MSW Management first turned its attention to the conversion of waste to fuel for energy in November 1996, when our then-companion publication, Remediation Management, blew the whistle on the gasoline additive, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) whose toxicity, coupled with an affinity for water, showed it to be a first-class environmental danger. At that that point I suggested in my Editor’s Comments that this represented an opportunity for converting a lot of organic wastes into ethanol as a replacement for MTBE, thus diverting a large portion of materials destined for landfills. The response to what I felt was an enlightened suggestion was twofold:
• Governmental regulatory agencies—purportedly the watchdogs of public health and safety—did nothing about MTBE until 1999, by which time the Department of Agriculture was prepared to sink billions of taxpayer dollars into subsidizing farmers to use valuable (and non-renewable) farmland for growing corn for conversion to ethanol.
• Response from the waste community was less than underwhelming (zero professing support and a small handful vilifying the idea as an assault on the recycling industry) discouraging further discussion on the subject of what were clandestinely known as waste conversion technologies (CTs).
In 1999, MSW Management leapt back into the fray, co-hosting with the Wendy P. McCaw Foundation a colloquy in which…”The general objective was to explore certain fundamental questions relating to sustainable materials management in the 21st century and the potential role of new conversion technologies in processing portions of the solid waste stream into renewable and environmentally benign fuels, chemicals, and sources of clean energy. Of particular concern [is] how government policies and functions may need to change to anticipate, catalyze, and respond to these future developments, while ensuring and enhancing environmental protection, resource conversion and recovery, economic development, and other related public policy goals.”
The colloquy, attended by representatives of government (DOE, NREL, CIWMB) and a number of producers, seemed to provide a viable platform from which to move ahead, but the vision was short-lived, succeeding on subsequent occasions to incur the enmity of a number of environmental groups, who see CTs was rivals to recycling feedstocks.
California, which is known for its leadership in environmental issues and whose cities are deeply in need of ways to cut down on materials destined for their soon-to-be-exhausted landfills, has been stymied by opposition to awarding diversion credits equal to those currently enjoyed by recycling and composting, and for some time now this has had a negative impact on attempts to bring CTs online in some other areas.
Despite the seemingly endless debate on whether or not to allow CTs into the diversion credit club, a significant number of WASTECON 2009’s exhibitors either didn’t get the word or were not impressed by California State Senate’s intransigence regarding their potential contribution to integrated waste management. It was not just the fact they were there, but the reception they received from attendees that should encourage CT opponents to re-assess their stance in light of what RCRA was and is all about.
Environmental trend-setter though it has been in the past, California’s political and parochial focuses may have made the state irrelevant to the way the nation moves to meet its environmental, financial, and societal challenges. Sic Transit Gloria.