John Trotti

As I wade through the stack of informative bulletins that provide an ongoing buffer between me and my desk, I get the feeling that Dave and Frank aboard Stanley Kubrick’s spaceship could not have felt more lost in space than the tumbling container on our cover. A significant portion of the disorientation comes from the emerging recognition that many of the challenges we face have little or nothing to do with waste or its effective management. Instead, many of the choices we make are driven by environmental and political concerns. Elements 2001 looks at these challenges in some detail in the hope that we will be able to reap benefit from our actions. As we set sail into the new millennium, therefore, I for one am eager to see what business - old and new - justifies the mountain of recyclable materials I have to leaf through each day.

Taking Care of People

We could have devoted this entire issue to the subject of people because, as SWANA Executive Director John Skinner’s article ("Management Skills for Survival") says, that’s what our business is really about. In the final analysis, municipal waste managers provide a major service in the protection of public health and safety, but the implications of this charge go beyond the mechanics of picking up garbage and getting it out of notice and concern. Indeed, it extends into the policy arena where it’s up to managers and staff to guide the public and its elected officials toward wise choices about their management of materials. Although Skinner’s article focuses on public-sector issues, it is mandatory reading for everyone involved in the field.

If public health and safety is our reason for being, a good starting point is the well being of our own people. Certainly OSHA feels that way, and given our rather dismal record heretofore, the agency has chosen to focus special attention on the field. A number of waste organizations, including SWANA, have devoted considerable time and effort to analyzing OSHA’s efforts and offering guidance in the development of regulations that we hope will work to the benefit of all our employees. These efforts are captured in "OSHA, Ergonomics, and Safety" by Janice Kaspersen.

To Jupiter and Beyond?

While the Carbone decision and its descendants remain major milestones in the waste management decision tree, most municipalities have digested whatever bullet they had to bite in the wake of the ruling and moved on. Not all the dust has settled, however, so for a status check on the situation, don’t miss "Commerce ‘Claws’ Grips Government" by Barry Shanoff.

While you’re absorbing some of the legal intricacies of the situation, you might want to also consider the fate of much of the 21st century wastestream in the presence of real if not absolutely intended economic differences. If New York City has any viable management option to waste export in the wake of its decision to close Fresh Kills, it’s well hidden. Part of the apparent stealth could well be the result of the persistent protestations of the State of Virginia, which does after all enjoy an opportunity of dumping substantial amount of cash into its coffers.

Globally we see even greater disparities that pose serious problems in health and safety. Within the European Union, for instance, disposal costs range from roughly $200/ton in Germany to less than a tenth of that in Portugal or Spain and less still in Poland where it is not obvious what waste management schemes are in place to take care of the amounts and constituents of waste slipping across its borders. Waste is rapidly taking on a worldwide perspective, a point underscored in "Garbage Going Global" by N.C. Vasuki, executive director of the Delaware Solid Waste Authority.

Waste Diversion Rates

The year 2000 has come and gone, and for many this signaled the end of a diversion accounting period. All those with goals or mandates met them, right? Hmmm. Maybe not. Then all of us believe the reports that show 20%…35%…50% (select whatever number applies) waste diversion from the landfill, right? So if you notice that the amount of stuff entering our landfills has (gulp!) gone up - and that the percentage of organics remains substantially the same despite all our efforts to interdict them upstream in the process - you might be tempted to question the effectiveness of a decade’s hard work. Yet have we failed in our efforts? I think not. More than anything it means that we now have far better records on waste than we had in 1990, and while their accuracy might not be quite good enough to take to the bank, they certainly are a wonderful starting place for what comes next.

So What Comes Next?

Until now we’ve had the tendency to limit the horizon of diversion to recycling and composting, while consigning WTE and landfilling to the nether region of disposal. In this manner we’ve established emotional, political, and economic barriers to innovative waste management. Faced with hard evidence that their programs have been only partially successful, many proponents of traditional approaches are coming to the realization that there is more to be diverted than paper, glass, plastic bottles, and metals. Boosted by rising energy prices, deregulation within the electric utility industry, the search for less-polluting fuels, and the growing concern over our dependence on foreign fuel supplies, support for the development of nonpetroleum energy sources is mounting. This opens broad new avenues of enterprise for the economically viable diversion of waste. While resistance to thermal WTE projects is still high in the US and Canada - it is the preferred practice throughout much of Europe and Asia - objections to nonthermal waste transformation technologies (e.g., pyrolysis, gasification, anaerobic digestion, distillation) are rooted in such counterproductive pursuits as the protection of feedstocks and the belief that any generation of energy or fuels is inherently bad.

Will 2001 be the year when we see a flood of projects involving "new" technologies? Probably not. But it is likely to be remembered as one when old systems embraced new ideas…a fine legacy, I believe.

How Landfills Are Faring

The buzz in the landfill world is bioreactive, a term that from time to time (1) gets confused with leachate recirculation, (2) is used by some to denigrate the accomplishments of the prescriptive Subtitle D "dry-tomb" advocates, and (3) is used by others to describe the inner workings of a bunch of heretics. For the real, unvarnished story, read and absorb John Pacey’s "Bioreactor Landfill: An Overview Perspective." It will prepare you for some exciting possibilities for the future, including the notion that a purpose-designed bioreactive landfill could in some instances be the most economic and environmentally superior waste management option.

Noise, Smoke, Congestion

We’ve all seen for some time that personnel issues - work force as well as health and safety - are changing our collection practices and equipment. Now other forces - environmental and political for the most part - are adding complexity and strengthened incentive to the process. Noisy garbage trucks have been the focal point for strong public reaction for some time, forcing vehicle manufacturers and their hydraulic-systems suppliers to tackle the problem head on.

In the Los Angeles area, waste haulers will soon be called on to make momentous decisions on the selection of power plants and fuels for their next generation of vehicles. Requirements of the South Coast Air Management District’s "1190 Rules" will likely cost haulers between $35,000 and $45,000 for dedicated alternative-fuel engines with an additional $300,000-$600,000 going for fueling stations. Aside from a large capital investment, haulers will be saddled with reduced performance and uncertain but certainly higher fuel costs. Even if the major engine manufacturers who have banded together to challenge the district’s authority to levy such requirements are successful in their plaint, the issue of air quality is not going to go away, nor is it going to stay put in Los Angeles.

If you sit in the midst of a traffic jam on a daily basis - and more of us do all the time - you won’t be surprised to learn that an increasing number of jurisdictions are looking at their local transportation plans and wondering what they can do to relieve the congestion. Then if you consider the kinds of vehicles these jurisdictions can regulate, you might get the feeling that trash trucks are a pretty tempting target. Even minor restrictions can have a large impact on routing and scheduling efficiencies, so if you figure you’re ripe for regulation, it might pay to look at ways to schedule activities around areas and times of peak traffic flow.

Keeping Water Clean

Your local stormwater office is very concerned with pollutants of all sorts getting into your lakes, streams, ponds, and oceans from nonpoint sources - roads, residences, vacant lots, and so on. One of the buzzwords you’ll likely hear is "floatables," the nondescript items of trash and even leaves that find their way into receiving waters. Watershed people blame this on inadequate trash removal, a stretch you might believe. Argue as you will, don’t be surprised when you find your organization has a role to play in stormwater management.

So What’s In Store?

There’s plenty of work to do for sure, but there are also great opportunities for us to make real differences in how we and society will deal with the residue side of the materials management equation. If that alone is not enough, perhaps you’ll appreciate that the new millennium will bring with it the promise of enough trash to guarantee a successful career in waste management for at least another thousand years.

MSW
Elements, 2001