Howard E. Woodin ES Colloquium Series

What is recycling good for? The case of American paper in the 21st century

Daniel Press, Olga T. Griswold Professor of Environmental Studies, Executive Director, Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, University of California, Santa Cruz

Much was accomplished in the first 40 years of modern environmental policy, especially in light of how ineffectual pollution abatement was in the 1960s. However, a fundamental timidity still characterizes many American environmental regulations. Whether it’s pollution abatement or habitat conservation planning, American environmental policy rarely requires or aggressively encourages thorough transformations in the activities that cause environmental damage. Instead, American environmental regulators commonly do their level best to preserve, intact, how we produce energy, use land, manufacture goods, build structures and move ourselves around–provided the worst abuses of power are mitigated, reduced or contained.

After briefly reviewing the shortcomings of contemporary American environmental regulation, I will use paper recycling as an example of under-performing policy approaches. Although we think we have come a long way, paper recycling is largely treated as waste management, not as an important source of industrial feedstock. Consequently, the American paper industry has a much larger environmental footprint than need be, and misses opportunities for balance-of-trade, labor, energy and pollution prevention gains