Re: Omega and recycling
Hi @GENERALSNUGGLES - Recycling centers can reduce cost for the raw resources, for sure. The thing is that you need educated sims and a fairly robust population (maybe around 75,000 or so) to get the recycling to work. On top of that, you need to watch for traffic issues (always!) & the storage in the recycling center. I would suggest having a trade depot or port for each resource so your recycling center delivers to the trade depot / port, and the factory gets its raw resources from the trade depot.
It can be a lot of management, if your recyclables produce more resources than your factory is using, you'll want to turn the depots to export for a while. Also keep in mind that once you start recycling, you're kind of stuck with it. If you bulldoze a recycling plant, the sims will still be producing them and then you have a major issue. The plant can stop producing anything if storage becomes full, usually due to traffic issues. So, the short answer is "yes, you can do it". The more accurate answer is - "if your city has at least 75,000 population, 5 stars education, no traffic problems, and room for one or two recycling plants & three or more trade ports plus the processing plant, you can - but is it worth it?" It's cool to do, and seems to make sense at first glance, but if your main goal is income you may be better off just importing the processors. It takes a bunch of space, time & management to make it work successfully.
This Skye Storme video has a fantastic overview of preparing for Omega, including some tips about importing vs. resources. (If you're interested, the full build for that city starts here)
