Recycle for the Economy.

We are all aware of the benefits of Recycling and how it helps the environment. Although not many people think about its economic benefits. After all given the mess our economy is in anything we can do to boost it sounds like a good idea.

Now I’ll explain my theory:

Say I throw out a plastic bottle right now after writing this and it goes into the regular rubbish. Next that rubbish bin gets picked up by a truck this truck has 1 to 2 people operating it (2 jobs). After it this plastic bottle gets tipped into the Landfill at the local tip there isn’t anyone required to unload it and only usually 1 part time job created running this landfill. Also this costs large amounts of money to maintain. Although I can’t give you an exact figure most are in the millions. That money is just going down the drain. I’ve read quotes of landfill costing over 20 million (USD) a year.

So for my Plastic bottle to go into the local tip it’s created 3 or so jobs and cost the local government millions. May I remind you those millions come from your rates and tax's.

Now let’s say my Plastic bottle is instead recycled. The first part of this process is fairly similar. It goes into my Recycling bin then is picked up and taken to the Recycling depot (2 jobs again). Now this is where things start to change. Next the bottle is unloaded and sorted from the other recycling. Although a lot of this process is automated. This does create a few jobs as not all the sorting is done by machines. After its been sorted it would get squashed into a large cube with lots of other bottles and then it’s shipped off to a factory where it will be melted down and turned into new bottles. We shall say there was 2 jobs getting it from the Cube to the factory. Then plenty of jobs turning it back into a bottle. On the other hand this doesn’t cost the council nearly as much and it’s not a bottomless pit. This has created jobs and stimulated the local economy. In some areas (e.g. South Australia and other countries around the world where they have reverse vending machines and bottle return) then this creates even more jobs although I don’t know enough of this process to say more. The NSW governments a bit slow on the uptake also so we don’t have it here yet..

Odd given we are the "first state" I think that’s a bit of a lie we general seem to be going backwards maybe we should rename ourselves to the "last state". Although i admit we aren’t the worst on some issues so let’s call us "the state that sits somewhere in the middle, but isn’t leading the country in many if any initiatives." that would make for a good number plate.

Anyway back to the point it doesn’t take a genius to work out that by recycling my plastic bottle I’ve done more for the economy than letting it go into recycling. Although i admit half the time the bottle may get shipped off to china that’s not my fault maybe we should have privatized everything. Generally most of our normal waste is recycled here.

So next time your worrying about your job and the economy. Remember to Reduce Reuse Recycle. (The Reduce and reuse bit also apply to this as we import almost everything we use.)