Certainly, the economic or financial costs of a recycling system are important to consider. If a system is not profitable, it is not financially sustainable and may be subject to shut down in the short-term.
Sweden has a recycling system so effective that it's making a profit for the economy. Sweden’s “recycling revolution” is powered by one key element in its recycling system. Instead of sending trash to recycling plants, Sweden has its own incineration plant where it burns trash to turn it into energy for other uses like household electricity. Although this method does produce carbon dioxide, Sweden’s system has allowed it to save over 25 million tons of CO2 each year, 34 percent less than what it would have been. In fact, Sweden’s incineration plants are so effective that it imports trash waste from other countries, making over 100 million USD each year. Sweden’s system has become a part of its economy. Sweden does consider incineration and turning trash into energy a form of recycling. (Kim 2022).
The United States spends over 40 billion dollars in the recycling department, only a small portion of what the US economy is (23trillion). (Statista 2022) In comparison, 801 billion dollars was spent on the US military in 2020. Without the financial support behind its single-stream recycling system, it's struggling to become an effective system. Only 10 percent of the trash that is thrown in the recycling bins actually gets recycled, the rest usually ends up in landfills. (Krososfky 2021) The US recycling rate is 32 percent, far behind other countries like the UK with 44 percent, and Germany at 67 percent. (Statista 2022)
