John Trotti

It took me only six months to get the date right on most of my checks and correspondence, which is a noteworthy accomplishment. So far, so good on other fronts as well, as noted below.

Climaxing several years of battle against a seemingly endless array of challenges, USEPA’s Research Triangle Park (NC) crew under the baton of the indefatigable Susan Thorneloe has guided its Application of Life-Cycle Management to Evaluate Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Strategies through its final hurdle - the peer review process - on its way to public release. Developed in collaboration with the Research Triangle Institute, a detailed presentation of the Life Cycle Assessment program can be found at www.rti.org/units/ese/p2/lca.cfm. Why is this a big deal? For the first time, managers and municipal decision-makers will have a tool with which to compare various solid waste management options. Rather than a magic bullet, the LCA should be viewed as an iterative device that gets better as user feedback and real data are used to refine the program’s assumptions.

Once breached, EPA’s outer defenses of the prescriptive "dry tomb" landfill have begun to crumble under the determined assault of those concerned by cost and long-term liability issues. Many questions have yet to be answered, but a number of demonstration projects employing both anaerobic and aerobic degradation strategies are in progress, as well as an even greater number of leachate recirculation activities aimed at reducing the cost of landfill operation and longevity of postclosure care.

Equally exciting is the increased attention being paid to energy and materials recovery by the private sector. While there are some who feel that this renewed interest in recycling is a marketing ploy, others view strategy shift as a sound approach both to future profits and a reduction in the long-term liability associated with landfilling.

While hard-liners of the "environmental community" continue to fight at the political level to preserve parochial definitions of what constitutes recycling, a growing number of their peers recognize that solutions based on these have reached a point of mature stagnation. Figures developed over the past decade show that while paper (for instance) may be recycled a second and perhaps even a third time, its residues eventually join the organic fraction that makes up 67% of what still goes to landfills. The issue is not so much a matter of recycling (or who gets to make the profit from recycling) per se, but the economics of waste as a viable alternative to the use of nonrenewable resources in the production of fuels and energy in addition to traditional products.

Among US utilities, only MSW management - a $50 billion enterprise nationally with implications and opportunities far beyond our borders - has no organized research and development program to encourage innovation. But that might soon change, as SWANA unveiled its proposed plan for an Applied Research Foundation at WASTECON 2000 in Cincinnati, OH.

SWANA directed staff to investigate the feasibility of establishing an industrywide Applied Research Foundation "to advance the practice of economically and environmentally sound MSW management…." SWANA will carry the overhead burden throughout 2001, and several solid waste organizations have agreed to help fund a limited number of research projects to demonstrate the value of collective applied research. But for the proposed foundation to go forward, it must be assured of funding support from other activities and organizations.

We think that not only is this an idea whose time has come, but SWANA is also the proper venue for its establishment. For further information on the Applied Research Foundation, contact Jeremy O’Brien at jobrien@swana.org.

MSW
Nov/Dec 2000