Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Does recycling work?
Position‹2 of 2: No, recycling isn’t as effective as it seems
Argument1 of 3›: People don’t take recycling seriously

Let’s be honest, people are lazy. Recycling is so easy to do, but people don’t recycle like they should.

The argument

Recycling, on this view, is not a technology that succeeds or fails on its own terms. It is a system whose first stage is performed by untrained, unsupervised people in their own kitchens, and that is where sceptics say it comes apart. Although recycling is a good idea, people will not follow the idea to a "T". People are lazy, and they reason as free riders: they hope that others in society will carry out world changing positive actions without themselves having to. Because no single household's sorting visibly changes anything, the incentive to do it attentively is weak, and the shortfall is invisible at the exact point where it occurs. Willingness, in any case, is not sufficient. Even if people will bother to sort their trash at all, they will not do it properly. Sorting asks a household to classify materials it has no particular expertise in, with no feedback when it classifies them wrongly, so errors are never corrected and simply repeat. The result is contamination: in Minnesota, 15% of the material recycled cannot actually be recycled at all and is labelled waste. Functionally, people will just throw anything into the recycling bin to "better" the environment — an act of good intention that loads the stream with material the process cannot use, and that in doing so degrades what was sorted correctly alongside it. Both failures point the same way. The figures that make recycling look like a success describe what is put out for collection, not what is recovered at the other end, and every mis-sorted item widens the distance between the two. If the behaviour the entire system rests on is careless by default, then what the system delivers will fall short of what the idea promises, and recycling is not as effective as it seems.

Premises

[P1]People are lazy about recycling, hoping others will act while they do not follow through properly. [P2] Even when they sort their trash, they do it carelessly — in Minnesota 15% of recycled material cannot actually be recycled. [C] Therefore, because people don't take recycling seriously, recycling isn't as effective as it seems.

Counter-arguments

With enough teaching, people will realize what can and can’t be recycled. The problem now is how many people recycle. Only 34% of people in America recycle, and in Italy 36%. Progress is increasing but slowly. So, before regulations can be enforced, the numbers need to increase.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] People do faithfully recycle, and it does prove to be effective.