I agree with Lee's analysis. Dr. George Tchbonoglaus, UC Davis advocated
Lee's position in the Senate Task Force on Waste Management (1987-88) and at
a CRRA Sacramento Chapter meeting that I attended in 1993 or 1994. Lee does
an excellent job of highlighting the many problems with landfilling today.
In our State Recycling Policy, we called for the "true costs of landfilling"
to be acknowledged and accounted for. In our Agenda for the Next Millenium,
I believe we should advocate Lee's approach to landfilling almost verbatim
from this article. I'd really like to see the reaction of our waste industry
members to that being in a draft document. At the Senate Task Force, waste
industry members of the Task Force said that all they wanted was a level
playing field - if we required multiple liners, etc. that would be ok, as
long as everyone (public and private) had to play by the same book. In
today's terms that consider long-distance hauling options as viable, that
means that both state and federal regulations would need to be changed to
accomplish a level playing field on this issue. But I believe that is going
to be a critical element of future waste management and recycling policies.
Gary Liss