Do the Benefits of Recycling Outweigh the Costs?

Dear EarthTalk: Some people argue that recycling uses more energy than it saves, and thus it is not worth the effort. Is this true? – Tigger Fox, Millinocket, Maine
Controversy over the benefits of recycling bubbled up in 1996 when columnist John Tierney posited in a New York Times Magazine article that “recycling is garbage.”
“Mandatory recycling programs,” he wrote, “…offer mainly short-term benefits to a few groups -- politicians, public relations consultants, environmental organizations and waste handling corporations -- while diverting money from genuine social and environmental problems. Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America…”