H. Lanier Hickman Jr.

Part 10b–Resource Recovery: Materials-Use Policies and Source Separation

Links to other parts of our series may be found at the end of this article.

By H. Lanier Hickman Jr.

The passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976 was a dramatic shift in the direction of the federal government's involvement in MSW management. RCRA, coupled with the United States Environmental Protection Agency's preference for the regulatory approach to solving environmental problems, served to justify a shift away from the US Public Health Services (USPHS) traditions of research, assistance, and partnering with state and local government. Even though this began to occur in the late 1980s, ongoing work and additional new nonregulatory efforts in MSW continued for some time. The departure of EPA for a period of close to 10 years did not lessen the amount of MSW being generated, the need for improvement in practices, or the growing interest in recycling.

This part examines two important aspects of resource recovery: national materials-use policies that affect the success of resource recovery and source-separation policies and practices that have resulted in the growth of materials recovery.

The Egg, a Perfect Package (Materials Use and Source Reduction)

The study on packaging in solid waste management was known in the UPSETS Office of Solid Waste as the "Egg Study" because of the report cover.

Packaging has long been a target of recyclers and resource conservationists. Because of its pervasive presence in the MSW stream, it has received both citizen and legislative interest even in 1965 with the passage of the Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA, see Note 1). A significant early study, started and funded by the USPHS and completed by EPA, examined the role of packaging in solid waste management from 1966 to 1976 (Darnay and Franklin, 1969, see photo). This study is significant because it signaled that, as early as 1967, the federal government viewed reducing the amount of material that ultimately became solid waste as part of solid waste management.

The objectives of the USPHS study was to help find ways to:

• reduce the quantity of packaging materials used, thereby reducing the quantity of such solid wastes to be collected and managed;
• reduce the destruction of valuable natural resources;
• reduce the technical difficulty of handling packaging materials in recovery and disposal facilities; and
• develop packaging products that could be disposed of as solid waste in more effective, efficient ways and to identify new approaches to solid waste processing, landfilling, and incineration.

Examining other work that followed this study, it is apparent that these objectives were not short-term objectives. They established in the late 1960s the basic continuing strategy of the federal government to attempt to affect the use of materials in products and the design of those products. The ultimate goal of the strategy was to reduce the amount of materials used, to use more environmentally friendly materials, and to make discarded packaging easier to manage and recycle. The strategies also served as part of the justification for the amendments to the SWDA passed in 1970 (Resource Recovery Act [RRA]). However, no federal legislative or regulatory measures have ever been taken to directly affect how package-materials producers, converters, and packagers design and use their products. This is due to the considerable political power of these groups.

A number of approaches to meet the objectives of the study were identified:

Reducing the Quantity of Packaging Wastes Generated. Measures to implement this activity included regulation of the packaging industry to eliminate overpackaging and regulations forcing the reuse of containers or recycle of materials for reprocessing.

Conservation of Natural Resources. Measures to implement this activity included prohibition of the use of certain materials from packaging, regulations requiring containers to be made of specified materials and be returnable and reusable, and improvement of recovery and conversion by making packaging material more "recyclable."

Reduction of the Technical Difficulty of Handling Packaging Wastes in MSW Management Facilities. Measures to implement this activity included modification of packages to give them characteristics to ease their recycling or disposal, elimination of materials that make packaging undesirable for either reuse or other management approaches, and development of new technologies to collect, process, and recycle or manage packaging wastes.

The study identified a number of initiatives that the feds could pursue to implement the various approaches that would lead to meeting the objectives:

Research and Development. Materials-use studies and recovery technology development were the two major considerations, with recovery technology receiving the most attention.

Educational Efforts. Efforts were directed at industries to gain their participation in changing materials use and design characteristics of packaging, educating consumers to change public attitude about solid waste and packaging to create a willingness to cooperate in the management of packaging wastes, and bringing the entire federal government (agencies) into the strategy to impact the manufacturing and use of packaging.

Incentives and Subsidies. Both direct (subsidies, outright grants, and price supports) and indirect (government purchasing power, tax credits) were included in this approach.

Taxes. Two types of taxes–packaging-use taxes and deterrent taxes–were proposed as a means of implementation.

Regulation. Both federal and state regulation on package materials producers, converters, and packagers and/or uses to affect the characteristics of packaging.

It is unlikely that many readers of this history, who have been working in the solid waste management field since the mid-1970s are aware that the strategy discussed here is the basis for recycling as it is in the third millennium. One can sort through all of these objectives, activities, and mechanisms and tie them to what is happening in recycling today:

Deposits. While not enacted at the federal level (a major attempt was made to do this, but it was soundly defeated in the halls and offices of House and Senate by package materials producers, converters, and packagers), many states have container deposits requirements.

Regulation. State diversion rates are nothing but regulations to force diversion of materials from MSW.

Incentives and Subsidies. The federal government has failed to provide any financial incentives for recycling, but many state governments have provided grants, fees, and a number of financial incentives to stimulate recycling.

Education. Fed-heavy "jawboning" and education programs about the need for recycling, their work with the manufacturing sector, and corollary programs at the state levels have been significant in changing public and industry attitudes regarding the value of recycling. In addition, while the amount packaging might not have decreased, the weight of packaging per unit has decreased as a result of new packaging materials and designs.

Technologies. The attention by the feds to improve collection technologies has helped recycling to increase. The many dollars spent by the feds on solid waste processing technologies bear fruit today with much of the equipment used in material recovery facilities (MRFs).

Space in this article does not allow for an expanded discussion on the issue of materials-use and source-reduction policies. However, the early efforts and findings from the USPHS solid waste program between 1965 and 1970 led to the amendment of the SWDA by the RRA, and EPA leadership led to the passage of RCRA. The combination of these three pieces of legislation has resulted in the national focus to develop resource recovery into an important part of solid waste management.

Trash for Sale (Source Separation and Recycling)

From 1970 until 1980, the federal solid waste program, now a part of EPA, pursued a program of promotion of resource recovery (energy and materials). Outside the beltway, the first Earth Day generated nationwide interest in recycling. This interest greatly aided the many grassroots recycling activities across the US. The question, then, that puzzles this author is: What caused recycling to take off around the mid-1980s? Interviews with many of the people who were a part of the growth of recycling beginning in 1980 cannot identify exactly what brought about this growth. Some noted key events were identified by some of the pioneers as a cause-and-effect for their own entry into recycling and solid waste management. Two popular events were Earth Day 1970 (and subsequent Earth Days thereafter) and the garbage barge.

For whatever reasons known or unknown, out beyond the beltway, the American public, as volunteers, began to establish drop-off centers and curbside recyclables collection programs (Phillips, 1998). Newspapers, glass bottles, and cans (aluminum and steel) were the popular items collected by most volunteer-driven efforts. These efforts resulted in increased public pressures for local governments to pay attention to recycling as part of solid waste management. During the 1970s, recycling rates from MSW (primarily residential solid waste) held steady at 5-7%. Aluminum-can recovery programs supported by manufacturers and users of aluminum cans were the most notable of the programs that emerged in the 1970s. In 1967, there was one aluminum-can collection center; 10 years later there were 1,300. By 1975, 25% of aluminum cans were being recycled. The market for aluminum cans has remained strong into the third millennium.

The passage of RCRA gave clear congressional signals that they wanted more investments in resource conservation. RCRA included expanded authorities to issue guidelines; technical assistance for resource recovery and conservation; assistance to states to develop state plans for solid waste disposal, utilization of resources, and resource conservation; development and issuance of sanitary landfill guidelines; and the development of specifications for secondary materials (see Note 2). RCRA also separated the solid wastestream into two categories–hazardous and nonhazardous–and gave EPA regulatory authority over hazardous wastes. So an agency that was a regulatory and enforcement organization was finally granted regulation over part of the solid wastestream. In granting that authority, the future of the nonhazardous solid waste efforts was doomed to be a small and often ignored part of EPA, frequently in direct violation of the statutory requirements of RCRA.

During late 1970s and in the early part of the 1980s, however, the federal solid waste program actively promoted the development of waste-to-energy (WTE) plants, materials recovery, and improving sanitary landfill practices. By 1980, the national recycling rate had crept up to nearly 10% (Phillips, 1998). During the early 1980s, growth in recycling stagnated. EPA efforts to promote WTE might have been a part of this lessening of growth. Many recycling activists viewed the growth in WTE as a threat to materials recovery. As is often the case, markets for secondary materials weakened in the 1980s, and this was probably the real reason for the stagnation. As pressures grew to implement the hazardous waste provisions (Subtitle C) of RCRA, EPA resources for nonhazardous wastes were drastically cut.

But recycling would not disappear, and increased public demands for recycling caused a reawakening in EPA. In 1988, after some two years of effort, EPA issued An Agenda for Action. This report advanced integrated solid waste and a hierarchy of waste reduction, recycling, combustion, and landfilling. More importantly, EPA provided a modest increase in resources to assist and promote waste reduction and recycling. An Agenda for Action also set a 25% recycling goal for the US.

As the second millennium closed, the growth of recycling resulted in the complete shift of priorities in MSW management. Integrated solid waste management had become the foundation for solid waste management in the third millennium. MSW recycling, including composting, was managing 27% of the MSW stream (USEPA, 1998). There were nearly 9,000 curbside recyclables collection programs and more than 10,000 drop-off centers for recyclables. An estimated 360 MRFs were busily engaged in processing the recyclables diverted from various portions of the MSW stream. An estimated 3,000 processing and composting programs were busily managing an estimated 11 million tons of greenwaste. Recovery of paper and paperboard reached 41%, accounting for more than half of the MSW recovered. By 2000, almost 71% of all old newspapers were recovered and recycled, up from 54% in 1992.

Remarkable progress has been made in recycling, but recovery rates have leveled out, and increased recycling in the US will depend on tapping solid wastestreams other than MSW. As such, it will take another national effort by the public, state governments, and EPA to enlist businesses and industries to make the same level of commitment that was made during the last two decades of the second millennium by local governments if we are to advance recycling rates in the third millennium.

Notes

1. Many believe that recycling began in the 1980s, but the ability of the federal government to participate, stimulate, and support recycling is based on the original organic act for solid waste management (SWDA). Section 201(a)(1) in the findings to support the SWDA provided that authority–"that the continuing technological progress and improvement in methods of manufacturer, packaging, and marketing of consumer products has resulted in an ever mounting increase, and in the change in the characteristics, of the mass of material discarded by the purchaser of such products."

2. RCRA is a significant piece of environmental legislation. It addresses a broad spectrum of environmental issues that fell through the cracks as a result of clean-water and clean-air legislation. One need only look at the definition of solid waste in RCRA (Section 1004[27]) to realize that the congressional intent was to capture many of those issues that did fall through the cracks. The definition encompasses just about every waste material not regulated by clean-water and clean-air legislation. It is also significant that RCRA statutorily established an Office of Solid Waste within EPA, a signal that the Congress wanted EPA to pay more attention to solid waste issues.

References

Darnay, Arson and William E. Franklin. The Role of Packaging in Solid Waste Management 1996 to 1976. Publication #SW-5c. USPHS, Rockville, MD. 1969.

Phillips, J.A. Managing America's Solid Waste. Publication #NREL/SR-570-25035. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO. 1998.

USEPA. The Solid Waste Dilemma: An Agenda for Action. Publication #530/SW-89-019. US Office of Solid Waste, Washington, DC. 1988.

USEPA. Characterization of Municipal Solid Waste in the United States, 1997 Update. Publication #530-R-98-007. US Environmental Protection Agency. Washington, DC. 1998.

H. Lanier Hickman Jr., P.E., is a member of MSW Management's Editorial Advisory Board.

To read the other parts in this feature please click on the relevant links below:

Part 1: Introducing the Pioneers
Part 2: Of Mosquitoes, Flies, Rats, Swine, and Smoke
Part 3: The Sanitary Landfill
Part 4: Building a National Movement
Part 5a: Building an Infrastructure
Part 5b: Building an Infrastructure
Part 6: Collecting Solid Waste/No Longer Beasts of Burden
Part 7a: Landfill Gas Odors/Fires, Explosions, and Kilowatts
Part 7b: Landfill Gas - An Asset, Not a Liability
Part 8: Composting: Sometimes a Good Idea Does Not Sell
Part 9a: The Awakening of Waste-to-Energy in the US
Part 9b: A Reverse Marshall Plan
Part 10a: Resource Recovery: Materials, Energy, or Both?