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Allie Barke
Prof. Ackmann
Composition & Rhetoric II
1 November 2015
Garbage Guilt: Grounds for Passing Environmental Legislation
Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America: a waste of time and
money, a waste of human and natural resources (Tierney 1). This quote is from an article by
John Tierney published in The New York Times, shortly after the recycling movement began in
the United States. Tierneys controversial article allegedly broke the record for the greatest
amount of hate mail in The New York Times history (Perry). Recycling, which is one of the most
widely accepted movements in the world, is arguably one of the biggest deceits in history.
Tierney explains that Americans recycle because they became plagued with a false sense of
garbage guilt (Tierney 2). This feel-good activity that is encouraged and in some cases
mandated by federal, state, and local governments comes at a high cost to taxpayers. The
government does not have the right to enforce recycling or other environmental action because
there is sufficient evidence suggesting that the negative impacts of such legislation outweigh the
often-unverified benefits to the environment. In order to prove this, Im going to first explain the
deceptive history behind the modern recycling movement. Next, Ill explain the processes of
recycling common household materials. Finally, Ill examine the consequences of recent
environmental legislation and discredit the necessity behind recycling.
The government first pushed recycling in a public way during World War One and Two in
order to salvage resources that were in short supply. In the 1980s, environmental activists and
manufacturers including the Dow Chemical Corporation investigated the potential of recycling

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plastics. Further investigations were made on recycling other household materials. Ever since,
worldwide campaigns have advocated recycling of paper, glass, metal, and plastic (Miller). In
1987, a barge called the Mobro 4000 journeyed up and down the east coast for thousands of
miles trying to dispose of a portion of Long Islands trash. A city in North Carolina learned that
a few of the waste bins on the barge contained hospital gowns, syringes, and diapers (Miller).
Rumors spread about the barge containing toxic waste and, due to poor logistics and a mess of
bad PRenvironmentalists finally had proof--true or not--of the so-called garbage crisis they
were desperately trying to sell (Rothbard and Rucker). According to Professor Roxanne Greitz
Miller of Chapman University, [N]o single event in our recent history had as much of an impact
on drawing public attention to landfills than the garbage barge Mobro (Miller). One barges
struggle to dump its trash led Americans to assume that there was no more room in landfills and
it marked the beginning of a recycling obsession. Journalists initially played a key role in
fostering this recycling epidemic. Magazines and newspapers spread the news about recycling
through their own publications. According to John Tierney, It's the first time that an industry
has conducted a mass-media campaign informing customers that its own product is a menace to
society (Tierney 1). This ironically ended up in costly regulations that forced the publication
industry to print on recycled paper.
Tierney also points out that publishers may have been responsible for the initial wave of
the recycling epidemic, but the movement is still in full force today because recycling has a
strong emotional pull (Tierney 1). Americans, as well as people all over the world, find
recycling to be a morally gratifying experience. Its hard to think of any movement or idea
past or present that is more widely accepted all over the globe than recycling. In England, 56%
of 1,580 people polled by insurer Norwich Union in 2007 said that living an ecologically

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irresponsible life was a taboo, comparable these days to drunk driving. Recycling is such a
social norm that an overwhelming 90% of those same people polled said they had lied to friends
and neighbors about living in an eco-friendly way (Scott). People recycle because it makes them
feel good and because the media and government falsely convince them that recycling is
necessary to save our precious planet. As Tierney puts it, Americans have garbage guilt
(Tierney 2). And, the government uses garbage guilt, not truth, to pass environmental
legislation.
In 1988 following the Mobro 4000 incident J. Winston Porter, an administrator from
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced his five-year goal to recycle 25
percent of all public trash. Then, state and city politicians passed laws requiring trash to be
recycled. States set their recycling goals even steeper than Porters 25 percent. Most states
required at least 40 percent of trash be recycled; California and New York required 50 percent,
60 percent for New Jersey, and 70 percent for Rhode Island (Tierney 2). Communities set up
curbside recycling programs and built waste-to-energy incinerators, with unconcerned taxpayers
footing the bill. However, the incinerators turned out to be disastrously expensive, and the
recycling programs produced a glut of paper, glass and plastic that no one wanted to buy
(Tierney 2). The federal government passed more laws in order to find buyers for the recycled
output, forcing companies to buy recycled materials. The EPA reached their 25 percent goal
through regulations and tax breaks, but with an expensive cost to taxpayers and businesses
(Tierney 2). And even yet, environmental groups continued to rally for increased recycling. In
2012, the national recycling rate rose to around 34.5 percent (Municipal Solid Waste). But, if
recycling made sense, the government wouldnt have to force people by law to buy recycled

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goods. Newspapers would voluntarily print on recycled paper because it was in their fiscal
interest. However, the truth is that recycling programs lose money and are a waste of time.
Plastic, paper, and metal are three common materials recycled in curbside programs.
Recycling paper is a complicated process. After the paper is hand separated by type or grade, it
must be de-inked. The sorted paper is put into a large vat and mixed with water to create a
product called slurry. The slurry is spread across racks, so rollers can push all of the water out.
Once dry, the paper is rolled up for future cutting (Recycle Process). Recycling newspaper
creates far more water pollution than creating new paper. An extra 5,000 gallons of
contaminated water is discharged from slurry for each ton of recycled newsprint produced
(Tierney 7). It seems that recycling paper does more harm than good.
Tell an environmentalist that recycling paper costs more, uses more energy, and pollutes
more water; theyll try to justify it by saying the Earth is running out of trees. However, quite
the opposite is true. Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute, found
that America has three-and-one-half times the amount of trees in 1992 than it did in 1920.
America grows 22 million new acres of forest each year, but uses only 15 million of those acres
for paper and wood production, equaling a net gain of seven million acres each year. Trees are
grown specifically for paper production. The more paper we use, the more trees will be planted
to meet demand. Really, if we want more trees, then we should waste more paper. Taylor
explains, "Paper is an agricultural product, made from trees grown specifically for paper
production. Acting to conserve trees by recycling paper is like acting to conserve cornstalks by
cutting back on corn consumption" (Taylor). The more corn we consume, the more cornstalks
will be planted to meet demand, and the same goes for paper and trees. Since trees are a
renewable resource, saving trees isnt a valid argument for recycling paper.

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International Paper is a world leader in paper products, with net sales of $28 billion in
2012 ("International Paper - Corporate Profile"). In 1994, chairman John A. Georges gave a
speech that debunked some common myths that environmentalists have about the paper industry.
Georges hit on some of the same points that Taylor made, saying that International Paper
regenerates every acre it harvests. Another myth is that the paper industry is destroying tropical
rainforests. Georges explains that trees from rainforests are rarely used to make paper. Instead,
paper is made from pine trees that are grown in commercial forests. Georges concludes by
saying that recycling paper is not necessary to save trees, but rather to save landfill space
(Georges). However, I will debunk that myth later on.
On the other hand, recycling metal cans, made from steel or aluminum is a process that is
beneficial. The process involves first inspecting the cans for dirt and separating them from other
food or beverage containers. After a refining process, the aluminum cans are melted into solid
metal blocks called ingots and the steel cans are melted into sheets (Miller). Using recycled
aluminum to make new aluminum cans saves 95% of the energy compared to making new
aluminum cans (Recycle Process). The fact that people collect aluminum cans from trashcans
on the street is confirmation that there is real value in aluminum. We dont see people digging
through the trash to find plastic bottles.
Because there are multiple types of plastic, each containing different materials, plastics
have to be sorted before recycling. Workers at recycling plants clean and sort the plastics by
their resin codes, which can usually be found on the bottom of plastic bottles or containers. After
hand sorting, machines grind the plastics into flakes and immerse them in a flotation tank to
remove contaminants. After the plastic flakes dry, workers melt and shape them into pellets
(Plastics). Professor Miller says that in addition to being complicated, recycling plastic

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requires heat, which degrades plastics chemical properties, making it hard to produce the same
end product (Miller). Although the process is complicated, recycling plastic might be beneficial
in the long term since plastic is made from fossil fuel, a non-renewable resource (Recycle
Process). But, plastic recycling programs today are a waste of taxpayer money.
In April of 2013, Mayor Bloomberg announced the largest expansion of [a] city
recycling program in 25 years (Expanded Recycling Program). The program expanded New
York Citys recycling to include all rigid plastics, which means everything from the likes of
toys, hangers, shampoo bottles, coffee cups, and food containers. Bloomberg announced, There
is no more worrying about confusing numbers on the bottom of the container. This means that
50,000 tons of plastics that we were sending to landfills every year will now be recycled and it
will save taxpayers almost $600,000 in export costs each year (Expanded Recycling
Program). But, saving money by recycling is centered on the ability to resell the recycled
materials. So far, the rigid plastics, labeled as No.6 plastic, arent selling. In November 2013,
seven months after Bloombergs recycling expansion, Tom Outerbridge, the general manager of
Sims Metal Management, NYCs recycling vendor, says almost all of the No.6 plastic has been
shipped off to landfills because Sims cant sell it. Despite this, Outerbridge still supports the
recycling expansion saying, "We support the objective of getting more material into the recycle
bin and making it easier for the public, and we accept that we're going to end up with more
material that we don't have a home for" (Engquist). So, why is Mr. Outerbridge insistent on
recycling materials that his company is unable to sell? It probably has something to do with the
publics misinformed notion that were going to be buried by our trash.
Environmental advocates claim that recycling is essential because our planet is quickly
running out of landfill space. This is far from the truth. A common statistic cited by recycling

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critics is that the next 1,000 years-worth of trash would only fill a 35-square mile landfill that is
100 yards deep (Sealey 1). The United States is 3.794 million square miles. If we do the math,
we find out that 1,000 years worth of trash would take up 0.00000923 percent of the U.S. It
doesnt seem like were anywhere near running out of space to bury our trash to me. We may not
be running out of space, but arent smelly landfills hazardous to our health? Research by The
Cato Institute shows this is not the case. Jerry Taylor says, Even the Environmental Protection
Agency considers municipal solid waste landfills to be minimal health risks. According to the
agencys own findings, which were based on ultra-conservative, worst-case assumptions, 83
percent of Americas solid waste landfills pose a lifetime cancer risk of less than one in one
million (about the same risk inherent in drinking a glass of tap water). A full 60 percent pose less
than a one in one billion health risk (Taylor 1). Landfills pose far less risk than most things we
accept in our everyday lives.
Recently, plastic bag bans have been a popular legislation pushed by environmentalists.
In 2007, San Francisco was first to pass a ban on plastic bags at large grocery stores and
pharmacies. Since then, San Jose and Los Angeles, CA, Washington D.C., and Brownsville
Texas have also passed bans (Burnett 1-2). Plastic bag bans are supposed to save cities money
by reducing waste disposal costs, but Sterling H. Burnett refutes this in his report published by
the National Center for Policy Analysis. Sterling investigated the budgets from 2004 to 2013 for
trash collection and waste disposal in the five cities above that implemented bag bans. In his
thorough analysis of budgets, Sterling found that there is no evidence of cost reductions.
Sterling also points out that advocates of the bans have failed to provide any firm evidence of
their proposed money-saving legislation. Cities have no sufficient evidence to back up monetary
claims, but sufficient evidence that plastic bags arent a considerable threat to the environment.

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The EPA found that plastic bags contribute to less than 0.5 percent of the entire waste stream in
the U.S. (Sterling 4). In addition, plastic bag bans have resulted in job loss in the U.S. The
United States manufactures most plastic bags, while 95 percent of reusable bags sold in the U.S.
come from China. Reusable bags require much more fuel and more greenhouse gas emission to
produce and transport. A British study found that a cotton reusable bag has to be used more than
131 times before it has a lower greenhouse gas potential than a plastic bag used only once
(Sterling 14-15). Plastic bag bans have seemingly good intentions, but further investigation
shows the policies do more harm than good.
Based on garbage guilt, (Tierney 2) the government has passed legislation forcing
recycling and environmental action. The legislation passes because recycling makes people feel
good, but the tree-hugging phenomenon is based on misconception and exaggeration of the truth.
Our planet is nowhere near running out of resources or landfill space. Based on their
circumstantial evidence, the government has no right to prohibit freedom of choice with enforced
recycling. Modern recycling doesnt make sense, neither from an economic perspective nor from
an environmental one. Garbage guilt (Tierney 2) is not grounds to waste taxpayer money on
recycling programs that dont make sense or to impose plastic bag bans that hurt American jobs.
If the government and media published the truth, maybe Americans wouldnt have garbage
guilt (Tierney 2) in the first place. Tierneys article and other anti-recycling news are
unsurprisingly controversial because to an environmentalist, questioning the merits of recycling
is comparable to questioning whether or not the Earth is round. Its crazy talk. But, perpetuating
the hoax that recycling and environmental legislation is necessary to save the planet is even
crazier.

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Works Cited
Burnett, H. Sterling. Do Bans on Plastic Grocery Bags Save Cities Money? Rep. no. 353. Dallas:
National Center for Policy Analysis, 2013. Print.
Engquist, Erik. "The City's Dirty Recycling Secret." Latest from Crains New York Business.
25 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 May 2014. <http://www.crainsnewyork.com>.
"Fact Sheet Beyond the Curb: Recycle Process." Fact Sheet Beyond the Curb: Recycle Process.
N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. <http://www.mde.state.md.us>.
Georges, John A. "The Environment And The Paper Industry." Vital Speeches Of The Day
60.(1994): 305-308. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 26 Apr. 2014.
"International Paper - Corporate Profile." International Paper - Corporate Profile. Web. 16 May
2014. <http://www.internationalpaper.com/>.
"Mayor Bloomberg Announces Start of Expanded Recycling Program to Include All Rigid
Plastics for the First Time." The Official Website of the City of New York. 24 Apr. 2013.
Web. 15 May 2014. <http://www1.nyc.gov/>.
Miller, Roxanne Greitz. "The Ins And Outs Of Curbside Recycling Programs." Science Scope
30.4 (2006): 16-21. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 26 Apr. 2014.
"Municipal Solid Waste." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 15 May
2014. <http://www.epa.gov>.
Perry, Mark J. "Recommended Reading for Earth Day: 'Recycling Is Garbage' from the
NYTimes in 1996; It Broke the Record for Hate Mail." AEIdeas. 21 Apr. 2014. Web. 19
May 2014. <http://www.aei-ideas.org>.
"Plastics, Common Wastes & Materials." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 28 Feb. 2014.
Web. 18 May 2014. <http://www.epa.gov>.

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Rothbard, David, and Craig Rucker. "Recycling Doesn't Always Make Sense." Human Events
53.49 (1997): 10. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.
Scott, Mark. "Telling Little Green Lies." Businessweek 4051 (2007): 14. Business Source
Complete. Web. 26 Apr. 2014.
Sealey, Geraldine. "Is Recycling Worth the Trouble, Cost?" ABC News. ABC News Network,
n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2013. <http://abcnews.go.com>.
Taylor, Jerry. "Recycling Is Not the Answer." Cato Institute. 24 Feb. 1992. Web. 26 Apr. 2013.
<http://www.cato.org>.
Tierney, John. "Recycling Is Garbage." The New York Times. The New York Times, 30 June
1996. Web. 24 Apr. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com>.