March 3, 2011

"Walker proposed ending state-mandated community recycling, which was signed into law by Gov. Tommy Thompson in 1990, as well as elimination of the grants that help local governments pay for recycling."

Good! Right? If recycling is worth doing, it should be paying for itself without a state government subsidy, or, if not, let local communities decide if they want to cough up the money to do it anyway. It's time for decentralization, efficiency, realism... not fluffy-headed idealism. Saving money is the morality we need, not posing as good people by doing something if it actually makes no sense. I'm for pragmatism, not narcissism.
[George Dreckmann, Madison's recycling coordinator,] said it costs nearly $6 million to run the city's recycling programs and Madison receives about $1.1 million from a state recycling grant. He sees few other ways to replace the money other than cutting back the recycling program. One possibility, he said, might be to no longer recycle glass, which is expensive to process. 
Exactly. Do that. Why should the state waste money incentivizing something that shouldn't be done? Why should Madison folk get to stoke their feeling of self-goodness with money from non-Madison Wisconsin?

210 comments:

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MadisonMan said...

Made you look!

chris9059 said...

Wow, you're a professor of law at a leading law school who chooses to blog about economic matters and yet you are clearly ignorant of the concept of externalities. Jesus wept!

Chip S. said...

@chris, You simply don't have a solid grasp of the concept of external costs. Jesus, or anyone else, has any reason to weep over AA's post.

Aside from the issue of controlling seepage from poorly constructed landfills, there are no significant externalities that are addressed by recycling.

Revenant said...

I recycle aluminum but not paper, glass, or plastic.

Recycling paper, glass, and plastic is wasteful and bad for the environment. Recycling aluminum makes economic sense.

bil_d said...

Daniel Benjamin concludes in his paper, Eight Great Myths of Recycling:

"Except in a few rare cases, the free market system is eminently capable of providing both disposal and recycling in an amount and mix that creates the greatest wealth for society. This makes possible the widest and most satisfying range of human endeavors. Simply put, market prices are sufficient to induce the trashman to come,and to make his burden bearable, and either he nor we can hope for any better than that."

Methadras said...

Vindication!!!! I've always said recycling is a scam and does not work as a state mandated regulation forced on the citizenry, because it doesn't. Now, if citizens elected to do it voluntarily, that implication is different and has different outcomes.

Matt said...

In our city, we have to pay to recycle, if we want to do it. A smaller town, about 15 miles away, has a volunteer-run recycling center that is completely self-sufficient. It's run by AARP, and volunteers get a portion of the proceeds (based on profits and hours worked)to donate to their favorite charities. The only non-volunteer workers are people doing court-ordered community service. The only thing they get from the government is a property tax break.

chris9059 said...

Chip S.

what facts do you have to back up your unsupported assertion that "...there are no significant externalities that are addressed by recycling"?

chris9059 said...

Methadras

Great example of circular reasoning. "recycling ,,, does not work ... because it doesn't". This is about the level of Prof. althouse's typical illogic.

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