Rethinking Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle: Policies and Programs to Address Waste

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to view our briefing on local, state, and federal policies and programs as well as new technologies that will make you rethink waste management, who is responsible for waste, and whether waste is worthless.

The United States generates nearly 300 million tons of municipal solid waste per year—or almost one ton of waste per person, the most per capita in the world. About half of this waste ends up in landfills, which account for 15 percent of human-caused domestic methane emissions and threaten local water sources with toxic liquid. Meanwhile, recycling has become uneconomic and requires new approaches to be a viable, cost-effective waste management strategy. Creative solutions are needed to stem the deluge of waste, and public and private sector innovators are leading the charge.

This briefing features speakers from cities, states, and the private sector working to reduce and reuse a variety of waste types. Experts discuss their programs and the policies that are helping them succeed.

 

Highlights

 

David Allaway, Senior Policy Analyst, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

• There are misplaced priorities regarding waste in the United States today. The focus on recycling and individual responsibility, as documented in Plastic Wars, keep the public and policymakers distracted from other issues and solutions like waste prevention or producer responsibility.
• Emissions from waste landfills and incinerators contribute 2.5 percent of our nation’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions. We can contrast these disposal-related impacts with the impacts of making the materials that end up as waste, which are 10 to 15 times higher.
• Since many of the materials that become waste here in the United States are produced in other countries, a consumption-based emissions accounting framework tells a more complete story of responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions.
• Oregon’s consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which estimates the global emissions resulting from consumption by Oregonians, shows that emissions over the lifecycle of consumed materials represent 41 percent of the state’s carbon footprint—more than the emissions from direct consumption of electricity or fuels.
  • Only one percent of materials-related emissions are a result of disposal. The remaining 99 percent are a result of raw material extraction and manufacturing, as well as freight transportation. Emissions largely come from unsustainable production and consumption, not waste disposal.
• Recycling can reduce the impacts of those materials by a necessary, although modest amount. It can also conserve energy and reduce other forms of pollution. Most of the benefits of recycling occur when collected materials displace the use of virgin resources upstream in the production process. But, from a climate perspective, reduced emissions from landfills and incinerators provide a much smaller benefit.
• Our current recycling system is delivering mixed results, especially as we continue to export contaminated recyclables to countries that lack adequate infrastructure.
• While recycling is necessary for a sustainable future and can be done well, it is insufficient by itself. As a state, Oregon currently recovers around 40 percent of our solid waste. If we increased that to 90 percent, it would only reduce our climate impact by three percent.
• We need to activate some additional solutions, such as waste prevention, reuse, clean production, material substitution, and sustainable consumption. Most policy currently focuses on collection and emphasizes the importance of individual consumer behavior, as opposed to producer responsibilities and roles.
• The United States has an inconsistent patchwork of recycling collection programs run at the municipal level that are struggling due to unfavorable economics.
  • Collection programs act as taxpayer or ratepayer-subsidized supply chains to industrial users, whose payments for those materials come nowhere close to covering the cost of collection and processing.
  • In 2018, Oregonian ratepayers spent over $200 million to collect and process recyclables. Industry benefits from and promotes recycling, which conveniently places the responsibility to pay for and carry out the process on individuals and municipalities.
• As a state, Oregon was highly dependent on Chinese markets for collected recycling. When China closed the door to U.S. waste exports in 2017, Oregon’s waste management system struggled. Collection programs dropped materials and increased costs to ratepayers.
• Recycling is further challenged, as the public is deeply confused about what and how to recycle. This confusion leads to high levels of contamination, which in turn results in higher costs for the ratepayers, who currently pay most of the costs of our system.
• Largely unregulated processing facilities struggle to sort all the garbage people are sending them, and they are unable to ensure that all materials are being sorted and recycled responsibly. We are continuing to landfill materials that could be easily recycled.
• Environmental justice implications of waste include inequities in access to service, working conditions, and the distribution of burdens from pollution related to recycling.
• Recycling can reduce costs to society through reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. However, these benefits are not reflected in the economic signals the industry and local governments are responding to. This leads to underinvestment in recycling.
• Oregon’s recycling laws were not designed for today’s world with an abundance of plastics: they were designed for a society 30 to 40 years ago where newspaper recycling was dominant. No one anticipated that we would mix our recyclables together, that we would need processing facilities to sort them out, or that we would export them to distant lands with less environmental regulation and infrastructure.
• There is a significant gap in the responsibility involving consumer brands: producers have the unique power to influence changes in packaging and product design, as well create market demand for recycled materials and reduce price volatility. However, producers are largely absent from our current policy framework.
• An Oregon steering committee found consensus on a comprehensive proposal that addresses product labeling, consumer education, access to collection, processing facilities, standards and regulation, and more. Waste prevention and social equity is a shared responsibility. This proposal is the basis of a bill, which is currently under consideration in the state legislature.

Jennifer Wright, Supervisor – Financial & Business Assistance, Iowa Department of Natural Resources

• The Iowa Waste Exchange is a materials exchange program that matches byproducts and wastes produced by Iowa businesses to markets. The program has matched items ranging from industrial sledges to recyclables and stuffed animals. This keeps waste out of landfills and in the economy.
• In the 30 years since the program started, the Iowa Waste Exchange has matched over four million tons of waste, averaging about 135,000 tons per year. This has saved Iowans nearly $120 million since the program started.
  • Not only does the program identify marketable waste streams, but it also provides additional services like waste sorts, locating markets and value-added byproducts, writing grants, loans, waste management plans, and educational outreach.
  • Since its beginnings, the program has served over 67,000 clients with a focus on agricultural pursuits, business and industry, schools, colleges, governments, municipalities, and institutions like hospitals and clinics. It has also supported nonprofits and private citizens.
• The program is funded by a percentage of landfill tipping fees. That funding has primarily stayed the same over the years, and the state has been able to get a 650 percent return on that investment.
• The program is free to business, industry, and citizens if they need a material or have a material they want to dispose of. It is confidential and nonregulatory.
• The program began as a pilot at the Indian Hills Community College, but it has since evolved into a comprehensive program with five area resource specialists. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Iowa Economic Development Authority collaborate on the program.
• The Iowa DNR has a program called the Derelict Building Grant Program that assists rural communities with populations under 5,000 residents. The program assists communities in deconstructing or renovating blighted structures on their main streets so they can either rebuild them or use them for a new purpose. If they deconstruct, they can divert the materials from landfill.

Amy Aussieker, Executive Director, Envision Charlotte

• Envision Charlotte is an organization that does sustainable projects for the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. It is a public-private partnership that also works with corporate partners, the Charlotte community, utilities, and universities.
• The organization recently embarked on the transition to a circular economy, which aims to design out waste, reduce the amount of waste going into the waste stream, and use resources at a higher level. We are currently a linear society: we buy something, use it, and then throw it away.
• Envision Charlotte partnered with the City of Charlotte and Metabolic to analyze the city’s waste streams and create long-term and short-term strategies to transition to a circular economy.
• The report includes five areas of focus: an innovation center, plastics, organics, textiles, and waste. The study includes various kinds of business models and opportunities.
  • Envision Charlotte could divert around 150,000 tons of waste. The initiatives can create up to 450 jobs and $6.4 million in potential profit while reducing nearly 380,000 pounds of CO2 emissions per year.
• The Innovation Barn, set to open in June 2021, will be a place to engage the community and corporate partners on how to design out waste from the system, get waste back into production, and keep waste out of landfill.
• The city of Charlotte has an 11 percent diversion rate compared to the national rate of 35 percent. As more communities stopped recycling, Envision Charlotte launched the SmartC System as a pilot program to reduce contamination of recyclable material, control material destination, and increase landfill diversion.
• Through the SmartC System, individuals can opt into recycling materials that they use in their household. The program started with two types of materials: plastic bottles and aluminum cans. The bags include a QR code, and individuals can use an app to request a bag pickup once it is full.
• Envision Charlotte picks up the bags, brings them back to the Innovation Barn, and processes their contents. The organization also analyzes bag contents and awards participants with points (more points are awarded if you put only the correct items in the bag and there is no contamination).
• The organization tested the program over three months. On average, each bag contained about two pounds of material and had only a one percent contamination rate.
• While the SmartC System requires some modifications, such as simplifying the app and clarifying the program, Envision Charlotte hopes to scale the program into a hyper-focused materials recovery facility (MRF) to process up to 25,000 households’ waste. This would cover about 10 percent of the city of Charlotte’s overall curbside recycling.
• The organization also hopes to increase the materials it can process that cannot currently be curbside recycled, such as bubble wrap.
• Envision Charlotte will also focus on content contamination rates, especially since many current MRFs experience a 40 percent contamination rate.

Bob Powell, Founder and CEO, Brightmark

• Brightmark is trying to achieve zero waste and limit greenhouse gas emissions through on-the-ground solutions.
• Brightmark is on two paths to eliminate waste:
  • One is to use animal organic waste to create renewable natural gas (RNG).
  • Brightmark also uses patented technology to break down plastic and reuse the byproducts to make new plastic, thus creating a circular economy for plastic waste. This process targets the 80 percent of global plastic waste that is not recycled or incinerated.
• With a $216 million investment, Brightmark is opening a plant in Indiana in 2021 that will divert 100,000 tons of plastic per year and convert this waste into 18 million gallons of ultra-low sulfur diesel and naphtha and six million gallons of wax per year. Creating fuels is not the final goal. The ultimate goal is to achieve full circularity and create non-combustible products.
• The Brightmark plastic recycling technology shreds the plastic waste, turns it into pellets, then heats the pellets up and uses pyrolysis to convert the waste into usable products. The process is 93 percent efficient and runs 24/7; 70-80 percent of the byproducts of the process can be used to make new plastics.
• Brightmark has 29 projects in seven states to convert animal manure, which would otherwise emit methane, into RNG.
• To convert manure into RNG, the manure is put into a digester for three weeks, which collects biogas emitted by the manure. This biogas is then converted into RNG and can be injected into pipelines. The byproduct is used as commercial fertilizer.
• In the next five years, Brightmark aims to divert 8.4 million metric tons of plastic from landfills, break it down, and create new plastic. It also plans on offsetting two million metric tons of CO2 through plastic renewal and RNG projects.

Sarah Nichols, Sustainable Maine Director, Natural Resources Council of Maine

• Since 1989, Maine has had a goal to recycle 50 percent of its waste. Its current estimated recycling collection rate is 36 percent, which is expected to be an overestimate.
• Maine’s 1.3 million taxpayers spend an estimated $16 to $17.5 million per year on packaging disposal and recycling. Recycling costs 60 percent more than disposal of waste, causing cities to choose between raising taxes and cutting recycling programs.
• 40 percent of the waste stream is plastic packaging. This packaging is often not designed with future recycling in mind, places strain on municipalities with tight budgets, and burdens low-income communities where the trash disproportionately ends up.
• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a type of program that gives the producer the responsibility for end-of-life management of harmful products. EPR can incentivize companies to improve packaging and decrease waste, as they must pay for the waste they produce.
• Maine has eight EPR laws already in place for products like paints, beverage containers, and electronic wastes. There are 120 EPR laws in the United States across 33 states. Maine is one of 11 states currently pursuing an EPR program for plastic packaging.
• EPR programs’ per capita costs are comparable to the costs of current recycling programs, but EPR programs lead to double the recycling rates.
• An EPR bill typically creates a stewardship organization that convenes producer and disposer stakeholders. The stewardship organization collects fees from producers based on the type of waste produced, and it can also provide assistance to decrease program costs, collect data, and assess the program.
• EPR programs are most effective when implemented alongside “sister policies.”
  • One sister policy to EPR is banning problematic materials, such as plastic shopping bags, so that the producers or consumers do not adopt other problematic materials after the EPR program takes effect.
  • Another sister policy is creating incentives for consumers to recycle correctly. For instance, 10 states including Maine have beverage container drop off programs. These programs pay per-unit fees for plastic bottles and lead to high rates of recycling and a clean recycling commodity.
  • Finally, governments can implement minimum recycled content standards, thus creating a market demand for recycling.
• The federal government can play a role in improving recycling by improving data collection. Nichols has to rely on outdated 2011 waste data, and each state calculates recycling rates differently, which can skew or inflate national recycling rates.
• The federal government can also standardize the definition of recycling. Nichols argues that incineration and waste-to-fuel should not be included in the definition of recycling, as these are destructive practices that make businesses reliant on the waste stream, rather than incentivize them to reduce it.

Q&A Session

Q: What can federal policy makers do to promote the waste programs and innovations you spoke about? Are there things the federal government could do that would hinder them? Where is the right balance between federal government support and state and local government initiatives?

• Allaway: There is a disconnect between cost to society and the prices paid for materials. Reuse and recycling reduce harmful climate change impacts, which rack up costs in the billions of dollars a year. We are underinvesting in recycling initiatives because the price signals that industry and government are responding to are not accounting for those impacts. The federal government can address the virgin material subsidies (i.e., fossil fuel subsidies) that make plastics and paper recycling unfeasible. We also need to account for the costs of pollution. Putting a price on carbon and on human health pollutants would make users of those materials pay their real costs to society. With that, more recycling and prevention could happen. The federal government could play a critical role in getting the economics right.

• Aussieker: In Charlotte, we tend not to do a lot of policy around these types of issues. However, the federal government can have a huge role in convening the over 2,000 different recycling programs across the United States, bringing out more best practices, and vetting some of those opportunities. In addition, all of us would like to see more ways to measure what is truly going to landfill versus what is being recycled, so that there are more consistent standards across the entire United States.

• Powell: Measuring the true costs of environmental impacts is really important. It is my view that a lot of the environmental problems we have right now are because we do not know how to measure and price our problems. The federal government should target the desired outcomes and allow for innovation in getting there. Ultimately, what we seek to do at Brightmark is create a fully circular solution. If we are cut off in the early stages from converting waste into diesel, we might never get to full circularity, and then we are left with a massive plastic waste problem. Allow the states to innovate around the outcomes.

• Wright: I would like to see more consistency in the standards across the states, like a national recycling standard. Iowa does not actually track recyclables, yet we do give the federal government numbers every year. I think that establishing a federal Extended Producer Responsibility would be great. We have a bottle deposit system here in Iowa, but we have seen its success diminish over the years. If we had a federal deposit system, it might bolster that program for us. In Iowa, we have some fairly robust grant programs to fund innovation and manage waste, but the funds are not as robust as they used to be. It would be great if the federal government could match these funds.

• Nichols: We have already covered that we need better data. I would love for the EPA to do a good job on how to calculate recycling rates. I am also growing increasingly concerned with the environmental justice aspect of managing waste. One by one, states can pass more protective laws, but then those harmful facilities and wastes are just going to move to other states and countries where they do not have the same environmental protections. I could see the federal government playing a better role in focusing on the health-related impacts of the materials management system.

Q: What can we do better in waste management to advance environmental justice goals and mitigate the disproportionately negative impacts that waste has on people of color and low-income communities?

• Allaway: We have a collection program in Oregon that provides inconsistent service. Generally lower-income, rural residents and people of color are less likely to have access to recycling opportunities. The working conditions of most waste processing facilities are very dangerous and dirty, and, in some cases, do not even pay a living wage. There are also the impacts of our exported recyclables, those that are improperly sorted and sent to countries that lack adequate disposal infrastructure or regulation. Finally, there is an equity issue in terms of who pays for and who benefits from our recycling system. Our legislative approach in Oregon addresses all of these issues.

• Powell: Our core values are diversity, equity and inclusion, and there are a lot of different ways we can live our values. One way is living wages. We are committed in our projects to pay not just a living wage, but a thriving wage. Another way is looking at where we site our projects. We need to be more equitable with how we do that. The final thing is that some solutions that have a higher cost may not work in all areas. When we think about imposing solutions, we need to solve the standard-of-living equation as well.

Highlights compiled by Celine Yang and Rachel Snead.