Recycling is Not the Answer | Cato Institute

Recycling is Not the Answer | Cato Institute: Before we conclude that recycling is the “answer,” perhaps we should think hard about the question.

If the question before Congress is how best to protect the environment, conserve scarce resources, and provide for landfill space, then mandatory national recycling is not the answer.

A brief examination of the case for mandatory recycling makes that abundantly clear.

First, we are told that recycling will help preserve scarce landfill space. We are not, however, even remotely close to running out of space for our garbage. Despite the “garbage trucks could ring the Milky Way galaxy” rhetoric, all of the trash America will produce over the next 1,000 years could fit into a landfill 15 square miles in size.

Clearly, concerns about “drowning in our own garbage” are misplaced.

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