Although it's not for Zero Waste, it does have some good policies,
including product stewardship, market development, and financial incentives
for recycling.
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Pushing the Envelope on Waste Reduction and Recovery
The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA)
January 10, 2003
This document was approved by the SWANA International Board of Directors at
their 2002 Annual Meeting in Long Beach CA. It was developed with input and
contributions from SWANA's eight Technical Divisions and was drafted by
John H. Skinner, Ph.D. Executive Director and CEO
Executive Summary
This document sets forth SWANA's strategy for significantly increasing the
rates of municipal solid waste reduction and recovery in North America and
makes a series of policy recommendations that would remove barriers to and
provide incentives for achieving higher levels of waste reduction and
recovery. It is intended to be a living document designed to communicate,
stimulate discussion and solicit comments on the ideas and concepts
presented. Accordingly it will be widely distributed to Federal, State and
Provincial legislators and policy makers, local governmental officials,
solid waste management professionals, the media and the general
public. The document will be modified in the future based on the
commentary received
In developing this strategy, SWANA supports a comprehensive integrated
solid waste management approach that incorporates a broad range of source
reduction, materials recycling and energy recovery activities to reduce and
recover value from municipal solid wastes. SWANA believes that there is
significant opportunity to increase reduction and recovery levels by
working across the board and encouraging reduction and recovery in many
forms, wherever it can be achieved in an environmentally and economically
sound manner. Furthermore, since there are technical, economic and
budgetary constraints to increasing waste reduction and recovery levels,
SWANA believes providing a broad range of solid waste reduction and
recovery options will allow market forces to work to increase reduction and
recovery rates in the most economical and efficient manner.
The document first reviews the most recent US EPA data on solid waste
generation, recovery and disposal along with the trends in this data over
the past two decades. Based on this data SWANA concludes the following:
· Even though the economy grew dramatically over the last decade, the
per capita waste generation rate has actually leveled off and remained
steady since 1990. This suggests that waste generation continues to
increase primarily because the population is increasing and not because of
an inherent increase in wastefulness by consumers and industry.
· The overall reduction and recovery rate in the year 2000 was over
50 percent when all forms of source reduction, recycling, composting and
energy recovery are included. In year 2000, 30 percent of the solid waste
generated was recycled or composted, 15 percent was recovered through
waste-to-energy systems, and waste generation was reduced at the source by
nearly 20 percent.
· Over the past decade the quantity of municipal solid waste disposed
of in landfills has actually declined by 9 percent, even though the total
waste generated has increased due to population growth. This fact alone
testifies to the outstanding success of municipal solid waste reduction and
recovery programs in North America.
The document then presents several projections for future solid waste
reduction and recovery levels. SWANA concludes that increasing the overall
reduction and recovery rate to 65 percent over a ten year period would be
and ambitious goal that would require a 28 percent increase in reduction
and recovery over current levels while holding per capita waste generation
rates level. This probably cannot be achieved without new incentives to
encourage across-the-board increases in recovery and reduction levels.
The document concludes with the following policy recommendations that would
build upon past successes and create incentives to reduce waste and achieve
higher levels of solid waste recovery:
Recommendation 1: Encourage more extensive product stewardship by product
designers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers.
Recommendation 2: Expand efforts by Federal, State and Provincial
governments to develop markets for recycled materials and recovered energy.
Recommendation 3: Provide financial incentives for investments in
recycling, composting and the use of recycled materials.
Recommendation 4: Include waste-to-energy and conversion technologies in
renewable portfolio standards and green power programs.
Recommendation 5: Encourage the recovery and use of landfill gas by
reinstating federal tax credits and through renewable portfolio standards
and green power programs.
Recommendation 6: Support technology transfer and research and development
efforts that have the potential to significantly increase waste recovery
rates, as well as work to reduce the barriers to their implementation.
These recommendations will provide the guiding principles for SWANA and its
members to use in advocacy efforts with policy makers, legislators,
regulatory agencies, industry and public interest groups.