Recycling

<b>An overview of recycling as an activity and a process following different materials through the waste stream.</b><p>Is there a point to recycling? Is recycling even good for the environment? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series Finn Arne Jørgensen answers (drumroll please): it depends. From a technical point of view recycling is a series of processes--collecting sorting processing manufacturing. Recycling also has a cultural component; at its core recycling is about transformation and value turning material waste into something useful--plastic bags into patio furniture plastic bottles into T-shirts. Jørgensen offers an accessible and engaging overview of recycling as an activity and as a process at the intersection of the material and the ideological. </p><p>Jørgensen follows a series of materials as they move back and forth between producer and consumer continually transforming in form and value in a never-ceasing journey toward becoming waste. He considers organic waste and cultural contamination; the history of recyclable writing surfaces from papyrus to newsprint; discarded clothing as it moves from the the Global North to the Global South; the shifting fate of glass bottles; the efficiency of aluminum recycling; the many types of plastic and the difficulties of informed consumer choice; e-waste and technological obsolescence; and industrial waste. Finally re-asking the question posed by John Tierney in an infamous 1996 <i>New York Times</i> article is recycling garbage? Jørgensen argues that recycling is necessary--as both symbolic action and physical activity that has a tangible effect on the real world.</p>