How does recycling save landfill space and disposal costs?
Before Pennsylvania’s Recycling Law (Act 101) was passed in 1988, about 97% of the state’s municipal waste was landfill. The per capita waste generation rate was increasing, largely due to disposable consumer goods and excess packaging. We were depleting landfill capacity at an alarming rate. One of the goals of Act 101 is to recycle at least 35% of Pennsylvania’s municipal waste by 2003. Recycling and reducing waste clearly save landfill space. Given the recent growth of recycling technology and the creation of new recycled products, manufacturing techniques, and ways to recycle more materials, it may be possible to recycle as much as 60% of our municipal waste stream. Some estimates put the figure as high as 80%. The combination of landfill closings, the increasing demand for disposal sites, and the need to haul wastes to disposal sites farther away from the point of origin has led to increased disposal costs. In 2002 the national average landfill tipping fee was $34 per ton, while a
