Recycling: Could It Actually Add To Global Warming?

Ahhhhhh, my friends ... being Green continues to be a very tangled web of confusing and conflicting information -- even after weeding out the political crappola! The latest scuttlebutt is that recycling might actually contribute more the global warming (whatever you think about that issue ... and we know I am a global warming heretic) than simply burning trash to generate electricity.

Louise Gray and Gordon Rayner of the UK's Telegraph report on this notion coming from of their nation's key government advisers on waste management (emphasis added):

Peter Jones suggested that an "urgent" review of Labour's policy on recycling was needed to make sure the collection, transportation and processing of recyclable material was not causing a net increase in greenhouse gases.

Mr Jones, a former director of the waste firm Biffa and now an adviser to environment ministers and the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, also dismissed kerbside recycling collections in many areas as "stupid" because they mixed together different materials, rendering them useless for recycling.

He suggested that much of the country's waste should simply be burnt to generate electricity.

"It might be that the global warming impact of putting material through an incinerator five miles down the road is actually less than recycling it 3,000 miles away," he said.

"We've got to urgently get a grip on how this material is flowing through the system; whether we're actually adding to or reducing the overall impact in terms of global warming potential in this process."

Jones' suggestions are coming at a time when many of the UK's citizens are growing increasingly suspicious of recycling. Just last month, The Daily Telegraph reported that a number of towns in England and Wales had been dumping more than 200,000 tons of recyclable waste every year -- that's up to 10% of the glass, plastic, and paper that homeowners separate out of their trash. Additionally, thousands of tons of recyclable materials are shipped to China due to Britain's inability to meet demand.

In some parts of the country, residents have to sort their waste into as many as seven containers, including food waste bins, which has helped councils to justify the scrapping of weekly bin collections.

Some town halls have admitted using anti-terrorism legislation to snoop on householders who fail to recycle properly, but councils have so far refused to test the Government's bin taxes, under which people would be fined for throwing out too much rubbish.

But a collapse in the market value of recyclable waste as a result of the global recession means many waste disposal firms are having to stockpile paper, metals and plastics in vast warehouses because they are unable to sell it on.

Mr Jones's comments will add to the suspicion of many householders that the Government's recycling strategy is in chaos.

He said: "In overall terms we are reducing our carbon footprint by diverting material from landfill, but we are in danger of losing those reductions through the wrong policy decisions."

Mr Jones suggested generating electricity by burning waste instead. Alternatively, organic rubbish could be pulverised and stored in vats so that it releases methane, which could be captured and used to generate electricity.