Beaulier on Zimring, _Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America_

[eh.net-review at eh.net]

Published by EH.NET (April 2008)

Carl A. Zimring, _Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America _. 
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005. xi + 220 pp. $40 
(hardback), ISBN: 0-8135-3686-3.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Scott A. Beaulier, Department of Economics and 
Management, Beloit College.


_Cash for Your Trash_ is a fascinating historical account of the 
waste recycling business in the United States from the time of the 
American Revolution to the present. Zimring opens the book with a 
brief description of the recycling habits of Paul Revere (p. 1): 
"Revere did not call what he did 'recycling' -- that term first was 
used regularly by the petroleum industry in the 1920s -- but he saved 
old metal objects for reuse, just as we save cans and bottles today. 
... Revere recycled because using old metals provided valuable 
economic returns."

Beginning with this mention of Revere, Zimring gives the reader a 
sweeping overview of waste recycling in America. Zimring (p. 2) 
claims that while "the republic has never seen a time without 
substantial quantities of old materials being reused," our main 
reasons for recycling have shifted from economic concerns, such as 
those of Revere and his contemporaries, to moral concerns. Zimring 
discusses the role that costs and benefits -- both monetary and 
non-monetary (e.g., the time costs or the ideological benefits of 
recycling) -- have played in people's decisions about what products 
to recycle and how much to recycle. The author describes two 
different notions of waste: "waste as inefficiency" and "waste as 
pollution" and describes how our changing attitudes about waste over 
time have shaped the recycling industry.

Zimring's detailed history of the junk and scrap industry is full of 
interesting anecdotes and carefully researched information on the 
prices of scrap materials and the industry's size. However, the 
information gets a bit too specific at times; for example, the author 
occasionally focuses on his own relatives' experiences in the trash 
business. While this personal connection to the industry may be 
motivating his research program, it does not add much value to the 
manuscript for readers.

Zimring, who is an historian, demonstrates a clear understanding of 
economic theory in this book. However, there are portions of the text 
-- such as Chapter 3, "Nuisance or Necessity?" -- that would have 
been strengthened by the use of additional economic reasoning. When 
discussing "crookedness" in the scrap business, Zimring (p. 61) 
claims that "a common complaint involved the quality of materials 
sold. ... No written agreements defining the classifications existed, 
and many disputes centered on the question of material quality ..." 
The author seems to suggest that cheating and deceit were rampant in 
the scrap business in the 1860s. As an economist, though, I could not 
help but wonder whether or not there were reputational mechanisms 
helping to sort out the cheaters from the reputable dealers. For 
example, in the business world of the Internet, we see evidence of 
cooperation when people make deals on eBay or Amazon.com; we put our 
trust in anonymous dealers and, to a large extent, dealers deliver 
reliable products.

Moving along in Chapter 3, Zimring's section titled "A Moral Menace" 
also caused me to pause and think carefully about Zimring's implicit 
economic theory. According to Zimring (p. 67), "Large cities such as 
New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago gave increasing scrutiny to old, 
potentially infected matter. ... Progressives working to improve 
urban life blamed the scrap metal trade for a variety of moral and 
physical ills." While a genuine concern about the public's health was 
probably part of the story behind these changes in the scrap 
industry, I suspect that interest groups, such as local housing 
associations, were recommending reform to secure economic benefits 
(i.e., higher housing prices); in economics, we often find that 
"moral" causes are nothing more than thinly cloaked attempts to 
"rent-seek."

In Chapter 4, Zimring writes (p. 85), "Though many African Americans 
worked for scrap firms, they did not own or manage large processing 
yards or brokerages, likely owing to racism among customers and other 
dealers." Here again, economic theory complicates the story Zimring 
tries to tell. While de facto racism, coupled with explicitly racist 
policies in the 1930s, clearly contributed to the African-American 
struggle, a general lack of capital -- both financial and human 
capital -- also played a role in African-American poverty.

I have a number of other minor quibbles with the book, but most of my 
concerns are similar to those described above. If _Cash for Your 
Trash_ had included more economic theory, the book would have been a 
more enjoyable read for this economist. That said, there are no 
noticeable flaws in Zimring's economic reasoning, and the book 
provides readers with a solid history of scrap recycling in America. 
It's an interesting read about an industry's evolution over time, and 
it would be an excellent supplement to American economic history 
classes.


Scott A. Beaulier is an assistant professor of economics at Beloit 
College in Beloit, Wisconsin. His most recent publication is (with 
Bryan Caplan) "Behavioral Economics and Perverse Effects of the 
Welfare State" in _Kyklos_ (2007)

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