Unit 1 Micro: Waste Mountains as Above Ground Mining

This remarkable ten minute video is superb when you are studying or teaching the economics of recycling! Whereas recycle rates for metals and paper have been growing year by year, currently less than 10% of plastic trash is recycled—compared to almost 90% of metals— in part because of the complicated and costly problem of finding and sorting the different kinds.

Mike Biddle’s plastic recycling business has developed an innovative, cheap and energy efficient plant that can, and does, recycle any kind of plastic. He explains his processes and the final video section offers a vivid illustration of the technical complexity of the recycling procedure and the scale of production that makes discarded plastic a viable resource to put back into the economic system.

I will definitely be using this TED talk when I teach externalities and innovative private sector approaches to reducing the environmental impact of consumerism.