Quote:
“it costs $28 per ton to landfill waste compared with $147 a ton to recycle†(Black 1006). In Atlantic County, New Jersey, selling recyclable goods brings in $2.45 million. However, the cost of collecting and sorting these recycled materials plus interest payments on the recycling facility costs the county over $3 million (Black 1006).
These figures don't even support his argument.
If recycling costs 3 million and you get 2.45 million back, then the net cost per ton is 147 - (2.45/3 * 147) = 26.95 or $27 a ton, one dollar cheaper than landfill. This is assuming that the net cost of landfill is pretty much the same as the gross cost, and that it doesn't cost the council significantly more than 3 million to do their recycling - if it does then the figures are pretty ****. It also assumes that the price of sorting etc is counted in the gross cost, as it should be.
Honestly, it would have been much better to quote the Black article he's ripping chunks out of.