Goldman Sachs GS SUSTAIN Still, there are nuances to the benefits, challenges and implications of recycling. In the path to circularity, many alternatives to recycling offer increased material, energy and or emissions savings — reusing goods and materials prevents any inefficiencies from the recycling process, and reducing consumption of goods and services to begin with minimises the material and emissions associated with production, regardless of whether virgin or recycled materials are used. Recycling often reduces the energy required to manufacture products: recycling cardboard takes 75% of the energy required to manufacture new cardboard; recycling plastic takes 84% less energy than making it from raw materials. And on average, it costs 44% less to recycle trash than send it to landfills, and between 54% and 60% less to recycle trash than to incinerate it, according to Recycling Revolution. Despite these benefits to recycling, there may be some balancing required between these and the benefits of single-use items, most notably plastics. Sending 1kg of food waste to landfill has a similar carbon footprint to landfilling 25,000 500ml plastic bottles, so if single-use plastic can extend the useful life of food and prevent food waste, it can often, 4 on a relative basis, be net beneficial to both waste and carbon emissions. In addition, recycled PET, in a recent study , was discovered to leach more toxic chemicals into water bottles than bottles made with virgin plastic. In addition, single-use plastic bottles made of virgin materials are less energy and emissions intensive than making one reusable bottle, though these benefits reverse after sufficient reuse. One stainless steel water bottle requires seven times as much fossil fuel, releases 14 times more GHG emissions, requires many more metal resources, and has higher risk to biodiversity than one single-use plastic bottle. But if reused 50 times, it is climate positive relative to a plastic bottle, and if used 500 times is better on environmental-impact categories - requiring fewer fossil fuels, releases fewer emissions, requires fewer material resources and has lower risk to biodiversity. Recycling economic bottlenecks and headwinds generally come from feedstock availability and, in the case of chemical recycling, supply chain, economies of scale, technology and capex. Demand for recycling comes from the downstream tailwinds (social perception, policies and incentives) that over time should offset some of the headwinds in the production process to make a circular economy more economically viable than a linear one. The table below highlights some key areas throughout the value chain where recycling and linearity have different challenges and benefits. 4 Gerassimidou, S., Lanska, P., Hahladakis, J., Lovat, E., Vanzetto, S., Geueke, B., Groh, K., Muncke, J., Maffini, M., Martin, O., Iacovidou, E.. (2022). Unpacking the complexity of the PET drink bottles value chain: A chemicals perspective. 10.1016/j.hazmat.2022.128410. 3 May 2022 <7