Study Shows Recycling Aids Economy
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Countering recent negative reports, an environmentalist group’s study to be released today shows big economic benefits to the state from the growing recycling industry.
Recycling is now an annual $2-billion business in California, with related jobs increasing to 20,000 from 14,000 in the past four years. In five years, that could grow to 60,000 jobs, according to Sacramento-based Californians Against Waste.
In Los Angeles, the group cites local government predictions that the city will save $38 million annually, about $4 a month for the average household, by 2020 if current trends continue.
The one-year research project to comb economic data on recycling was funded by the Arco Foundation, BankAmerica Foundation, Mary A. Crocker Trust and San Francisco Foundation.
Opponents of environmentalism have said that recycling is bad for the economy--”in a knee-jerk fashion,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, which was largely responsible for a state law mandating that local governments cut their waste going to landfills by 25% by the end of this year and by 50% by 2000.
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