Charles Moore

How much energy is wasted recycling paper (huge amounts of water have to be churned round), and in other forms of recycling? Is there really a shortage of landfill sites? Does it make sense to send thousands of metric tonnes of green bottles not wanted here all the way to Argentina in the name of recycling? Doesn’t the hated packaging of modern goods do much to extend their life and therefore ensure that less food is thrown away uneaten? Doesn’t consumption often protect the environment by guaranteeing its usefulness? Now that more and more wine is bottled with plastic tops, for example, who will pay to keep the forests of cork oaks?

To answer the questions in order. To determine whether recycling wastes energy (or anything else) simply look at the price system. If the recycling has to be subsidised, either directly or via legislation, then it is wasteful. That’s what price systems and markets do, process all the available information and allow us to make decisions. As an example, look at the gold market. Except for that tiny fraction lost to weathering from gilded domes and the like, all gold ever mined is continuously recycled, from the stuff in computers to tooth crowns (a little known perk of mortuary attendants). At $400 an ounce, you can see why. As one wise man observed, you don’t see used Ferraris at the dump.
No, there is no shortage of landfill sites. There is a shortage of licenced landfill sites. Even on our crowded little island there’s plenty of space.
Glass recycling? Jeez, it’s sand folks, silicon dioxide.
Packaging? As PJ O’Rourke points out, looking at the results of a Professor of Garbology, Mexicans use one third of the packaging of Americans and throw away twice as much rotten food. In a world with plentiful energy, massive resources and people who are still starving to death which solution looks better?
Yes.
For the answer to the cork forest question go talk to an ornithologist. It’s no one, and as a result the most bird friendly environment in Europe is under threat.
As Charlie boy has noticed, much of the current fad for “the environment” is bad for it.