By Richard
Gertman
EcoIQ Magazine
Contributing Editor
Introduction
  he
California Integrated Waste Management Act (AB 939) was passed by the
State Legislature to force communities throughout California to implement
source reduction, recycling and composting programs. This vision has
been lost, and replaced by the need to meet the State diversion mandate.
The numbers game has supplanted the goal. Counting tons disposed and
diverted has become more important than an honest evaluation of the
effectiveness of the programs implemented, and counting has replaced
actual program expansion.
We need to return to the
goal -- sensible diversion programs that recover materials and maintain
their value. Resources should be recovered for their value, not just
to keep them out of a landfill. We need to change the focus, but to
do so will require a paradigm shift.
Looking
Back
Prior to the 1950s, the waste
management industry was primarily oriented toward materials recovery.
Scavenging companies sorted discards at the truck and hauled to different
locations for reuse. Used clothes were sold as clothes or for rags,
bottles and jars were washed for reuse, food waste went to farmers for
hog feed, and only a small percentage of the collected discards went
to the "dump" at the end of the day. Of course, there were
fewer types of discards then, but the collection of materials in separated
streams, each of which could be processed for recovery, was the common
practice.
With the surge of economic
growth and consumer spending in the 1950s, the waste management industry
went through a major paradigm shift -- from a resource-based system
to a garbage-based system. The shift occurred with the "invention" of
the packer truck, designed to collect more wastes from more households
with fewer trips to a more distant dump site. Its purpose was to move
materials from the house to the disposal facility more efficiently.
The process compacts mixed wastes in the truck, and makes previously
recoverable materials into unsalvageable "garbage."
Waste
Management Contracting
Waste collection contracts
are generally structured so that garbage companies can profit from the
garbage collection and disposal part of the business. Since communities
view recycling programs as add-ons to the garbage collection and disposal
contract, they have been reluctant to allow the recyclables collectors
to make the same profit margins for recycling services.
To increase diversion, these
contract provisions should be reversed. If garbage collection contracts
were cost recovery only, and profits were based on how much material
is diverted from disposal,the haulers would have strong incentives
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"Waste
collection contracts could be structured to provide powerful financial
incentives for source reduction..." |
to increase diversion rates. However, both of these contract types base
hauling company profits on the amount of material collected.
Waste collection contracts
could be structured to provide powerful financial incentives for source
reduction programs. Payments could be based inversely on tonnage disposed,
not on the amount of materials collected. Under such contracts, promoting
source reduction in addition to recycling would reward collection companies
with more profit because they would reduce their expenses for collecting
and handling wastes while they would be paid more as the amount disposed
was reduced. For example, providing back-yard compost bins to residents
and training them on the proper composting techniques could become a
major cost savings technique when compared with collection and processing
of plant trimmings.
The
Cost of Recycling
The cost of collecting recyclables
has remained high, relative to the cost of garbage collection, because:
- Only a small portion
of the stream is being collected as recyclables, which means that
only a little weight is recovered from each residence.
.
- Current recycling programs
were designed as add-ons to existing systems, and the collection equipment
used is not as efficient as that used to collect garbage.
Sending
The Right Message
Because many communities
still view recycling as a small part of their waste management system,
small containers are often provided for the recyclables and large containers
for garbage. This sends the message that only a small fraction of the
residents' discards are recoverable, but most of it is garbage. This
is clearly the wrong message.
Innovative
Equipment
Since the late 50s, the waste
management industry has continued to add innovation in garbage collection
equipment. The most important improvement has been the introduction
of automated collection systems to collect more waste in less time and
reduce worker injury, when compared with manual collection systems.
This change has not been carried over to recycling collection equipment.
Collection of recyclables is still primarily manual.
Program
Design
To provide for the highest
level of diversion, and to achieve the highest and best community and
social benefits, collection systems need to "un-make" garbage by grouping
the materials in categories which do not contaminate each other. Separation
of wet wastes from dry wastes, and subsets of wet wastes (e.g., kitchen
wastes separate from plant trimmings) and dry (e.g., paper separate
from other dry materials) maintains the highest and best use for the
recovered materials. By keeping these materials separate, the process
that makes garbage would be eliminated. Even with this level of separation,
there would still be residue to landfill, just as there was in the "good
old days" before packer trucks, but once again the residue would be
a small fraction of the total wastes generated.
Turning
The Management Structure Upside Down
The organization of City
government and the waste management industry staffing also sends the
wrong message. At most cities, Recycling Coordinators work for Solid
Waste Managers. Since garbage is what is left over after the recyclables
have been collected, shouldn't Solid Waste Coordinators work for Recycling
Managers?
Paradigm
Shift: Back To The Future
It is time to re-think our
approach to management of the waste stream -- to shift the paradigm
back to a resource-based management system. Continuing to make small
changes to existing collection operations will not likely provide significantly
higher diversion rates in a cost-effective way. On the other hand, if
cities step back, reassess their goals, and then design and implement
a new system, they can reestablish a system where the majority of wastes
are recovered for productive use.
Richard Gertman has written for most of the solid waste management and recycling journals in the United States. He has taught courses or lectured on integrated waste management at San Jose State University, UC Davis, UCLA, and the University of Wisconsin. He has also served as an officer or board member of the National Recycling Coalition, the California Resource Recovery Association, and the Northern California Recycling Association
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