Is Recycling Good for Our Environment? (The Reign of Recycling Article Analysis Example)

Is recycling really helping the environment—this is one of the questions that contrarian and New York Times author, John Tierney, seeks to shed light on in his controversial essay "The Reign of Recycling.” He argues that recycling, in comparison to the use of landfills, is not as beneficial environmentally and economically as most people seem to believe. Tierney begins by explaining that recycling is expensive and requires high effort with low reward, and instead aims to show that landfills are a more viable option. Though he agrees that recycling may have some environmental benefit, much of his argument in favor of landfills, as opposed to recycling, is muddled with claims that are not backed with explicit evidence, hasty generalizations preceded with emotionally charged language, and ends with a rushed appeal to tradition. 

In the very first paragraph of the essay, Tierney employs the repeated use of the word "you" to create a sense of familiarity with his audience (Tierney). However, immediately after, he states that it is "more expensive for municipalities to recycle household waste" than it is to just dispose of the waste into a landfill. By establishing that initial sense of familiarity, the reader may not realize that Tierney does not produce any evidence or statistics to support his claim that recycling is more expensive than a landfill (Tierney). This is one of the first instances where Tierney makes an emotional appeal to the reader to try and distract them from the lack of evidence towards his claim. Following that, he hastily says that the notion of recycling has been "indoctrinated" into students via their schools and claims that is the reason why so many people believe recycling is something they must do (Tierney). The word "indoctrinated" exudes the idea that schools have been essentially treating their students like robots and thereby asserting the notion within them that recycling is inherently good. Here, Tierney appeals to the feeling of the lack of free will that the reader may have after reading the word "indoctrinated" and uses it to show that people may have been blind to the setbacks of recycling. Though Tierney makes a purposeful emotional appeal, he uses this hasty generalization (a conclusion that is made using insufficient evidence or is lacking evidence) to claim that people have "no idea" of the drawbacks of recycling (Tierney). Though he has no definitive proof that people are not aware of the downsides of recycling, his use of emotionally charged words and phrases may deter the reader from noticing the lack of evidence supporting his claims. 

Not only does he claim that recycling is expensive, and people are unaware of its disadvantages, he goes on to say that the use of landfills may be more viable than recycling. He gives an example of their viability by stating that all the trash Americans produce for the next one thousand years will only fit "one-tenth of 1 percent of the land available for grazing," which is a bold assertion but not followed by any evidence (Tierney). Tierney fails to establish the source of the statement and the reader is instead left to just believe him. He wants to show that landfills are viable because they do not take up much space, however, his statement about its viability lacks any credibility. As such, he then claims that the economic rationale for recycling is simply "gone" with his one statement that landfills do not occupy much space (Tierney). Along with this generalization, he makes another generalization that landfills “release so few pollutants” and that landfill owners are making effective use of what pollutants they do release (Tierney). Tierney frames the statement as a response to opponents of landfills who may claim that landfills are harmful to the environment, however, he makes it increasingly difficult to believe his claims when he does not show any evidence to support them. Tierney does not provide any information, data, or statistics that show the extent to which landfill owners are combating the release of pollutants nor how much pollution landfills emit. 

However, Tierney does eventually accept that recycling may reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He states that the one advantage of recycling is "reduced emissions of greenhouse gases" (Tierney). Here Tierney is shown to acknowledge the opposing side of his argument and thus re-establishes his credibility. Though he undermines the extent to which recycling reduces emissions by stating that the total annual savings of recycling in the US only accounts for "two-tenths of 1 percent" of the US's carbon footprint (Tierney). Once again, Tierney makes this claim without providing the source of the statistic, and thus the reader is left unaware of the validity of the statement, compromising the very credibility he established just a few lines prior. Soon after, Tierney gives the statistic that it costs the state of New York $300 more to recycle than landfill one ton of trash (Tierney). Though this may seem like evidence in favor of his argument against recycling, there is no source to the statistic, other than the fact that Tierney works for the New York Times. Not only that, but the New York example is just one isolated example that Tierney then uses to generalize that recycling is more expensive across the whole of the US. Accompanying this claim, Tierney states that recycling "makes people feel virtuous," which hastily generalizes and undermines the reason why people may partake in recycling (Tierney). Tierney provoked the reader further by following this statement with the comparison of recycling to the now-condemned practice of indulgences by the Catholic church. He makes an emotional appeal to the reader using false equivalence (a fallacy in which a writer tries to make a comparison between two things that either cannot be compared or are compared with flawed reasoning), and in turn criticizes the practice of recycling, painting it as something to be condemned, not celebrated. 

Tierney ends his argument against recycling by making one final appeal, an appeal to tradition (an appeal in which a particular action, belief, or argument is deemed to be correct because it has historically been done a certain way or is common tradition) to show that since cities have been using landfills for years, they should continue to use it because it is easier and cheaper than recycling (Tierney). He implicitly circles back to his initial idea that recycling is inherently expensive and labor-intensive and incites the audience to continue using landfills because they have done it for generations. In comparison to his previous bold claims and use of emotionally charged words, this statement seems tamer, and a more docile ending to his argument, to calmly show the readers that they should use landfills instead of focusing and worrying too much about recycling. By making a callback to history and tradition, he once again tries to establish a sense of familiarity with his audience. 

Though Tierney tries to establish a logical narrative in which he argues against the practice of recycling, his claims about the disadvantages of recycling and the positive aspects of landfills tend to be generalized and lack definitive data, information, or statistics to validate their truthfulness. A recurring theme throughout the essay, Tierney creates a sense of familiarity and casualness in the tone with which he addresses the reader, only to follow it with bold claims lacking explicit evidence of their source, in hopes that the reader will overlook that aspect of his claims. In any sense, Tierney masterfully engages the reader and entices them to notice his cause, ending his essay with an appeal to tradition, circling back and readdressing that connection he makes with his audience at the beginning of his essay. Whether or not one agrees with Tierney’s claim that recycling is not really helping the environment as much as people think, one cannot deny the lengths he goes to show that recycling does not reign.