John Trotti

Each year I consider our Elements issue a gold-plated opportunity to take a relaxed-focus look at solid waste’s "big picture" and share with you my vision of what’s what and even a little of what I think will be. But this time my mind is so boggled by the sheer number of issues we’re privileged to address, I’m hard-pressed to find a starting place, much less characterize this issue in terms of an overt theme. That said, I hope that as you read you’ll find there is an underlying current here having to do with the potential for extracting increased value from the materials passing through our hands. I sense we’re on the brink of change in terms of our waste vision and what it means to manage it. Not surprisingly, the drivers of change lie in forces and factors not of our making and beyond our control–energy, air and water quality, traffic, land use, and social justice issues to name a few–posing some daunting challenges … but the seeds of exciting opportunity as well. Space precludes looking at more than a few of these here, so be sure to investigate the other contents of this special issue.

Let me start with processing, the heart of the entire system. What we do here really establishes the requirements for and limitations on the activities at either end. While we haven’t seen any great shift in programs, equipment, or practices, it would be wrong to say that "nothing’s happening" or that it’s "business as usual." There are changes, but it is more in the potential-gathering stage, as reflected in "A Year of Little Progress for Diversion," and viewed more explicitly in "The Impact of Waste Industry Consolidation on Recycling," which takes the view that the large, vertically integrated waste companies are shifting focus from landfills to MRFs and other intermediate processing activities to strengthen their position within the industry. Whether you hold with this conclusion or conceive of alternatives, there is rising evidence that control of the materials at this stage is gaining favor as a matter of strategic policy. We can speculate endlessly on "why" and how this impacts other elements of an integrated system, but it certainly gives rise to interesting possibilities. One such outgrowth is "Del Norte County: On the Road to Zero Waste," in which a community is shifting from an emphasis on managing waste collection and disposal to "getting the signals right" by developing analyses, regulations, promotions, policies, and incentives to work toward zero waste.

Recycling in terms of its mainstream practices has matured to the point where many feel the cost for further increases in diversion cannot be justified, that any significant advance in recovery rates must involve new strategies, markets, and technologies. This might not seem like a terribly exciting revelation, but it is the basis for a hot little war within our own borders. Proponents of traditional recycling programs–around which significant infrastructure and institutional gravity has developed–fear that new diversion programs might compete (unfairly they insist) for feedstock heretofore destined for their coffers. In a free market for waste materials, their fear is justified since their programs are able to thrive by skimming the cream of recyclables off the top while turning a blind eye to the bulk of materials proceeding without further interference for disposal. Thus, it is no surprise that institutional recycling interests have turned to governmental entities for protection. Effectively blocked from free access to feedstocks, purveyors of nontraditional recycling technologies–forced to refer to their processes by such uninspiring terms as "conversion" or "transformation" technologies–find themselves cast in the role of predators seeking to undermine recycling efforts. The question for us is whether we can afford not to interdict the heavy flow of materials presently headed for disposal.

Changes in many of our practices are shaped as much by outside forces as those unique to waste management. While work force size containment is an important economic consideration, it might turn out to be "discretionary" compared to employee health and safety issues in determining collection practices and equipment. The same case applies to sorting operations, where the risks involved in having workers hand-pick recyclables from waste are coming under increased scrutiny. Led by concerns over urban air and water quality, environment issues have an increased impact on collection, transfer, and disposal operations and might well lead to changes as dramatic and costly as those set in motion by Subtitle D regulations.

Local and regional governments will soon have to tackle the traffic congestion issue, and waste activities will be easy targets. For some the response will be rail haul, particularly where regional landfills are sited or planned. For others, the answer might lie in increased processing and conversion activities at MRFs coupled with other facilities such as digesters or bioconversion plants. Given worldwide concerns for energy generation and the growing recognition that current fuel reserves are less than previously estimated, WTE is once again ready for discussion. This time the underlying perception is of an actual shortage in resource reserves rather than distribution. While most people think of energy production in terms of large electrical power generation processes, there are other options that fall under the heading of "Distributed Energy Resources." These have the advantage of being localized with the ability to not only reduce trunk-line loads, but also utilize excess heat–normally wasted in centralized operations–for other purposes.

Our knowledge and experience with a variety of approaches and practices dealing with bioreactivity have increased dramatically over the past several years, leading some to believe that EPA’s prescriptive "dry tomb" landfill is a thing of the past. Others believe that until we know more about the long-term effects of bioreactivity, we should hold to the more conservative approach. There is, however, a growing belief that before too long, bioreactive landfills need to be purpose-designed, extensively instrumented, and tested in regions varying in climate, soil, and geologic conditions. Emerging from research thus far, however, is the growing belief that the benefits are real and it is possible that a purpose-built bioreactive landfill might be not only the least-cost waste management option but the environmentally superior one as well.

We’re in the programs and services business, but beneath it all we’re here to meet the needs and expectations of people in ways that often lie outside the boundaries of our charters. For starters there are customers who pay the bills and speak to us most immediately in person or through their elected representatives, and we’re spring-loaded to the immediate-response mode when the phone rings. But we answer to our customers in other, less apparent, ways as well; for instance, through regulations and court decisions that are in constant flux, posing requirements that often run counter to what we consider our best interests.

While we all face dozens of new challenges each year, we’re able to take most in stride. But all of us also know that lurking in the shadows is a "Carbone decision," whose ripples are still felt a full seven years after the May 16, 1994, US Supreme Court decision sent shock waves rocketing through our community. Similar to those along California’s San Andreas Fault, we all have to be wondering, "When’s the next big one coming?" which brings (perhaps) to the situation discussed by SWANA General Council Barry Shanoff in "EPA Blows Smoke Into Clean Air Act Liability." According to the logic adopted by a local EPA region, the owner/operator of a gas collection system is the "owner or operator of an MSW landfill with a gas collection system." You’ll want to read the article even if you aren’t potentially affected, if for no other reason than to assure yourself you’re saner than some of the people who run our country. I wish I could say that this will all go away, but "wait and see" appears to be a wise choice.

Interestingly, landfill gas is caught in one of those curious warps that only government can generate in the no-man’s land between the public’s desire to meet the greenhouse gas emissions situation head-on and its equally heartfelt and legitimate desire to see a reduction in the tax bite. Controlling LFG and doing something with the energy besides flaring it into the atmosphere would seem to be a slam-dunker for federal support, and events taking place at the moment I write this would seem to support this conclusion. But wait. First off, questions as to how partisan politics might affect the adoption of the administration’s energy policy, and then how firmly LFG is embedded into current Section 29 and Section 45 tax-credit proposals, lead one to the conclusion that the only person who really understood politics was Yogi Berra when he noted, "It ain’t over ‘til it’s over." SWANA and EPA’s LMOP program have done a terrific job in getting LFG onto the table, but we have to recognize that it’s there as a pawn in a game in which the knights and bishops are gone and the kings and queens belong to bigger fish. Our hope is that we don’t get traded out at the 11th hour.

More remote than public perception and political reality is the public consciousness that, to a very great extent, determines how effective our programs and efforts are or can ever be. This pops up in hundreds of ways, and while it has no standing in law or procedure and rarely is legitimized by funding, it underlies the expectations and measuring sticks by which our options are shaped and constrained. Here I’d like to call attention to the difficulty encountered by those attempting to introduce new technologies and practices into our field. For a field with few institutions dating back more than 50 years–recycling in our modern sense less than half that–our practices are surprisingly well set in concrete. Much of this inflexibility reflects the public’s perception of the value of the materials involved and, therefore, the level of acceptable investment in dealing with it. Things do change, however, and while it’s not likely that we will ever be the chief-cook and bottle-washer in the events that lead to change, we do have the obligation to seize opportunities that allow us to manage waste more effectively and efficiently.

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