[greenyes] Recycling's Own Sustainability

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

In response to Pat Franklin's posting of the article from USA Today that 
reported on recycling's malaise, Karen Hales asks:
  "So the question I pose to all of you and to those able to attend NRC, 
what
  are we going to do about this? Is recycling just another latté, a trend 
that
  is here today and gone tomorrow? Or is it sustainable? These are the
  question I struggle with as I see local communities get rid of their
  recycling positions and reduce their programs, or when I talk to someone
  working for a waste company. Do we let things just take their course or is
  it worth/ are we able to make recycling sustainable?"
    This is a critical issue for all of us. We need to recognize that, other 
than non-ferrous metals and high-grade papers, recycling -- 15 years after 
the Mobro garbage barge -- remains still hanging on by tenterhooks. We can 
can learn this not only by all those recycling coordinators now unemployed, 
but also by talking with anyone in the private sector of the recycling 
infrastructure that must compete, and further looking at the fact that, 
since 1995-97, recycling has plateaued and, other than several wonder 
bellwether communities that are unfortunately the exception that proves the 
rule, is experiencing slow erosion.

    In addition, future trends are not encouraging. The shift being driven 
by Waste Management to single stream programs, although it needn't 
necessarily be done this way, is being done in a manner in which the 
implementation of these programs is almost certainly going to be driven to 
overpack compacting trucks and run material through automated sortation 
lines faster than they were designed for in an effort to reduce costs 
without due regard to quality.  This has a devastating implication.  It 
means that the deviation between the amount separated for recycling at the 
curb, and the amount actually recycled, is going to drastically increase, as 
residue rates soar and marketing to highest and best uses plummets. When 
increases in residues, already reported by GAA to be approaching 30%,  once 
glass rubble returned to the landfill as daily cover is excluded from the 
diversion count, is added to further increases in yield losses at 
intermediate processors and end users, we may expect to see as much as a 
half of what is separated winding up back in the landfill.

    That is to say, those reported flat recycling rates in BioCycle, which 
are already showing small signs of some deterioration, will mask the far 
greater fall off in real recycling achieved.  When that is brought to public 
attention by our good friends in Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation, 
we can expect a significant public backlash, aimed against us, not WMI who 
has led the push for these changes in a way most likely to fail.

    But, does this all mean we face doom and gloom as to the future of the 
movement -- and the industry -- which all of us in the recycling community 
have strived for over the past two decades?

    It need not if we understand our fundamentals and act to make certain 
key changes to take advantage of them in the future.  First, the primary 
thing which recycling is competing against -- apart from changes in the 
global economy over which we have no control -- is landfilling, and if we 
understand this fact, we can turn night into day.

    As I have posted often in the past, current landfill tip fees that often 
are less than $20/ton, which very few of us can compete against, do not 
reflect the true cost of disposal.  The so-called state of the art dry tomb 
facilities are actually fatally flawed in that all the elaborate barriers 
will "ultimately fail," in EPA's own words, thereby only postponing and not 
preventing pollution.  If landfills were moved to a safer mode, all 
decomposable matter would be either pretreated, at a cost of more than $65 
per ton, or diverted, at whatever cost we can develop systems for to source 
separate organics for composting, which I suspect can be done for far less. 
And were we to do that, as Europe is already pushing for because they 
recognize the reality that we cannot safely dispose of things in the ground 
that rot and make leachate and greenhouse gases, we could increase diversion 
from our current levels of 30% to more than 75%, and do so on an 
economically driven basis. Thus, the very thing needed to reduce landfill 
injuries will, at the same time, mark a path to economically strengthen our 
base level recovery efforts, as well as a open the door most of the way to 
zero waste (or darn close).

    Second, the landfill industry's intent to side step that bullet with 
bioreactors represents a critical moment in regulatory time for us to act to 
insure that those potential gains are not lost. They now propose to 
deliberately add major volumes of liquids (instead of keeping the sites dry) 
in an effort to stabilze the site. But, in addition to the fact that these 
liquid additions that raise moisture levels to 45%-65% threaten the 
stability of the site itself, bioreactors will generate massive increases in 
greenhouse gases, at the same time, the US and the rest of the world is 
desperately scrapping for ways to decrease existing levels.  That's the 
killer for this new technology being pushed on the cheap, were we to 
galvanize our energies to make that point.

    Note that where they have built bioreactors, the landfill industry is 
now claiming that all organics belong in the landfills, because they attempt 
to incorrectly catatorize bioreactors as some kind of organic digestor for 
energy recovery, and are pushing that yard debris (that constitutes nearly 
half of current diversion) be returned to the dump, just as has been 
attempted in Illinois, Iowa and Indiana.

    Well, recyclers joined together to stop those attempts to reverse our 
gains in those states, and we won!, and we can continue to make progress 
against inadequately regulated landfills in the future.

    But, to revitalize our movement we will need to come to grips with the 
fact that we our best served by defining our own interests ourselves, and 
not delegating that task to those whose interests are diametrically opposite 
of ours, just because of a few grants or advertising dollars that they offer 
to seduce us from our appointed rounds.  The waste companies tell Wall 
Street that "recycling is the enemy" (their own words) -- how then can we 
rely on their advice or make ourselves dependent on their services in 
contracting if we intend to make recycling sustainable. Don't get me wrong, 
they have legitimate interests and they are entitled to pursue them. But, 
they are not ours and it ought to behoove ourselves to not adopt the 
prescriptions of those who brand us as their enemy.

    Not only does that extend to bioreactors, which we're asked to ignore as 
too complicated for us to understand, and to single stream, when abused, but 
also to other major issues we did not adequately pursue such as minimum 
recycled content for newspapers (that was our salvation at our birthing in 
the early 1990's). Another example is all bottles pushed by the American 
Plastics Council, which threatens the economics of our PET programs by 
encouraging more PVC, which is expensive to remove at current levels, and 
impossible to remove at higher levels, but which we join in based upon false 
information from the APC.

    Every day we are given tradeoffs between short term and long term 
advantage.  In this case, the short term gains from sponsorships by the 
Waste Mangements and American Plastics Councils are, while difficult to give 
up, the price we pay to not pursue our own interests where they diverge.

    Karen's question makes it unmistakably clear that the time has no come 
where we have to make a choice, or face a future of irreversible decline. 
Think of the blood, sweat and tears all of us have poured into creating a 
world in which recycling might flourish.  Do we really want to see all of 
that slowly sink beneath the waves just so that we can enjoy free beer at 
opening receptions at our conferences?

                                                                             
        Peter



_________________________
Peter Anderson, President
RECYCLEWORLDS CONSULTING
4513 Vernon Blvd. Suite 15
Madison, WI 53705-4964
Ph: (608) 231-1100
Fax: (608) 233-0011
Cell: (608) 698-1314
eMail: anderson@no.address
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