I’ve thought about this a little bit and then got stuck when it comes to figuring out where the big wins are and where the dead ends are.
In no particular order:
Some metals are valuable. For this reason I don’t think they are neglected but I also think the public doesn’t know these metals should be recycled.
Recycling is almost certainly neglected because it is a public good that doesn’t pay—these are pretty well always neglected.
Destroying things and making giant landfills feels bad and looks ugly but actually doesn’t do as much damage as it feels like. The main reason that most waste campaigns give for more waste management is that it’s destroying the earth. It’s not. Getting an accurate picture of where the most damage occurs from bad waste management (perhaps polluted rivers in India? ghost nets left in the ocean?) is something very important and critical to the EA approach. As far as I know this hasn’t been done yet. Not by EA and not by recycling orgs.
Recycling is tricky because there is the benefit of the materials (mostly estimated by their material value) but also the value of preventing more material from being gathered. (environmental damage) The material value is already pretty accurate I suspect. With one big caveat: As new forms of waste (for example plastic) appear, then it takes awhile for new forms of use (recycled plastic shoes? idk) to appear and value the material.
Some materials are so difficult to reuse that recycling them takes more energy and resources than simply disposing of them AND creating them anew. Those kinds of things ought to NOT be recycled! Maybe they should not created from the outset. Depends on how useful they are probably. Styrofoam is an example.
Environmental damage of creating more stuff is missing from the recycling economic math equation and is where potential important interventions would lie for society.
Toxic materials are a whole category that is very important and I know very little about. This is probably where the biggest improvements and most neglect is.
There are some cool new technologies to look into—a student I met was breeding bacteria to survive in highly metal contaminated environments to breakdown plastics and concentrate useful metals for waste management. Potentially a lot safer than human chemical processing.
Plastics are generally becoming more biodegradable. I’m not sure what body is pushing that to happen but it’s a very good thing.
Furniture used to be a much bigger investment (like clothes were historically. People used to own 3-4 clothes and have them tailored. hard for us to imagine), but changing technology, culture, and mobility is turning furniture into a disposible resource. Potentially eventually almost as disposible as clothes. This seems like a big shift that recycling and reuse should anticipate and adapt to. Encouraging standards could go a long way to making furniture more valuable materials and increase the post-first-use value for both the purchaser, the recycler, and society.
Thanks! And totally agree! Many of these points are similar to the thoughts I’ve been having since looking into this. Addressing highly toxic or very poorly managed waste sectors makes a lot of sense. Would be interested to know more about the plastic eating bacteria
I remembered incorrectly—it was not the plastics, but the rare earths that they were recycling. Tanzeena Hussain was the graduate student working on it and having success getting bacteria to survive in increasingly toxic environments. She was crushing up old electronics to feed the bacteria—pretty on the nose.
It looks like they are having enough success to file for a patent and investigate if this could eventually be a viable business too. But speeding this up at such early stages could be hugely beneficial to reducing mining and improving human health damaged by rare metal recovery.
I’ve thought about this a little bit and then got stuck when it comes to figuring out where the big wins are and where the dead ends are.
In no particular order: Some metals are valuable. For this reason I don’t think they are neglected but I also think the public doesn’t know these metals should be recycled.
Recycling is almost certainly neglected because it is a public good that doesn’t pay—these are pretty well always neglected.
Destroying things and making giant landfills feels bad and looks ugly but actually doesn’t do as much damage as it feels like. The main reason that most waste campaigns give for more waste management is that it’s destroying the earth. It’s not. Getting an accurate picture of where the most damage occurs from bad waste management (perhaps polluted rivers in India? ghost nets left in the ocean?) is something very important and critical to the EA approach. As far as I know this hasn’t been done yet. Not by EA and not by recycling orgs.
Recycling is tricky because there is the benefit of the materials (mostly estimated by their material value) but also the value of preventing more material from being gathered. (environmental damage) The material value is already pretty accurate I suspect. With one big caveat: As new forms of waste (for example plastic) appear, then it takes awhile for new forms of use (recycled plastic shoes? idk) to appear and value the material.
Some materials are so difficult to reuse that recycling them takes more energy and resources than simply disposing of them AND creating them anew. Those kinds of things ought to NOT be recycled! Maybe they should not created from the outset. Depends on how useful they are probably. Styrofoam is an example.
Environmental damage of creating more stuff is missing from the recycling economic math equation and is where potential important interventions would lie for society.
Toxic materials are a whole category that is very important and I know very little about. This is probably where the biggest improvements and most neglect is.
There are some cool new technologies to look into—a student I met was breeding bacteria to survive in highly metal contaminated environments to breakdown plastics and concentrate useful metals for waste management. Potentially a lot safer than human chemical processing.
Plastics are generally becoming more biodegradable. I’m not sure what body is pushing that to happen but it’s a very good thing.
Furniture used to be a much bigger investment (like clothes were historically. People used to own 3-4 clothes and have them tailored. hard for us to imagine), but changing technology, culture, and mobility is turning furniture into a disposible resource. Potentially eventually almost as disposible as clothes. This seems like a big shift that recycling and reuse should anticipate and adapt to. Encouraging standards could go a long way to making furniture more valuable materials and increase the post-first-use value for both the purchaser, the recycler, and society.
Thanks! And totally agree! Many of these points are similar to the thoughts I’ve been having since looking into this. Addressing highly toxic or very poorly managed waste sectors makes a lot of sense. Would be interested to know more about the plastic eating bacteria
I remembered incorrectly—it was not the plastics, but the rare earths that they were recycling. Tanzeena Hussain was the graduate student working on it and having success getting bacteria to survive in increasingly toxic environments. She was crushing up old electronics to feed the bacteria—pretty on the nose.
It was in Elizabeth Skovran’s lab at San Jose State University. This is the only write up I can find on it: https://blogs.sjsu.edu/newsroom/2023/taking-bio-recycling-to-the-next-level/
It looks like they are having enough success to file for a patent and investigate if this could eventually be a viable business too. But speeding this up at such early stages could be hugely beneficial to reducing mining and improving human health damaged by rare metal recovery.