[GreenYes] Demerits for Landfills

[arthur boone <arboone3@no.address>]

Several weeks ago I spoke to a California state committee and for the first time thought to say that if landfills get credit for sequestering carbon or for making methane, they should get demerits for hiding all the materials that, if we could recycle them, would save lots of GHGs, BTUs, etc. 

John Davis of CRRA and myself have made various attempts to multiply what we know is still in the waste stream (state does waste characterizations) times the CO2 emissions avoided by recycling one ton of that material and coming up with a net loss of emissions savings due to wasting/landfilling. Charlotte Ely of USEPA's office in SF is also weighing in. 

My hope would be to have some numbers that we can all agree to and use them for public information work. Nobody questions that recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees; I don't know where that number came from, do you? But we need the same level of confidence in our GHGs-avoided-by-recycling numbers and I hope it happens soon. 

Would appreciate hearing from others who have worked on this. 

Arthur R. Boone
Education Chair, Northern California Recycling Association. 


 
 
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