Here at the University of Minnesota, we always see those bins with designated openings for newspapers, trash, bottles and cans, and the like. It makes us feel good when we put our diet Coke bottle into the “bottles and cans” hole, and we feel like we patted Mother Nature on the back today. We pride ourselves in being sustainable and recycling our leftovers, but how much of an impact are we really making?

Every few years or so, a story always surfaces with claims that recycling isn’t doing much good at all. These stories have quotes from experts, and statistics scattered all over the article. They say: recycling wastes more energy than it would to just throw things away. The square footage of landfills wouldn’t change that much in 1,000 years anyway. The waste produced by recycling comes in the form of a goopy sludge that can runoff into lakes, streams and oceans; harming native species there. Another, perhaps shocking revelation is that recycling paper does nothing to save trees. The energy it takes to remove the harmful ink is wasted on such a task. Besides, tree farmers plant enough trees every year to make up for the paper that is recycled.

Then again, there are those who say that recycling is doing a lot for the environment and it is much better than doing nothing at all. With all this ecological and economical talk, it’s difficult to keep the story straight. So what is the truth?

Actually, there is truth to both arguments. While it does take some energy to process recycling, it isn’t as much as some would like people to believe.

The Environmental Protection Agency states that recycling paper requires 40 percent less energy than it would to make paper from “virgin wood,” as they call it. It’s the same across the board with other materials. Recycling aluminum requires 218 fewer gigajoules (that’s an SI unit of energy measuring mechanical work, heat and electricity) per ton than collecting and using “virgin” materials. Recycling greatly reduces carbon dioxide emissions by a ratio of 1:2. For every one pound of recycling, there is only two pounds of CO2 emissions, a substantially lesser number than other methods of waste disposal and resource harvesting.

When done right, recycling can make a difference. Rachel Horstman, a staff member at the University’s Como Recycling Facility lays down the basic process.

First, the recycling is gathered from the many posts around campus and then shipped off to the Como facility where it is sorted into the usual categories: newspaper, cans, bottles, etc. This step is obviously crucial to the entire process. There are many people who do not pay much attention to what they throw where. About 30 percent of the daily intake at the facility is non-recyclable contaminants, which also must be sorted through and separated. From there, the passable recyclables are processed on campus and then shipped off to be recycling at other facilities in Minnesota and around the country.

“Recycling is not the best option for saving our planet,” says Horstman, “Reducing our waste would be the first step.”

Consumers today produce a huge amount of waste, ranging from electronic parts to plastics. From excessive and un-recyclable packaging to just buying too many wasteful items, people feed into the market and produce without thinking. “We consumers need to have a different outlook,” Horstman says. “Marketers will not change until we demand it.” Meaning, until we refuse to use products that are harmful to the environment, the money mongers won’t care and won’t change.

Suddenly, there it is: money. Money is at the center of this mind-boggling enigma.

One problem for recycling which Horstman cites is that people are unwilling to pay the expense to develop new ways to reduce waste. The recycling process isn’t cheap, especially nowadays with the questionable economy. Where it used to cost $60 to recycle a ton of materials, it now costs $150, with the price ever rising. The University processes over 3000 tons of recycling every year. That’s a lot of money. Recycling programs rarely make a profit; and with the seemingly eternal build up of human waste, it is questionable if recycling can even make a dent.

So while the question of, “is recycling worth it?” will always hang over our heads, we need to turn our eyes to a similar, yet weightier matter. Whether you recycle or not, you should make the conscious effort to reduce the amount of unnecessary waste, which hopefully will reduce the need for recycling. As for now, this is all there is. We just need the money and motivation to look towards other and perhaps better ways of erasing our significant toxic footprint on Earth.