Reid,
You said: "If avoidance of landfills and incinerators is made the key
rationale for recycling, the recycling community will get, at best, silence
from the scientific community or even open opposition."
I am deeply concerned with truth as a scientist, but I am not so awed by
the 'scientific community' as to have forgotten the 'scientific' support for
nuclear energy and a succession of 'state-of-the-art' incinerators. Nor am
I blind to the pseudo-science of present day risk assessors who pretend
they know enough about chemical effects and synergies to model reality.
The common thread of these scientists, I think, is that they have no
connection to the communities affected by their pronouncements.
I have long noted the refusal of the northeastern intellectual
establishment to acknowledge shortcomings of the Subtitle D landfill
design -- my particular area of interest. I would be most interested to
know the scientific basis for confidence in entombing garbage. My
reading and experience tells me that the HDPE plastic liners the
thickness of two credit cards are readily permeable to a number of toxic
organic compounds and in any case are not meaningfully guaranteed by
manufacturers; and that two feet of clay compacted to 10 to the minus 7
simply means that a foot of standing liquid would go through it in about
seven years (using Darcy's Law and assuming no lumps).
Housewives have no trouble grasping the idea that structures
deteriorate with age, so that landfills are not going to become magically
LESS prone to leakage after the 30 year post-closure period. They ask,
"What then?" -- just as they asked of the nuclear power scientists, "Where
will you put the spent toxic fuel?"
Another concept that I believe will flow from the people to the scientists
is that the solution to waste is prevention, not management. Of course,
there is big money in waste management, but we are talking science
here, aren't we?
THIS SAID, let me say that I am in basic agreement with you that
"Recycling IS good environmental policy, but it is in production, not
waste management, where the primary benefits occur."
But even if environmental benefits are greater upstream, it is not obvious
how internalizing those costs will affect recycling. On the other hand,
internalizing waste disposal costs will help the 3Rs immediately and
directly. I believe that we should pursue BOTH strategies: internalizing
costs upstream as well as downstream.
Thanks for your comments.
Sincerely,
Bill Sheehan
*****************************************
Bill Sheehan, Ph.D.
Director of Environmental Biology
E & C Consulting Engineers, Inc.
work tel: 770-995-9606; fax 770-995-6603
home tel & fax: 706-208-1416
268 Janice Drive, Athens, GA 30606
email: bill.sheehan@sierraclub.org
(comes to jennie alvernaz's email account)
*****************************************
Original message from Reid Lifset:
Dear colleagues,
As I read the exchanges on the greenyes listserv, I can't help but
worry that people are falling into the same trap that made them vulnerable
to attacks from the anti-recycling community.
The most powerful case for recycling comes *not* from the avoidance
of the environmental threats from landfilling and incineration but from the
minimization of *upstream* threats. That is, recycling allows us to avoid
environmental damages that occur during resource extraction (mining,
drilling, logging, etc.) and when scrap materials are substituted for virgin
materials, manufacturing is generally less polluting. This is where
recycling advocates can make their strongest case. If avoidance of
landfills and incinerators is made the key rationale for recycling, the
recycling community will get, at best, silence from the scientific community
or even open opposition.
Recycling IS good environmental policy, but it is in production, not
waste management where the primary benefits occur.
Reid Lifset
Yale Program on Solid Waste Policy
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