jamesmontalvo3

What is the impact of recycling on climate change? I’ve always recycled, but as I was about to recycle a peanut butter container (which would be hard to clean out) I wondered if it was the right thing to do. It seems to me that there are many ways recycling may be bad for climate change:

- Energy required to actually do the recycling process (this is material-dependent and may be net-beneficial for climate if more energy is required to produce new raw material)

- Energy required to ship material across the world and dump it in other countries rather than deal with it domestically.

- Energy required to supply water to peoples’ houses to clean out containers.

- Energy required to heat water to clean containers (probably good rationale to only use cold water).

- Energy required for more trucks to pick up multiple types of trash/recycle.

Am I wrong about these? If not, should we be prioritizing climate over some types of recycling? Climate seems like a more pressing issue to me.