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Household Recycling

Materials

Household recycling can reduce emissions because producing new products from recovered materials often saves energy. It also reduces resource extraction and creates jobs.

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Rank and results by 2050 #55

Household Recycling

Reduced CO2: 3 gigatons
Net cost (Billions US$): $366.92
Net operational savings: $71.13 billion
What do these numbers mean?

TOTAL CO2-EQ REDUCTION (GT)

Total CO2-equivalent reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gases by 2050 (gigatons)

NET COST (billions US $)

Net cost to implement

SAVINGS (billions US $)

Net savings by 2050

Impact:

The household and industrial recycling solutions were modeled together and include metals, plastic, glass, and other materials, such as rubber, textiles, and e-waste. Paper products and organic wastes are treated in separate waste management solutions. Emissions reductions stem from avoiding emissions associated with landfilling and from substituting recycled materials for virgin feedstock. With about 50 percent of recycled materials coming from households, if the average worldwide recycling rate increases to 65 percent of total recyclable waste, household recycling could avoid 2.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Household Recycling

Materials

Household recycling can reduce emissions because producing new products from recovered materials often saves energy. It also reduces resource extraction and creates jobs.

Waste production multiplied tenfold over the last century and will likely double again by 2025. Half or less of that waste is generated at the household level. Though the mix varies widely from place to place, in high-income countries paper, plastic, glass, and metal comprise more than 50 percent of the waste stream—all prime candidates for recycling.

Recycling can reduce emissions because producing new products from recovered materials often saves energy. Forging recycled aluminum products, for example, uses 95 percent less energy than creating them from virgin materials.

Managing household waste tends to be the responsibility of city governments, or of informal waste collection in lower-income cities. Leading cities achieve recycling rates of 65 percent or more. Effective strategies go beyond raising public awareness and include:

fees for landfill waste, while recycling and composting are free;
redeemable deposits paid at purchase (from bottles to electronics); and
programs that gather funds from manufacturers to cover recycling costs.

Collection, transport, and processing are, for the time being, largely powered by fossil fuels. Even still, recycling remains an effective approach to managing waste while addressing emissions. It also reduces resource extraction, minimizes other pollutants, and creates jobs.

Vs

Nuclear

Electricity Generation

Nuclear power is complex, expensive, and risky, but it has the potential to avoid emissions from fossil fuel electricity. Project Drawdown considers it a "regrets solution."

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Rank and results by 2050 #20

Nuclear

Reduced CO2: 16 gigatons
Net cost (Billions US$): $0.88
Net operational savings: $1,713.40 billion
What do these numbers mean?

TOTAL CO2-EQ REDUCTION (GT)

Total CO2-equivalent reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gases by 2050 (gigatons)

NET COST (billions US $)

Net cost to implement

SAVINGS (billions US $)

Net savings by 2050

Impact:

Nuclear’s complicated dynamics around safety and public acceptance will influence its future direction—of expansion or contraction. We assume its share of global electricity generation will grow to 13.6 percent by 2030, but slowly decline to 12 percent by 2050. With a longer lifetime than fossil fuel plants resulting in fewer facilities overall, installation of nuclear power plants could cost an additional $900 million, despite the high implementation cost of $4,457 per kilowatt. Net operating savings over thirty years could reach $1.7 trillion. This scenario could result in 16.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided.

Nuclear

Electricity Generation

Nuclear power is complex, expensive, and risky, but it has the potential to avoid emissions from fossil fuel electricity. Project Drawdown considers it a "regrets solution."

Nuclear plants use fission to split atomic nuclei and release the energy that binds protons and neutrons together. It is the most complex process ever invented to boil water, which powers steam turbines that generate electricity. Greenhouse gas emissions are calculated to be ten to a hundred times higher for coal-fired plants than for nuclear.

Currently, 29 countries have operative nuclear plants; they produce about 11 percent of the world’s electricity. Nuclear is expensive, and the highly regulated industry is often over-budget and slow. While the cost of virtually every other form of energy has gone down over time, nuclear is four to eight times higher than it was four decades ago.

With nuclear power, there is a climate dilemma: Is an increase in the number of nuclear power plants, with all their flaws and inherent risks, worth the gamble? Or, as some proponents insist, will there be a total meltdown of climate by limiting their use?

At Project Drawdown, we consider nuclear a regrets solution. It has potential to avoid emissions, but there are many reasons for concern: deadly meltdowns, tritium releases, abandoned uranium mines, mine-tailings pollution, radioactive waste, illicit plutonium trafficking, and thefts of missile material, among them.

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