Jäätmekäitluse (recycling) 7 müüti ehk skeptiliselt jäätmekäitlusest

Jäätmekäitlus on paljude seas populaarne viis kuidagi keskkonnakaitsele kaasa aidata juba aastakümneid, ainult, et paljud jäätmekäitluse õigustamiseks kasutatavad argumendid on ekslikud ja tulenevad kas puudulikust informatsioonist või teadmatusest.

Danile K. Benjamin on osasid jäätmekäsitluse müüte uurinud ning üritanud neid kummutada artiklis Eight Great Myths of Recycling (PDF). Kuna vähesed leiavad aega 36 leheküljelise dokumendi lugemiseks, siis väiksed väljavõtted seitsmest müüdist.

Muide, ma ei väida, et inimesed, kes jäätmekäsitlusega tegelevad, midagi valesti teeks või et nad peaksid sellest loobuma. Lihtsalt ei tasu jäätmekäitlust liiga tõsiselt võtta.

1. Meil pole varsti enam ruumi prügi ega prügilate jaoks.

USA on tõenäoliselt maailma üks kõige rohkem prügi tootvaid piirkondi, kuid järgmise 100 aasta jooksul läheks kogu USA prahi jaoks vaja üllatavalt vähe ruumi:

Various authors have calculated just how much space it would take to accommodate America’s garbage. The answer is: not much. If we permitted the rubbish to reach the height it did at New York’s Fresh Kills site (255 feet), a landfill that would hold all of America’s garbage for the next century would be only about 10 miles on a side (Lomborg 2001, 207). To be more colorful, Ted Turner’s Flying D ranch outside Bozeman, Montana, could handle all of America’s trash for the next century—with 50,000 acres left over for his bison.

2. Prügilad mürgitavad inimesi ja on üldse ohuks nende tervisele.

Prügilad on tänapäeval ohutumad kui kunagi varem ja nendega polnud ka varem erilisi probleeme. Prügilate ohtlikust tervisele on uuritud üpris põhjalikult:

The EPA itself acknowledges that the risks to humans (and presumably plants and animals) from modern landfills are virtually nonexistent. The agency has concluded that landfills constructed according to EPA regulations can be expected to cause 5.7 cancer-related deaths over the next 300 years—one every 50 years (EPA 1990, 1991; Goodstein 1995). To put this in perspective, cancer kills over 560,000 people every year in the United States, and celery, pears, and lettuce are all considerably more dangerous to humans than are modern landfills (Ames, Magaw, and Gold 1987; Gold, Ames, and Slone 2002).

3. Me kasutame kasutame pakendamiseks liiga palju pakkematerjale.

Tänu pakendamisel säilivad meie toiduained kauem ning kaubad peavad vastu transpordile, mis varem oleks neist prahi teinud:

Packaging can reduce total rubbish produced and total resources used. The average household in the United States generates less trash each year—fully one-third less—than does the average household in Mexico (Rathje and Murphy 1992, 216–19; Ackerman 1996). The reason is that our intensive use of packaging yields less waste and breakage and, on balance, less total rubbish.

4. Me raiskame asendamatuid ja piiratud ressursse

Toorainete hulka võib jäätmekäitlus tõesti tõsta, kuid samas saab erasektor suurepäraselt olemas olevatega hakkama või suudab leida asendajaid. Sellegi poolest võib näiteks metsade hulgas näha pigem positiivseid muutusi:

The amount of new growth that occurs each year in forests exceeds by a factor of twenty the amount of wood and paper that is consumed by the world each year (Lomborg 2001, 115). Perhaps partly as a result, temperate forests, most of which are in North America, Europe, and Russia, actually have expanded over the last 40 years.

5. Jäätmekäitlus kaitseb alati keskkonda

Ainult, et ka jäätmekäitlus vajab ressursse ja energiat, mõlemat võib aga kuluda rohkem kui esmasel töötlemisel ning märksa negatiivsemate tagajärgedega:

EPA examined both virgin paper processing and recycled paper processing for toxic substances. Five toxic substances were found only in virgin processes, eight only in recycling processes, and twelve in both processes. Among these twelve, all but one were present in higher levels in the recycling processes (Office of Technology Assessment 1989, 191). Similar mixed results have been found for steel and aluminum production. Indeed, over the past twenty years, a large body of literature devoted to life-cycle analyses of products from their birth to death has repeatedly found that recycling can increase pollution as well as decrease it.

6. Jäätmekäitlus säästab ressursse

Jäätmekäitlus võib jätta mulje, et säästetakse loodusressursse, sest osa taaskasutatakse. Probleem on aga selles, et ühe ressursivähesem kasutamine tähendab teise enamat kasutamist - näiteks transpordi või tööjõu näol. Lisaks on mitmed jäätmekäitluse kulud varjatud:

Many states and local communities subsidize recycling programs, either out of tax receipts or out of fees collected for trash disposal. Thus the bookkeeping costs reported for such programs are far less than their true resource costs to society (Wiseman 1997). Also, observers sometimes errantly compare relatively high-cost twice a week garbage pickup with relatively low-cost once or twice a month recycling pickups, which makes recycling appear more attractive (EPA 1999a, 1999b). Confusion also arises because many people focus on narrow aspects of recycling. They may highlight high-value items such as aluminum cans, or stress the value of recyclable items in periods of their greatest historical value, or focus on communities where high landfill costs make recycling more competitive.

7. Ilm kohustusliku jäätmekäitluseta poleks mingit jäätmekäitlust

Eestis on jäätmekäitlus muutumas valikust üha rohkem ja rohkem kohustuseks. Pandi kehtestamine taarale on küll positiivne samm ajendite loomisel, kuid ega see polnud just vabatahtlik. Turusurveid on aga paljud alahinnanud ja teadmatus annab alust väärarvamusteks:

50 years ago, when labor was relatively cheap compared to materials, goods were built to be repaired, so that the expensive materials could be used for a longer period of time. As the price of labor has risen and the cost of materials has fallen, manufacturers have responded—in the interests of consumers and society—by building items to be used until they break, and then
discarded. There is no “bias” against recycling; there is merely a market-driven effort to conserve resources.

Another force behind mandatory recycling is ignorance about the extent of recycling in the private sector. Private sector recycling is as old as trash itself. For as long as humans have been discarding rubbish, other humans have sifted through it for items of value. Indeed, contrary to what people say about prostitution, scavenging may well be the oldest profession.

Ma jätsin sellest nimekirjast välja kaheksanda müüdi, mis käsitles peamiselt prügivedamist USA's üle osariikide piiride.

Ma ei tea, kas see postitus pühendunud jäätmekäitlejaid ümber veenis, kuid kindlasti tasub kõigil, kes arvavad, et minu poolt väljavõtted on ammendavad, lugeda ka Benjamin'i artiklit.

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