The truth about recycling
2007-06-08 04:06:22.01269+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments
Economist.com: The Truth About Recycling. I was actually surprised, while recycling isn't yet self-sustaining outside of densely populated port areas, it's not as much of a money-loser as I would have guessed:
By the early 1990s so many American cities had established recycling programmes that the resulting glut of materials caused the market price for kerbside recyclables to fall from around $50 per ton to about $30, says Dr Morris, who has been tracking prices for recyclables in the Pacific Northwest since the mid-1980s. As with all commodities, costs for recyclables fluctuate. But the average price for kerbside materials has since slowly increased to about $90 per ton.