Seth Goodman has questioned my assertion that recycling end-of-life
electronics is a waste of money. He says, "the motive for recycling is the
reduction in volume of our solid waste stream."
First we need to remember that end-of-life electronic products constitute
one percent of municipal solid waste. If it hadn't been for activists
looking for an issue, I doubt that anyone would have even considered such a
minor constituent. Also, in response to Brian Ellis's comment, the amount of
mining and refining that would be avoided by electronics recycling is too
small to notice, as I'm sure that the leadfree life-cycle analysis will
conclude. If the activists can't find a bigger opportunity than this to go
after, they should declare victory, return the remaining money in their
treasuries to their donors, and dissolve their organizations.
The motive for recycling should be to reduce the cost of handling solid
municipal waste. If due to local situation the cost of disposal is higher,
then in that region recycling of some things might turn out to be an
economical alternative. But if it turns out that loading the refuse in a
truck and hauling it five hundred miles away to an acceptable location is
less expensive, then that is what should be done. (Brian, high-value scrap
already gets recycled.) Economics, not idealism. Adam Smith's "invisible
hand" will make it happen automatically. In fact, if recycling makes
economic sense, then there is no need for any deliberative or legislative
body to take any action to promote it, other than to ensure that the costs
are accurately known. To that end, governments can institute a "pay as you
throw" policy, to ensure that the amount that people are charged accurately
reflects the cost of disposal, and is not being subsidized by tax money.
Where this has been tried, it has reduced the volume by a lot more than
diverting all electronic products would. See
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/payt/ .

Mr. Goodman says "I might also suggest to Gordon that he try to avoid
pairing every occurrence of the word environmentalist with irresponsible.
While he never directly states that all environmentalists are irresponsible
propagandists, ..."
I don't know what fraction of all environmentalists is irresponsible, and it
doesn't really matter. It's the irresponsible ones who are causing the
problem. These are the ones who love to talk about greedy irresponsible
industrialists. I thought about including "greedy" in my characterization of
them - perhaps introduce an acronym: GIEAs. At least industrialists admit to
being in business to make money. The GIEAs exploit people's concern for the
environment to pursue their own selfish ends. Edward Szpruch identified an
additional source of funding (grants to research people) that I hadn't
considered. It must be tempting to people who need to raise money, to try to
frighten people into supporting them - it seems to work so well. And if you
have to mislead them to accomplish your ends, you can always rationalize
"Well, it's for a good cause."
Maybe it would help if responsible environmentalists would distance
themselves from the irresponsible ones by publicly criticizing their
tactics. Their silence might be interpreted by some as condoning them.

Gordon Davy
Baltimore, MD
[log in to unmask]
410-993-7399

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