economics of recycling

Out of a guilty conscience, I have taken into the habit of trying to recycle as many things as I can. That interest took a dive for awhile, and something in my mind just forced me to look into my wasteful habits. One example. I packed food into my room today, with polystyrene packaging. I had to throw one pack away because it was too oily and also because I accidentally broke it, though I kept one to put my other foodstuff in. Guilt rides high prior to that and I googled this out

http://www.polystyrene.org/environment/econ.html

so, how well does recycling help in saving the environment (and in assuaging our guilt conscience)? We need all our chemist, environmental technologists and environmental economists to help us out!

I am hungry still so going to have some crackers.