Ask HN: Recycling vs. Climate What is the impact of recycling on climate change? I’ve always recycled, but as I was about to recycle a peanut butter container (which would be hard to clean out) I wondered if it was the right thing to do. It seems to me that there are many ways recycling may be bad for climate change: - Energy required to actually do the recycling process (this is material-dependent and may be net-beneficial for climate if more energy is required to produce new raw material) - Energy required to ship material across the world and dump it in other countries rather than deal with it domestically. - Energy required to supply water to peoples’ houses to clean out containers. - Energy required to heat water to clean containers (probably good rationale to only use cold water). - Energy required for more trucks to pick up multiple types of trash/recycle. Am I wrong about these? If not, should we be prioritizing climate over some types of recycling? Climate seems like a more pressing issue to me. |