A Mitigation Strategy for Reducing Municipal Solid Waste

The disposal of municipal solid waste has always been a problem for communities. Prior to the modern landfill, solid waste was disposed of in some pit or area outside of town where the sight and smell of the garbage would not offend anyone. Today, landfills are highly regulated, lined, covered, and capped facilities that are operated by licensed personnel in an effort to make it a safer form of disposal. In an effort to reduce the impact from waste disposal, I am proposing a mitigation strategy to reduce solid waste. Voluntary programs, incentive-based programs, mandatory programs, and public education are both important elements of this mitigation plan.

Waste reduction is the combination of waste prevention and recycling. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in 2008, approximately 250 million tons of trash was generated. This equals about 4.5 pounds of waste per person per day. About 83 million tons of the waste was either recycled or composted. This equals a recycling rate of about 33.2%. Of this amount, 61 million tons was recycled and 22 million tons was composted. So, of the 4.5 pounds of waste that each person produces each day, 1.5 pounds was recycled or composted. These numbers are very close to the rates seen in 2007.

Landfills are only one way of disposing of solid waste. Solid waste combustion is not only a way to dispose of garbage, but it also used to generate electricity. There are several means of reducing the amount of garbage that ends up in landfills. One method is source reduction. This is a method that begins where products are manufactured. Other methods of reducing the volume of solid waste are recycling and composting.

Recycling has been increasing steadily in the United States since 1965. In 2008, the recovery of office-type paper increased to 71% or 4.3 million tons of paper. Yard trimmings recovery was 65% and metals recovery was 35% (or 7 million tons). The recovery of automobile batteries, with the aid of strict legislation, was 99%. When products are recovered from the waste stream, it has many environmental benefits (EPA, 2009).

There are many benefits to the reduction of solid waste. It saves natural resources that are used to make products and packaging. The reduction of solid waste also saves natural habitat that may be used for landfill space. Solid waste reduction also reduces the toxicity of waste. Landfills and combustion facilities both produce toxic and hazardous wastes that can find their way into the natural systems such as groundwater or surface water, or air. If a smaller volume of waste is generated, then there is less potential pollution.

Waste reduction also has a close tie to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. With waste reduction, there is a reduction in emissions from energy consumption. This is because the manufacturing of goods from recycled materials uses less energy than manufacturing with virgin materials. There is also a reduction of emissions from incinerators used to burn waste, and a reduction of methane emissions from landfills. In addition, there is an increase in storage of carbon in trees when recycled materials are used instead of chopping down trees (EPA, n.d).

The recovery materials eliminates many greenhouse gas emissions equaling 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. This equals the removal of 4.5 million cars from the road in one year (EPA, 2009). The EPA estimates that if we increase recycling from 30 to 35 percent, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by another million metric tons carbon equivalents, compared to if the material was landfilled. By 2010, the EPA hopes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.6 million metric tons carbon equivalents through waste prevention and recycling.

Another benefit of solid waste reduction is that it reduces costs. This benefit is applicable at any level from individual to communities to the corporate level. These costs could be related to a reduction in costs from a reduction of source and from disposal costs. When businesses manufacture with less packaging, they need to buy less raw materials. On the consumer level, when consumers buy in bulk, there is less packaging, or if they buy reusable commodities, then there is a cost savings.

A mitigation plan for solid waste reduction is very comprehensive and has many possibilities and alternatives. There are too many individual programs related to source reduction, recycling, and composting to relate in detail in this mitigation plan, but each component will be briefly discussed.

One component of a mitigation plan for the reduction of solid waste is a pay-as-you-throw program for communities. In many communities, the fees associated with solid waste disposal (garbage collection) are a flat rate that is treated like a utility such as water and wastewater and is often incorporated into water bills or tax bills. This means that no matter how much garbage a person places at the curb, each household is charged the same amount. Households that produce very little solid waste are basically subsidizing the households that produce large volumes of waste. In a pay-as-you-throw program, individuals pay per bag or can of garbage that is collected at the curb. This can be accomplished through a couple of different means. One way is that the individuals would purchase special garbage bags from the municipality and the other way is through the purchase of special stickers that would need to be affixed to each can or bag that was to be collected. This program would have a direct economic incentive for people to recycle more and to generate less waste. In addition, for the communities, this would be a means of generating revenues. This program also provides equity so that the households that are reducing the amount of waste they generate and who are recycling more are not subsidizing those households that are more wasteful.

There are a couple of drawbacks to the pay-as-you-throw program. One is that there is not always public support for such a program. If people feel that they are going to be paying a substantial amount more each week for garbage collection, especially in tough economic times, they will not support such a program. Lack of support may lead to other problems like illegal dumping. Currently, about 5000 pay-as-you-throw programs exist throughout the United States (EPA, n.d.). The average waste reduction in these communities is between 14 and 27 percent.

One example of a voluntary program is the WasteWise partnership. This is a partnership between the EPA and United States businesses, federal, state, local, and tribal governments and institutions to prevent waste, recycle, and purchase or manufacture products that are made with recycled materials. Currently about 1200 organizations are participating in the WasteWise program (EPA, n.d.).

In 2008, there were about 8660 curbside recycling programs in the United States and this was down from the 8875 programs that existed in 2002 (EPA, 2009). The most basic recycling program remove materials like aluminum and steel cans, newspaper, glass, and plastic from the waste stream. More advanced recycling programs include concrete, rubber, electronic waste, kitchen grease, recyclable batteries, and tires. In 2006, the State of California passed a law that required stores to have a recycling program for plastic carryout bags (State of California, 2009).

In June 2009, the city of San Francisco passed a law that implemented the most comprehensive mandatory recycling and composting program in the United States. One of the main goals of the law is to have the city sending no waste to incinerators or landfills by the year 2020. Because it is mandatory, if someone fails to follow the law, there would be several warnings followed by fines, though most city officials said that fines would only be used in the worst cases. For small businesses and residential customers, the fines would be capped at $100. For other businesses, the fines would be capped at $500 (Cote, 2009).

Though the mandatory recycling program has goals that would greatly reduce the 618,000 tons of waste that gets sent to the landfill each year from the city, there are some people who did not support the law. Some people did not like the prospect of someone inspecting their garbage. At first, the owners of rental properties and apartment buildings were against the law because it initially held the property owners responsible for the tenants' sorting of waste. That language was dropped and the property owners took a neutral stance. Another problem the law had to do with night scavengers who were in and out of garbage cans at night. City supervisors worried that the new system was going to create a new problem (Cote, 2009).

Part of a mitigation strategy would include participation in voluntary programs like WasteWise, but the main component of the strategy would include other elements that have economic incentives and penalties. One of the most effective components of the mitigation strategy would be the pay-as-you-throw program whereby individuals are charged only for the waste they actually produce. According to the EPA, public input into the establishment of this program is essential for success. The public education portion of the strategy could be implemented while the government entities work out the use and distribution of the stickers and bags.

Mandatory recycling that includes recycling as well as composting would be another element of the mitigation strategy. Though places such as San Francisco have implemented the mandatory recycling, there are no real consequences for not following through as they only pursue fines on the worst offenders.

Prolonging the life of nation's landfills, preserving natural resources, and reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses are just a few of the benefits of waste reduction. There are challenges to waste reduction, especially in locations with limited access to recycling facilities, but these challenges can be overcome with proper management.

References

California Integrated Waste Management Board, (2009). History of California Solid

Waste Law, 2005-2008. Retrieved December 11, 2009 from http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Statutes/Legislation/CalHist/2005to2008.htm

Conte, J., (2009). S.F. OKs toughest recycling law in U.S. Retrieved December 11, 2009

From http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/09/MN09183NV8.DTL

EPA, (n.d.). Reducing Waste Can Make a Difference. Retrieved December 11, 2009

From http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/downloads/cc-waste.pdf

EPA, (2009). Wastes - What you can do. Retrieved December 11, 2009 from

http://www.epa.gov/waste/wycd/community.htm