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The statistics overwhelmingly support his prediction. The most recent EPA statistics (1997) reported that curbside pickup was available in over 49 states and 8,000 cities (Hawaii has since joined the team), and the National Recycling Coalition has estimated that around 84% of the population now has access to a recycling facility. As a result, the amount of municipal waste that has been recycled in the last decade has nearly doubled. By all accounts - public opinion polls and government studies included - people seem to want to recycle.

Of course, they also have to recycle. Fines and penalties for ignoring recycling laws are stiff, and this Big Brother finger-wagging is part of what prompted John Tierney, a NewYork Times reporter, to write his scathing rebuttal of the whole philosophy in 1996. Entitled "Recycling is Garbage," Tierney's article asserts that the resources, labor and sum personal time involved in recycling far outweigh any environmental or economic benefit. He further suggests that we not only have plenty of landfill space, but that landfills are an economic boon to the communities surrounding them. Tierney's engaging style was an instant hit among antirecycling political activists, but his often curious interpretation of facts left many scientists puzzled.

"Nothing is perfectly efficient," says Hershkowitz, "and no one I know of is seriously suggesting 100% recovery for recycling. Still, the main roadblock to increased levels of recycling is the absence of a commitment to this issue by indus tries that have many economic incentives not to recycle or use recycled materials."

Which brings us to a problem in the recycling industry: consumer support. Widely considered the weakest link in the recycling loop, recycled product sales are not what they should be - either because recycled products are more expensive or because they're unavailable. For that reason, the recycling industry isn't getting the financial support it needs to compete with the federally subsidized incentives to which Hershkowitz refers. Most people simply don't realize that they have the option to buy recycled.

Styrofoam is nonrecyclable. Each year Americans throw away 25 billion styrofoam cups. Five hundred years from now, the foam coffee cup you used this morning will be sitting in a landfill. • If all morning newspapers read around the country were recycled, 41,000 trees would be saved daily and 6 million tons of waste would never end up in landfills. (Sources: The EPA; ecology-action.org ; Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries; The Green Consumer, 1990)

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