Recycling Offers Many Benefits in Research Paper

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Meanwhile Porter points out that in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2002, the city was collecting 11,586 tons of recyclables materials a year (roughly two-thirds of a pound per person per day) and those numbers added up to an impressive benefit: a savings to the city of $324,000 a year (143). Not only that, but costs of solid wastes are avoided, and Ann Arbor no longer operates its own landfill; instead it pays $28 a ton for non-recyclables to be hauled to a private landfill, Porter explains.

Like Porter, author Don Fullerton is not shy about exposing the fiscal reality of recycling from the market perspective; he even suggests that cities perhaps have launched curbside recycling programs with "incomplete information" (Fullerton, 2002, p. 161). Once local and state policy makers discover how expensive it is for a municipality to put a curbside recycling program in place, Fullerton suggests some city recycling programs will be eliminated. Indeed he reports (161) that in 1997, eleven states reported "…a decrease in the number of curbside recycling programs."

But Fullerton doesn't throw cold water over all curbside programs; he references Ohio as an example where curbside recycling is booming. Eighty-six new curbside programs were launched in Ohio in 1997, and three other states (he doesn't name) have added programs. When an author sees that there are 9,000 curbside programs operating he can see they haven't all "miscalculated the market benefits and costs of recycling" (161). Of course municipal recycling programs are expected to "produce environmental benefits" beyond any bottom line dollars and cents issues, Fullerton argues.

Increases in recycling are fully expected to reduce costs associated with landfill disposals, with incineration, and there should be an accompanying reduction in air and water pollution. Specifically, Fullerton explains that the use of recycled "over virgin inputs in manufacturing is estimated to reduce 10 types of air emissions and 8 types of water effluents" (161).

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The most dramatic reductions that Fullerton envisions as a result of curbside programs occur for: "carbon dioxide, methane, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides" (161).

The author suggests that the best strategy he has seen in terms of encouraging cities and towns to develop programs is when the state passes legislation that requires those local municipalities to institute recycling. But along with the law and requirement, the state provides money for the city or town. On page 161 Fullerton notes that when Pennsylvania placed a new law on the books it had a "tremendous impact on the number of municipal recycling programs" in the state. Prior to "Act 101," there were 245 Pennsylvania towns recycling about 414,000 tons in the state. Within two years, Fullerton explains, once the law had been in place for a while and money had been sent from the state to cities and towns for their programs, there were 755 curbside recycling programs that were recycling 1,710,000 tons of material (161).

Whether the recycling takes place in the U.S. Or Korea, it has tangible benefits. For example, in the journal Applied Economics the authors relate to the environmental damage that has been done in Korea due to agricultural waste. But since the landfills in Korea are overflowing and incineration is expensive, recycling offers an "overwhelming advantage" to those options (Kwak, et al., 2004, p. 144). By transforming waste materials from agriculture into "…usable resources, recycling provides a better way of managing waste," Kwak explains. The advantages of recycling for Koreans: it lowers the levels of resources; it conserves energy; and it "builds more competitive manufacturing industries" (Kwak, 144). The authors assert that the recycling process for agricultural waste "will become the method of choice" partly due to the lack of other alternatives, and also.....

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