What economic conditions can make recycling more attractive than disposal?

Recycling becomes an economically attractive alternative to disposal when the financial burden of reprocessing waste materials is lower than the combined costs of two primary activities:

• Waste Disposal: The expense of treating and disposing of materials in landfills, which has become increasingly expensive over time.1
• Raw Material Processing: The cost associated with extracting and processing new, virgin raw materials.1

In contrast, conditions of affluence and the availability of cheap raw materials often discourage recycling, as they reinforce the tendency to simply discard used items. Ultimately, society’s decision to recycle is driven by these economic variables, where the efficiency of recovering value from waste must outweigh the costs of traditional disposal methods.12