Recycling and Stages of Economic Development
If you are reading these pages on recycling, you probably already have a perspective on the need for recycling and the environmental benefits that accrue to society and the environment when recycling is practiced intelligently.
However, the wastage of materials and the need to improve recycling efficiencies tend to be public issues only in societies rich enough to throw things away. It is the well-off societies that generate the high volumes of relatively material-rich post-consumer wastes. By contrast, well-off societies produce relatively lean post-industrial waste streams because the technologies for efficient, clean production and waste treatment are often in place, and the costs of disposing of wastes are relatively high. The Nickel Institute recycling pages are most relevant to and reflect these developed country patterns of use and disposal.
In countries where poverty is the greatest social issue (and often the greatest issue for the environment too), loss of materials to waste tends not to be an issue. Low-cost labour will sort garbage and scavenge dumps for anything of value. Much less of value goes into waste streams in the first place; even less makes it into landfill.
On the other hand, in developing countries scavenged materials may be re-processed crudely. The results can be inefficient recovery and often threats to the health of workers, communities and the environment.
Attitudes and policies towards recycling should therefore reflect the economic situation of the local society, especially where the greater issue is poverty alleviation. Current trends see a number of countries steadily improving their economic situation, sometimes dramatically. For such countries, there will be a need to manage the transition to a higher economic status with care, avoiding the pattern of wastage that has often characterized well-off societies.
