Which ‘green jobs’ better?

Opinion: June 16, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Steve Larkin

McClatchy-Tribune

ARLINGTON, Va.

When is a green job not a green job? When it pretty much is created out of whole cloth without responding to any widespread public demand.

I represent an industry that has been providing green jobs since at least 1959, when Bill Coors first started paying for the return of used aluminum beer cans at his brewery in Golden, Colo.

The idea caught on and a new industry was born — the aluminum recycling industry. It has provided — and still provides — tens of thousands of well-paid “green” jobs.

There are a number of differences between the green jobs in the recycling industry and the new taxpayer-subsidized green jobs we hear so much about. Both, of course, are green, in the sense that they reduce the use of raw materials and encourage conservation.

Tax credits

But federally subsidized green jobs are almost entirely dependent on tax credits and other government subsidies, while jobs in the aluminum recycling industry are created by business for very practical reasons — not only do they generate good will, they’re also profitable and actually pay out millions of dollars each year to consumers.

Let’s look at the record. In 2009 alone, the aluminum industry recycled about $1.6 billion worth of used beverage cans. That’s based on a 57 percent return rate — well below what is possible and desirable.

If we could increase America’s overall return rate to an easily achievable 75 percent, the recovered material could reach $2.1 billion in value — including hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to those who recycle.

Plus that increase in recycling would provide thousands of additional “green” jobs, bringing the total to well over 100,000 — easily surpassing the number of jobs created at taxpayer expense in some of the much touted new “green energy” sectors such as geothermal and weather-stripping. Meanwhile, President Obama is asking for an additional $300 million in tax credits and a total of $8 billion in clean energy subsidies next year.

The recycling industry has been improving the environment and conserving energy for decades, and improvements in this sector could provide enormous further benefits. For example, the current 57 percent recycling rate for aluminum cans alone save the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil a year and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 7.7 million tons.

A recent analysis by the Environmental Working Group found that while adding more corn ethanol to gasoline would create 27,000 jobs — each of those jobs could cost taxpayers as much as $446,000 a year.

By contrast, the recycling industry, and other more traditional industries such as waste management continue to provide solid jobs that are green in every sense of the word — except for the name.

It’s ironic that policymakers who say they want to invest in green jobs largely ignore the role of private sector recycling — arguably the greenest of all industries — whose economic, environmental and energy-saving benefits are well established.

Recycling

The more consumers, schools, stores and offices recycle, the quicker we can create more truly viable green jobs that will help to revitalize the nation’s economy without the need for continuous — and often questionable — public investment.

While all recyclable materials vary somewhat in their costs and benefits, increases in aluminum recycling alone would have a powerful ripple effect, helping to prompt the expansion of other recycling programs — without costing taxpayers a dime.

In short, more recycling equals more green jobs, period. Everyone gains. Recycling is so easy, so beneficial and so important to the economy.

Everyone can pitch in, every single day.

The greening of America can be accomplished without fleecing already maxed-out taxpayers.

Steve Larkin is president of the Aluminum Association. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services