Scavenging through your own rubbish

Tim Worstall on recycling schemes:

"None of the calculations about recycling in general or any specific scheme such as this one include the time and effort put into sorting the items before disposal or collection. So we have left out one of the major costs associated with recycling, making sure that economic cost and real cost have diverged. Add back in the cost of that labour and the real costs will be hugely greater than the real value produced for most schemes."

I prefer to think of it as being forced to scavenge through my own rubbish.