Should I recycle?

The question is metaphor to ask what I, as a consumer, can do to help
avoid the seemingly inevitable decay of the evironmental. Further,
using recycling as an example; are there reasons why I should avoid
recycling? or logic that would suggest it would be a waste of my time?

I would love for someone to help me in research of this very
interesting topic, by looking at both sides of the debate.

Issues include looking at the spitirtual benefits of 'doing my bit',
the ease of doing so, the accountability of household waste in the
scheme of things, the illution of progress created, a vote for
Government that they are making headway and so on.

I have a preference towards published sources (journals, books) or
comments originating from a respected authority in the field
discussed.

Just a thought to keep in mind:

You might find that some arguments would arrive at different
conclusions depending on what sort of material you're talking about
recycling.

For instance, I think that from a
does-recyling-stuff-cost-less-than-creating-and-equivalent-amount-of-stuff-from-new-material
point-of-view it's been successfully argued that aluminum recycling
(soda and beer cans) is more desirable than, say, recycling expended
batteries.

One aspect that you could add to your argument (for, I guess :-)) is
the amount of waste that gets diverted from a landfill. For example,
back in the 80s, my hometown of Edmonton was facing a landfill crisis
as the main dump was filling. They purchased a parcel of land to be
used as a new dump. With a gung-ho recycling program, they were able
to divert waste and AFAIK, never did have to use the purchased land to
make a new dump (http://www.edmonton.ca/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_688726_0_0_18/recycling)

Good question, btw, I look forward to seeing what others have to say.

Most debates I see do not include the value of time used. Most of
those who are prorecycling assume the time involved, which can for a
few be considerable, has no value at all. This is a ludicrous concept.

In my case, being retired, I can take whatever time it takes to try to
understand the rules and to sort things.  A parent with small
children, or a person with a very busy work load, will find even
minimal sorting requirements to be unacceptable.

Those places which have mandatory sorting are basically forcing the
public to supply what is essentially forced labor to make their plans
work.

If we include realistic sorting labor costs in the home, there are
very few recycled items which are financially feasible.

You need to consider the concept of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). Hence
you need to consider the total impact on the environment throughout
the complete life and disposal of the product in question. A cradle to
grave approach.
In the case of the Aluminium can the impact on the enviroment at the
cradle stage is great. Most energy is consumed and the most damage is
done when you extract the aluminium from the bauxite and when you mine
the bauxite. Hence it makes sence to spend the time collecting and
washing the old can.
In the case of a yogurht cup the initial impact is far less. It is a
crude oil by product e.g. Polystyrene or PP for example. It is low
cost and probably takes more valuable water to wash and the recyclate
value is next to nothing. However the risdual energy value is quite
high. Hence it makes sense to recover the energy value by controlled
incineration in this case. You can then look at the enviromental
impact of the yogurht cup as very low because you have just "borrowed"
the yoghurt cup temporarily and then recovered the energy value at the
end of its life. Of course there will be a enivornmental impact during
burning but this can be minimised with controlled incineration. So in
this case its probably best to burn and spend your time planting a
tree or bush to aborb the extra CO2.

Of course the best approach is not to use the resource in the first place.
The second should be to use less
and the third should be to resuse.

Something very important is what is happening with your recycled and
unrecycled waste.
I live in Germany where in some communities each household has
separate bins for paper, plastic, bio (food) and something else
(glass, metal?).  Wow!  But what does it cost in trucks and fuel to
collect it all?
Now that waste sorting facilities have become able to mechanically
sort mixed waste, obviously the effort of household sorting and
separate collection should be discontinued, but it isn't  (It is
morally uplifting for the populace to know they are doing something
virtuous, and politicians look bad if they recant after forcing
through such a scheme.)
And then there is the matter about landfills.  One alternative, is
waste incineration, which can produce energy for electricity or local
central heating.   This alternative exists now in many places,
constructed with a lead time that parallels the implimentation of
household sorting.  The problem is, that the plants were geared to
handle mixed burnable waste (bio, plastic and paper) but now they
don't always get enough flamable material to burn the bio and have to
be fed oil in addition.
Plastic is difficult to recycle  - so many types -  but recycling it
by creating energy goes against the Greens' principles and (see
previous parenthesis).

OH, and we have deposit on non-reusable bottles (those beer and soft
drink glass or plastic bottles that are not refilled).  But there are
other bottles without deposit, and we dutifully sort them by color at
the bins down the street:  white, green and brown.

So, look into what happens with your sorted waste.  If you are in
America, probably the system is more sensible and less frought with
idealism than here.
Do what you feel is right.