared to new material. Glass? Nearly 50 percent less. Paper? About 75 percent less energy. Mind that the energy sector is publicly subsidized for both conventional and renewable sources alike.

Final point, we can almost infinitely reuse metals and glass. It doesn’t lose its purity or manufacturability when re-smelted. But if you throw it out, we lose that material for good and pay with our wallets in turn.

Recycling is only possible with clean and accepted materials. Not everything can be reclaimed. Follow the rules of your hauler and don’t wish-cycle (contaminate). Let’s boost our public funds by managing our waste appropriately.

Chris Gass is the education and outreach coordinator for the Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District whose columns focus on environmental topics and stewardship.