Recycling versus incineration: An energy conservation analysis

This paper shows that for 24 out of 25 solid waste materials, recycling saves more energy than is generated by incinerating mixed solid waste in an energy-from-waste facility. Recycling conserves energy that would otherwise be expended extracting virgin raw materials from the natural environment and transforming them to produce goods that can also be manufactured from recycled waste materials. Furthermore, energy conserved by recycling exceeds electricity generated by energy-from-waste incineration by much more than the additional energy necessary to collect recycled materials separetly from mixed solid waste, process recycled materials into manufacturing feedstocks, and ship them to manufacturers, some of whom are located thousands of miles away.