[GreenYes] EPR and sustaining local recycling

["Helen Spiegelman" <hspie@no.address>]

Hello GreenYes friends,
 
I would like to summarize the Product Policy Institute's position
supporting Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), our reasons for using
federal and state data and conventional terminology, and our rationale
for focusing on "municipal solid waste," as we have done in our position
papers. I hope that this summary will dispel any suggestion that PPI's
work is in conflict with that of Urban Ore or other community based
recycling businesses. Rather, we see PPI's work and Urban Ore's as
complementary and mutually supporting.
 
PPI and the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC) use data and
terminology developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the
California Integrated Waste Management Board. The terms "municipal
waste," "waste generation" and "waste production" as well as "disposal"
and "discards" as defined by EPA and the Board are in common use in the
recycling and solid waste professions. New terminology proposed by Urban
Ore ("discard supply" and "wasting") captures normative values of
conservation that PPI shares with Urban Ore unreservedly. PPI has simply
chosen to use standard, generally accepted terminology in developing
arguments in support of policies that are consistent with those
values.
 
The focus of both PPI's and CPSC's work is municipal solid waste
(MSW), that is, discarded items for which local governments have legal
responsibility to ensure "proper" management.  In EPA and CIWMB
usage, MSW comprises materials that are typically generated by the
residential, industrial, institutional and light industrial sectors in
local communities. PPI has chosen to focus our efforts on MSW - and not
other discard streams including construction and demolition materials
from the "built environment" -- because our focus is finding ways to
reverse the staggering growth in consumption of short-lived products and
packaging in our society. EPA data show that nearly three-quarters of
municipal waste is products and packaging. 
 
We trace the origin of today's waste problem to Progressive Era reforms
at the beginning of the 20th Century that made refuse
collection and disposal a core function of local government.  This
shift displaced a robust industry of independent recyclers who made their
living from directing useful items back into commerce through
well-established commercial arrangements. Municipal governments and
contracted waste haulers came to dominate a new industry whose mission
was to "dispose" of municipal refuse as conveniently and cheaply as
possible, mainly through landfilling and incineration.
 
Our discards evolved to fit the niche we had created for them. Consumer
goods were designed to be cheaper to replace than repair. The quantity of
manufactured products and packaging in municipal waste grew from less
than 100 pounds to over 1200 pounds per person per year during the last
century. At the same time, products and packaging became more complex,
more highly engineered, more likely to contain substances that posed
waste management risks in conventional disposal facilities. But still
there was the expectation that local governments would find disposal
solutions. 
 
The intent of EPR is to reduce wasteful production and consumption and
enhance recycling. By creating a link of responsibility between producers
and the downstream impacts of their products, so producers can no longer
ignore the impacts of their design decisions at the end of the product's
life, product design and marketing will support recycling. 
 
Early EPR programs are already delivering promising results in
recovering, reusing and recycling targeted products. As more products
become subject to EPR, we will see better product design and also a
burgeoning demand for innovative EPR-driven recycling services in local
communities wherever products are sold. Local enterprises like Urban Ore
will play a critical role in the future materials management economy
under EPR. As soon as EPR laws and regulations require producers to reuse
or recycle their products, producers will need to seek the services of
businesses like Urban Ore to get the job done. As in other parts of the
product supply chain, reuse entrepreneurs will be agents of innovation,
offering brand-owners better and better ways to minimize cost and
maximize profits, all the while adhering to standards set by government,
with public support, to protect the commons.  
 
The focus until now has been on state-level legislation, but over time
EPR will also give rise to a broad suite of municipal product policy
instruments in areas like land-use planning, zoning, business licensing,
as well as development and building regulation. These municipal powers,
along with state-level EPR mandates, will give local governments tools
they need to make recycling and reuse economically sustainable and create
green jobs in the community.  Doing so will enhance the prosperity
and resilience of local communities in the uncertain times ahead when
Peak Oil may disrupt long distance transport of goods. Urban Ore's vision
of discard malls can become a reality when EPR builds ever and ever
greater opportunities for recycling and reuse.
 
Respectfully,
 
Helen Spiegelman
President
Product Policy Institute