Environmental Benefits of Recycling Study
The Environmental Benefits of Recycling Study (June 2010) provides the latest evaluation of the environmental benefits and impacts of recycling 21 different materials from residential, commercial and industrial, and construction and demolition sources in New South Wales. The study looks at the environmental benefits of recycling and measures them against four environmental indicators-landfill space savings, greenhouse gas abatement, energy conservation and water savings.
The Environmental Benefits of Recycling Study (June 2010) undertakes a life cycle assessment to determine if recycling is environmentally preferable across a range of material types. This study is based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology to assess the potential environmental impacts of recycling. The system boundary for the study begins at the point of waste generation and encompasses processes required to either recycle the waste material or treat it in landfill and to measure landfill space savings, greenhouse gas abatement, energy and water conservation impacts.
Environmental Benefits of Recycling Study (1058BenefitsOfRecycling.pdf, 1.04MB)
For more information on each of the material types modelled summary sheets are provided and can be downloaded from the list below.
| Summary Sheet | Materials and Assumptions |
|---|
Metals
(1058App1Metal.pdf, 2.13MB) | Aluminium, Copper and Steel |
Building Materials
(1058App2Building.pdf, 420KB) | Concrete, Brick, Asphalt and Paperboard |
| Paper and Cardboard (1058AppPaper.pdf, 643KB) | Packaging Paper and Board, Newsprint, Liquid Paper Board, and Office Paper |
Organics
(1058AppOrganics.pdf, 256KB) | Timber Pallets, Food and Garden Organics Combined and Garden Organics |
Glass
(1058AppGlass.pdf, 323KB) | Glass Containers, Sheet and Laminated glass |
Plastics
(1058AppPlastics.pdf, 745KB) | PET, HDPE, PVC, Mixed Plastics and Rubber Tyres |
Assumptions
(1058AppAssumptions.pdf, 337KB) | Collection, Treatment, Material Recovery and Energy Assumptions |
Where to from here?
The Environmental Benefits of Recycling Study (June 2010), will be the basis to create a simple on-line calculation tool (The Recyculator) that will help councils, industry and businesses to estimate the full environmental benefits of their recycling and broaden resource recovery programs, and communicate these benefits to the community in a simple and understandable way. This will be available early 2011.
Our previous calculator, The Benefits of Recycling Calculator 2006 (BenefitsRecyclingCalculator06-04-06.xls, 1.05MB) is still available to graph your performance and plot your progress.
More information
Contact: Sustainability Programs Division.
Page last updated: 02 March 2011
