what are the biggest limitation to recycling ?

Answer 1

Cost. Currently, recycling paper creates more polution than just throwing it away, and it there is no profit in it. The only recycling that is currently cost effective is metal, such as cans.

If you could efficiently get waste products to those that would use them as a resource in a form they could use, then profits would drive the recyclling effort and you would have far more recycling.

As it is, recycling efforts are extremely wasteful and cause more pollution than they solve.

Answer 2

people believing in recycling. having a kitchen or multiple trash cans that are adequate for recycling.

Having the infrastructure that can take the waste, separate it, and have a place to recycle it to. I think that recycling is still just a niche market. Look at all the junk tires... we only recycle a small fraction. Look at junk yards...

I remember seeing a show on New York's trash... There's NO method of separating that trash and recycling (and be cost effective)

Answer 3

there are several
storage
transport
convenience
cleanliness
and cost

along with keeping the environment cleaner by not burying all the milk and soda bottles, we need to make sure they don't get dropped on the road side and left

it is also important to rinse said bottles so the bugs and worms don't have a field day

you need to designate a space to store the items until they are transported to the next place, whether that be from home to the landfill or from the landfill to the processor

you need to pay for storage space, transportation, cleanup crews (lets face it - a lot of people think in the same area is close enough)

and it has to be accessible (convenience)

where I live the recycling system is part of the landfill and the dropoffs get moved to a processor (where they make your new pants from recycled soda bottles)

Answer 4

as i see it the biggest limitation is the lack of need for the recycled raw materials...

i mean, what is the point in dividing, purging anfd refining various materials from the trash when afterwards you have to either store them on a less smelly but just as big storage heap because no one wants them, or have to go ahead and deposit them in a landfill anyway, because your heap is full too?

and no one does want the recycled materials... well, not no one... but there are simply not enough applications.

for example most plastic and paper trash still comes from food packaging, mostly in form of compound materials.
only it is illegal to reuse them for that purpose... not even for the outside of a plastic lined tetra pack... sanitary regulations.
or the proverbial parkbenches made from yoghurt cups... of course they are made... in factories built with considerable help from taxmoney... and no one buys them because they are ugly, which COULD be helped if the manufacturers had a real interest in actually selling any, instead of just collecting more fund money... and because they are expensive, because of small output numbers... and the same ministry that had them made with your money, isnt buying them, because someone in their finance department only sees his numbers and goes for the cheaper bench made from tropical redwood and concrete framing...

so if you want to be acerbic about it, you could say the biggest limitation is human thickheadedness and smallmindedness.

choose yourself.

Answer 5

Refusal of styrofoam

Answer 6

the costs