Waste not, want not

Western economies are often castigated for producing too much waste. Maybe they do, because waste is a feature of the affluence that capitalism brings.  In rich countries, poor people can even live off the waste discarded by others.  In poorer countries waste is a valuable commodity bringing income to those who can re-use it.  In Vietnam, I saw young children spreading wet waste cardboard onto house roofs after a rainstorm, and was told they made money by drying it out and selling it on.

In World War II Britain there was little waste.  When supplies were scarce, things were used efficiently.  Potato peelings made soup, bones were boiled for stock, and leftover scraps were recycled into the next day's meal.  It is because people live in surplus today that they can afford to discard things which might be used.  Buying a chicken stock cube is easier for some than the effort of boiling a chicken carcass.  Recycling has time costs which are usually not counted.

 Some so-called waste actually achieves saving.  Much food packaging keeps the food fresher for longer and prevents food wastage. Cling-wrapped cucumber preserves it from going bad. Some packaging keeps the food freer from dangerous organisms, too.  And it often makes goods easier to transport and distribute.

Recycling is sometimes useful but can be counter-productive.  It is good to recycle aluminium cans because of the huge energy required to extract the metal from its ore. Alcoa has an aluminium smelting and casting operation in Iceland called Alcoa Fjarðaál, located in Reyðarfjörður. The smelter was built in 2007 and produces aluminum using cheap power from the Kárahnjúkar hydropower plant, making it a significant operation for both Alcoa and Iceland's economy, even though Iceland has no bauxite of its own. But it does have cheap energy.   

It is doubtful if newsprint justifies the cost of collection, transportation and processing, or the chemicals which leach into the environment when it is recycled.  Better perhaps to farm young trees for paper. Glass bottles are problematic. The UK does not produce many things in green bottles, which is what recycled bottles make. Some recycled bottles are shipped to South America, where many drinks come in green bottles. There seems to be an economic demand that makes it profitable to ship it.

 There is indeed waste in the economy if we don't use it or dispose of it efficiently, but there is money to be made in doing that.  What is waste for some can be profit for others. The sensible course is to recycle what it economic to do so.

Finally, fly-tipping is spoiling our countryside because it costs money to use landfill sites and it is inconvenient to dispose of waste legally. It would be more environmentally friendly to do the reverse, and pay people to use legal landfills. There would then be an economic incentive to dispose of waste legally. Cherchez la poche.

Madsen Pirie