In addition to avoiding problems of air pollution and potential hazardous waste disposal, recycling is an effective method of conserving natural resources. It therefore makes it possible to avoid the environmental impacts associated with obtaining the same amount of virgin resource. These include the impacts of tree-cutting, mining, smelting, quarrying, and the like. Recycling is also substantially more efficient in terms of net energy use. . . .
Both direct economic factors and other comparative factors indicate that large-scale recycling programs should be New York City’s first priority, in preference to the five-incinerator proposal. The latter, if implemented, would represent a diversion of both capital and effort from what appears, based on present information, to be a preferable course of action to achieve the same goal.
This does not mean, however, that a commitment to a City-wide program equivalent in size to the five incinerators needs to be made immediately. One of recycling’s
