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A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Recycling in The U.S. | Manhattan Institute
Send a question or comment using the form below. This message may case study analysis essay routed through support staff. Garbage pickup is one of the core responsibilities and functions of many local governments. That service has been augmented, over the past four decades, by the collection of recyclables—typically paper, glass, metals, and plastic, case study analysis essay.
Every major American city provides this service. Recycling has long been considered environmentally and financially beneficial. The materials would be reprocessed and used as newsprint, bottles, or cans, while the markets for such materials would make it possible to cover the costs of collection and reprocessing, or even to realize income. Even in periods of slack demand, the cost to dispose of recyclables was lower than that of mixed garbage—allowing cities to reap an economic benefit by paying less to get rid of some of their trash.
This apparent win-win situation has changed dramatically. Pizza-box cardboard, for instance, is frequently contaminated by food residue, and plastic by dirty labels. As a result, much of the garbage that China imported was not recycled and ended up in landfills or incinerated.
When Operation National Sword took effect inChina insisted that it would accept only the noncontaminated recyclables that its manufacturers could use. As a result, the market for recyclables collapsed, and imports from the U. and elsewhere plunged. Since then, newspapers and other materials that municipal sanitation departments or case study analysis essay firms had picked up from city residents, who had dutifully sorted the materials and placed them in blue boxes, have increasingly piled up in warehouses or have been sent to landfills.
Yet, despite their reputation, case study analysis essay, landfills—once infamous for leaking into groundwater—have become federally regulated and are far more environmentally safe. It remains true that recyclable materials may be reused—but there is no assurance that this will happen, especially for plastics.
Meanwhile, case study analysis essay, the economics of municipal recycling has been turned upside down. Those city departments responsible for trash pickup now incur significant costs, over and above what they would have to pay in the absence of recycling. These costs include the personnel and equipment for separate additional refuse collection or payment to a contractor to provide the serviceas well as the cost of paying firms to accept recyclables, now case study analysis essay they no longer can be profitably resold.
Some recyclables—notably, aluminum cans—continue to have a relatively high market value. But they are mixed with other materials that have little value and therefore require expensive sorting. This paper examines the financial impact of separately collecting waste materials for recycling in five jurisdictions: New York City; Boston, Massachusetts; suburban Westchester County, New York; San Jose, California; and Dallas, Texas.
It finds that the cost-benefit trade-off is unfavorable and that suspending or adjusting recycling services could lead to significant budget savings. These savings are particularly relevant in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which is expected to reduce tax revenues and lead to pressure to reduce public services.
Determining what is an essential public service in this context is crucial, and the costs of collecting and sorting recyclable materials—some materials may not even be recycled—risk crowding out case study analysis essay for public safety, public health, parks, and schools. DOWNLOAD PDF. The idea of recycling municipal garbage grew in popularity over the last quarter of the 20th century.
Over time, the methods of collection became more refined. The paper, glass, metals, and plastic would then be separated by municipal employees or a private contractor or facility. Complementary goals were to be achieved by increasing the amount of waste diverted to recycling markets, case study analysis essay.
One goal was the supposed environmental benefits of keeping nonbiodegradable materials case study analysis essay of landfills. This line of reasoning is case study analysis essay represented by a guide for municipalities published by the U. Environmental Protection Agency EPA.
Communities can recover the lost value of material discards by setting up systems for reuse, recycling, and and composting. During the past 40 years, however, case study analysis essay, the environmental and economic benefits of municipal recycling have become less clear-cut. Writing in the Journal of Environmental Economics and ManagementU. economist Case study analysis essay Kinnaman, in collaboration with Japanese economists Takayoshi Shinkuma and Masashi Yamamoto, examined recycling in Japan, where rates of collection are similar to those of the U.
and other developed nations. They found that Japan was collecting far more nominally recyclable materials than its markets could profitably absorb. The inefficiency that the authors found in Japan applies in the same way for American municipalities: more money is being invested in collection than can be realized in revenue or reduced disposal costs.
The guiding assumptions behind the movement toward municipal recycling were upset in July Pizza-box cardboard, for example, frequently includes food residue; and plastic often comes with dirty labels.
As a result, much of the trash that China imported simply went into landfills or was incinerated. As a result, the market for recyclables collapsed. Since the early s, China had grown to become the leading destination for U. recyclables—as its growing economy had an appetite for reusable materials for its manufacturing sector. Virgin plastic turned out to be less expensive than the recycled version.
From a sheer economic perspective, a strong argument could be made that, after China cut off the pipeline, U. municipalities had good reason to get out of the recycling business. And that has occurred in some small, cash-strapped jurisdictions.
The Atlantic reported that the small town of Franklin, New Hampshire population 7,halted the collection of recyclables after the market change. Nevertheless, the dramatic change in the economics of recycling has not led to a change in case study analysis essay in big cities with larger budgets—although it has led to a significant change in their costs. What follows is an analysis of the financial implications of ongoing recycling in five large and distinct jurisdictions.
They include case study analysis essay that use public employees and others that contract private firms to do so. Collection includes paper, cardboard, metals, case study analysis essay, glass, plastics, and cartons. The situation is less positive for other recyclables. The economics are stark. Boston then pays a private firm, Casella Waste Systems, to sort and sell the materials when there is a buyer, or otherwise dispose of them. Westchester County populationis a suburban area north of New York City.
It consists of 43 separate municipalities, case study analysis essay, including those with city forms of government, such as White Plains, New Rochelle, and Mount Vernon, and smaller towns and villages, including Scarsdale, case study analysis essay, one of the wealthiest communities in the United States. All the municipalities also support and receive certain services from the county, a distinct unit of government that is overseen by an elected chief executive and legislature.
Those services include the handling of recyclables. These figures are deceptive because, unlike New York City or Boston, Westchester County does not collect recyclable materials at the household level, case study analysis essay. And the costs of collection at the local level are substantial.
Sanitation department costs are among the largest budget items for most of these local governments. These jurisdictions do not specify, in their published budgets, the specific collection cost for recyclables. With a population 1. Reprocessors in China were rejecting much of the materials they received, instead simply dumping it in settings far less sanitary and environmentally safe than contemporary U.
The Big D has what appears to be the financially best recycling arrangement in the United States. That facility operates under a contract that gives Dallas an unlimited right to send recyclables to it without charge—and revenue earned by the contractor the Madrid-based FCC Environmental Services is to be shared with the city.
It also runs the city-owned McCommas Bluff Landfill. This landfill has operating costs but also generates revenue through tipping fees charged to commercial operators and other municipalities. However, the city realizes virtually no recyclable sales revenue to help reduce the cost to residential households, as first envisioned when recycling began to be widely adopted.
In doing so, Dallas transferred market risk to a private firm and insulated itself from the market problems that developed. This is not an option that other cities could likely pursue successfully today. The Dallas deal allows the city to fulfill the contract simply through the collection of recyclables; cities such as New York today must pay reprocessors to accept the materials at all. Inwhen Dallas issued its RFP for a recycling process center, a good case could be made for the investment.
Revenue could plausibly lead to recycling case study analysis essay for itself, or coming close to doing so, if the city were to realize significant revenues. As matters stand inthat is not close to being the case. These fee-payers are covering the cost of collecting and delivering 55, tons of recyclables annually to a private company—supporting its fundamental need for raw materials.
Dallas also subsidized FCC by providing the land on which the company built its reprocessing plant. There is some evidence that FCC is under financial pressure. Dallas, thanks to an unusual combination of factors, has buffered itself somewhat from the current recycling market by transferring risk to a private entity.
But in the long term, that risk remains. As a practical matter, none of the municipal case studies that this paper examined makes a strong case to continue the collection of recyclables as it has historically been conducted.
Jurisdictions face a series of unappetizing choices: paying more to recycle less, or paying less but still seeing recycling goals not attained. The financial case for recycling that seemed strong not long ago has evaporated. This is a defensible policy only for municipalities in a financial position to effectively lose money in the service of a long-term environmental goal, even if the goal may never be attainable.
Even so, it ignores the question of which other city services—schools, case study analysis essay, police, or parks and recreation—might receive less funding as a result. First, they could simply cease separate pickups for recycling—and resume them if and when market conditions change, case study analysis essay.
This would allow cities to pay lower fees to send refuse to landfills—which, notwithstanding a bad environmental reputation based on practices that predate federal regulation, case study analysis essay, are now considered a safe and sanitary substitute. Alternatively, recycling pickups could be confined to those materials that command the highest prices, although even aluminum—long considered the most valuable recyclable—has dropped sharply in value.
At least one city, Minneapolis population, has already excluded some types of plastic black plastic and styrene from materials that residents can place in recycling bins for collection. Under current conditions, in short, it is difficult to make a financial and environmental case for municipalities to continue the universal, single-stream recycling of plastic, glass, metal, and paper. The author is grateful for the assistance of Noah Muscente, a project manager at the Manhattan Institute.
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Learn How to Write a Case Study Assignment the Most Easy Way
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Jul 17, · Marketing case study examples: ICMR marketing case studies. Case study solution guidelines: Writing a Case Study Analysis by Ashford Writing Centre. Citations and referencing: Harvard referencing guide. Citation generator: CiteFast. The bottom line. Cracking a marketing case study is not a one-step process. It requires a lot of practice and Jun 23, · With a population ( million) similar to that of Westchester County, it diverts far more residential refuse from the general refuse stream, thanks to the high recycling rate of its , households. (The overall San Jose diversion rate, according to a case study published by EPA, is 74%, including compost and yard waste Get 24⁄7 customer support help when you place a homework help service order with us. We will guide you on how to place your essay help, proofreading and editing your draft – fixing the grammar, spelling, or formatting of your paper easily and cheaply
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