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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/09/1989 - Solid Waste Abatement Commission AGENDA SOLID WASTE ABATEMENT COMMISSION EAGAN, MINNESOTA EAGAN MUNICIPAL CENTER CONFERENCE ROOMS A & B TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1989 11:30 A.M. I. ROLL CALL AND ADOPTION OF AGENDA II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES III. STAFF REPORT IV. OLD BUSINESS V. NEW BUSINESS A. Yard Waste Program Options - Reviewed B. 1990 compensation levels for Single -4 unit residential collections. C. 1990 Program Plans /Agenda VI. OTHER BUSINESS VII. DISTRIBUTION VIII. NEXT MEETING IX. ADJOURNMENT MEMO TO: CHAIRS HOEL AND MANN AND ALL MEMBERS OF THE SOLID WASTE ABATEMENT COMMISSION FROM: RECYCLING SPECIALIST HAGEMAN DATE: JANUARY 3, 1990 SUBJECT: EAGAN SOLID WASTE ABATEMENT COMMISSION MEETING OF JANUARY 9, 1990 A regular meeting of the Eagan Solid Waste Abatement Commission will be held on Tuesday, Janaury 9, 1990 at 11:30 a.m., in the Eagan Municipal Center conference rooms A & B. The City will provide a box lunch to those requesting one by noon, Monday, January 8. Please contact Kris Hageman or Jane Helebrant at 454- 8100 to indicate whether you will attend and your luncheon preference. I. ROLL CALL AND ADOPTION OF AGENDA The agenda, as presented or modified, requires adoption by the Commission. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A copy of the minutes of the Solid Waste Abatement Commiss on meeting of December 12, 1989 is enclosed on pages to These minutes, subject to any change require apprdval by the Commission. III. STAFF REPORT IV. OLD BUSINESS V. NEW BUSINESS A. Yard waste program options - reviewed. To date, city staff has formulated four options for our yard waste program. We have organized the ideas and would like to continue discussion with the Commission. Additional options and information may be available on the 9th. The options that follow incorporate avenues we have looked at and also options that will need further investigation. For all considerations, a overview of estimated volumes of materials is necessary. Dakota County realized a 25% increase in volumes of materials during the months following the yard waste ban in 1989. Weights of materials were close to expectations. The City site did experience an increase in the fall months and a similar 25% increase in volumes of material is possible with the first months of the growing season (grass clippings). if 1. Keep the existing site. - update management plan - land upgrading (grading, expansion) - acquisition of equipment (wood chipper, other ?) - timeframe for land use 2. Keep existing site, use as a transfer facility. - decision regarding which materials to handle on the site and which materials to transfer - which site will accept the material and requirements for disposal - equipment, transportation and cost analysis 3. New site within city limits. - funding options need review - evaluation of space needs and possible reconstruction of land ( - buffer area and easy access for residents - options for land use /zoning requirements 4. No drop -off facility located in Eagan. Use of other municipal or County sites. - will our yard waste be accepted at other municipal facilities? - County plans for the future, permanent or satellite sites - capacity and distance of neighboring sites We plan to use these ideas as a framework for the discussion. If there are additional options or considerations for the yard waste program we want to use our time accordingly to try and formulate a set of guidelines for us to work through in the next few months. B. 1990 compensation levels for single -4 unit residential collections. In addition to the discussion of the multi -unit funding levels for the coming years, we need to clarify the residential funding levels for 1990 -91. Through the discussion on December 12th, funding levels for the residential collection program were carried over to meet the needs for the multi -unit program but were not covered as a separate issue. Residential recycling collection compensations need the same consideration to secure the 1990 -91 levels. We have budgeted sufficient funds for an increase in the per ton payments and it will be our decision to expand our support or remain at the 1989 level. Our budgeted amount for the multi -unit compensation was $1 /per unit per month. At our current $.50 /unit /month level we have additional funds available to work with in terms of organizing the program for the coming year. C. 1990 Program Agenda /Plans If time permits I would like to go over some program plans for the coming year and receive some feedback concerning the goals for the year. Certain goals have been set in order to fulfill our funding requirements from the County, i.e. Multiple family recycling, but there are other items that will need attention in the months ahead. Some of the items I have highlighted include: — Multi - family recycling expansion Yard Waste Program School Presentations Continue Promotional Activities viEarth Day Events --2A Continued Program Activities (Cash for Trash) VI. OTHER BUSINESS VII. DISTRIBUTION Enclosed in your packet are the following materials. 1. Dakota County Preliminary Residential Abatement Report and a Residential recycling report for the metro area. 2. Informational letter from Edward Kraemer and Sons, Inc. who operate the Burnsville Sanitary Landfill concerning the disposal rate increases for 1990. 3. An article from The Atlantic Monthly, December 1989, "Rubbish!" by William L. Rathje. An interesting overview of the myths and assumptions surrounding our disposal habits and philosophies regarding garbage and comsumption. 4. Waste Management News and Views. 5. Copies of the revised and passed ordinances concerning the residential, multi -unit residential and commercial recycling collections will he iamb available ixon refit. 3 Subject to Approval MINUTES OF THE SOLID WASTE ABATEMENT COMMISSION Eagan, Minnesota December 12, 1989 A regular meeting of the Eagan Solid Waste Abatement Commission was held on Tuesday, December 12, 1989 at 11:30 a.m. Present were Tim Hoel, Tom Mann, Larry Knutson, Tom Moline, Cindy Ista, Darlend Bahr and Earl Milbridge. Absent were Terry Schnell and Brenda Marshall. Also present were Recycling Specialist Hageman, Administrative Assistant Hohenstein, Administrative Intern Weldon, Dakota County Recycling Specialist Mike Trdan and Floyd Hiar, City resident. AGENDA Upon motion by Bahr, seconded by Ista, all members voting in favor, the agenda was approved as presented. MINUTES Upon motion by Knutson, seconded by Bahr, all members voting in favor, the minutes of the November 14, 1989 meeting were approved as presented. Upon motion by Knutson, seconded by Bahr, all members voting in favor, the minutes of the September 12, 1989 meeting was approved as presented. RESIDENTIAL /MULTI -UNIT HAULING FUNDING Hageman began the meeting with a brief description of the expectations for the group discussion. Hageman quickly ran through the additional numbers provided for the multi -unit collection program. The entire meeting was devoted to multi- unit funding and the lengthy discussion began with Hoels' comments concerning the Commissions' original position for the single -four unit recycling program in that we should follow through with the same support with the multi- units. He also added that we need to realize the extra expense with this collection, but our position should be one to help support not completely fund the system. Knutson added there is no reason to reinvent the wheel when dealing with the multi- units, some can work the same way as the residential collection and the rest can be organized by the individual hauler. Knutson also stated that in the M -U program the resident will not see the results of the subsidy, for the most part the management will absorb the savings. Hohenstein reminded the Commission about our original philosophy encouraging strong performance through our funding support. Adding to Knutsons statement allowing for the haulers to design the best system, Hohenstein reiderated the reality of having a "cookie- cutter" system and a small number of large unit buildings which will need different collection systems. Bahr suggested we support the system by a "one- time" payment for containers rather than on -going support. This payment would be in the form of $10.00 a unit for the year plus the per ton reimbursement. Hiar suggested our approach should be to place the cost of the service on the resident, i.e. in the form of a charge on the utility bill. Hohenstein anticipated that the resident will see the costs of recycling on their bills after the sales tax goes into effect the first of the year. Hohenstein added we should utilize the current funds we have to work with before taxing them again, we should educate as best we can to encourage participation on a voluntary level. Hoel added we need to make use of the broadscale tax and then if needed use slow moving action to try and increase participation. Hoel commented on the difference between the home owner and apartment dweller dealing with the taxes and services rendered for such tax levels. Hohenstein then brought to the floor the idea of a monthly reimbursement rather than the one -time payment. Knutson added that the payment may not need to be earmarked for containers but should allow the hauler to use the money in the most efficient manner for the service needed at a particular building. Through this discussion an agreement was made to support the haulers with $.50 /unit /mo and keep the tonnage payment similar to the residential program. We would not be earmarking the $.50. We reminded the commission that an October 1, 1990 timeframe was placed in the ordinance requiring recycling opportunities at multi -unit buildings by this date. The Commission also discussed a two year time -frame for this funding which coincides with our support levels from the county through the end of 1991. Knutson brought up the question concerning how we would deal with a hauler or building if no service was arranged by the October date. Hohenstein commented that there will be some flexibility but programs should have some plan or anticipated startup date if that has not been accomplished by Oct. 1. Technically, all buildings need the service. We will have to work to find ways to establish and sustain the service if problems arise, working with the building management and the haulers. S Hoel recommended we devise a policy statement dealing with the containers and who holds responsibility for damage, replacement, etc. Something should be written regarding the city owned and supplied containers as well as the containers /system for the multi -unit program. Upon further discussion a motion was brought to the table which reads as follows: During the period January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1991, the support level for the multi -unit program will be $.50 per unit per month in addition to the $20 per ton payment for materials collected. The $.50 per unit will be paid for all units which do not use the city provided containers. Upon motion by Knutson, seconded by Bahr, all members voting in favor, the motion was approved. NEXT MEETING Hohenstein indicated that the next regular meeting of the Solid Waste Abatement Commission will be Tuesday, January 9, 1990, at 11:30 p.m. in the Eagan Municipal Center. The main agenda item will be the city's yard waste operations for 1990. ADJOURNMENT Upon motion by Knutson, seconded by Milbridge, all members voting in favor, the meeting adjourned at 1:05 p.m. Date Chair 6 (xi O 0i O 01 O O O O O O O O O O O ■ 1 I I C F I `V I i N M CI A \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \\\\\\% i 0 ( x 0 cc o CD V) i ►< I-' • o r CD r i. 0 ® CO 0 O x O t.J Iiimi P o i �, ank,%\\\\\\\\\\\�D\\\� CD � F1 i lwav . .-„, 7 Pounds Par Capita 4. CI o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 > rfrAW 6 S m MI C N p 3 iii 1 • z E. � o at L i� IIII� � m 7 g �n ' z _ 03 7 3 - g. L A r_ pi e 0 z yr„ e Z �� p _, 0 i : , � MI r, �� O . Nr co n a • m D ji II III -„,, 5? . i .n ;; 5 AGGREGATES OF LIMESTONE, GRAVEL 6 SAND ! i �3 ti y , 'Z -s ` ' 'l -- ' BURNSVILLE SANITARY LANDFILL EDWARD KRAEMER AND SONS, INC. 1020 WEST CLIFF ROAD • BURNSVILLE, MN 55337 • 612 -890 -3611 l December 1, 1989 TO ALL CUSTOMERS: Please be advised that effective January 1, 1990, the standard landfill tipping fee at the Burnsville Sanitary Landfill will increase to $40.00 per ton base rate, plus all applicable taxes. In eddition, taxes imposed by the City of Burnsville and the State of Minnesota on landfill disposal will increase on January 1, 1990. The new total of applicable landfill taxes will be $18.72, per ton as follows: City of Burnsville at $3.33 per ton, Dakota County at $8.72 per ton and the State of Minnesota at $6.67 per ton. Two documents relating to the tax increases are enclosed, including a letter from the State of Minnesota and a resolution passed by the Burnsville City Council. in addition, a 6% sales tax is to be charged on all mixed municipal solid waste loads, unless you have a completed Commercial Hauler's Exemption Certificate on file with us by December 31, 1989. Please send this form to the attention of John Morley at the above address. Forms may be obtained from John Morley or the Minnesota Department of Revenue at 296 -6181. This increase in the base rate is necessary due to the establishment of a landfill financial assurance program in November, 1989 as mandated by regulations previously adopted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. The establishment of the financial assurance program is intended to minimize future environmental concerns and to safeguard future available landfill space. . Sincely, ,, �c 42L Robert D. Miller Vice President /General Manager 7 �7; .T sd( AGGREGATES OF LIMESTONE, GRAVEL & SAND kit , ' .1.4N - Acci :- �. 7 - BURNSVILLE SANITARY LANDFILL EDWARD KRAEMER AND SONS, INC. 1020 WEST CLIFF ROAD • BURNSVILLE, MN 55337 • E12 -890 -3611 BURNSVILLE SANITARY LANDFILL January 1, ]990 BASE RATE: $40.00 /ton plus applicable taxes ($65.00 minimum load charge for all weighed vehicles, plus applicable taxes) Vehicles which do not pay on a weighed -in basis include cars, pickup trucks and certain single axle, double axle and semi trucks. The minimum load rates for these vehicles are as follows: Car/Pickup/Trailer each $22.00 - $32.00 Single Axle Trucks $65.00 Double Axle Trucks $75.00 Semi Trucks $125.00 The above rates do not include applicable taxes. CURRENT TAXES: State of Minnesota $6.67 /ton Dakota County $8.72 /ton City of Burnsville $3 33 /ton � A� y The Burnsville Sanitary Landfill does not accer re following waste types: - Liquids of any type - Hazardous wastes, including household hazardous wastes - Industrial wastes except by special co- disposal permit - Pesticides, fertilizers or other agricultural chemicals or their containers - Paint or related products - Petroleum products including used motor oils,greases or fuels - Lead acid batteries - Barrels or other large containers which may have contained hazardous materials - Tires - Unsterilized medical waste - Asbestos - Machinery or engine parts - Appliances or mattresses - Logs or stumps - Treated or untreated timbers - Street sweepings �D THE ATLA_ \TIC MMO]THL1 A / An archaeologist who excavates landfills believes that our thinking about garbage has been distorted by powerful myths for example, that we're producing more of it per person than ever, that plastic is a big problem, and that paper biodegrades rapidly in landfills RUBBISH • BY WILLIAM L. RATHJE zf o Y. V t ,—.04131m w 1 _ I RIO SALADO Sample: 4 -2 CORN Context Date: 1971 , = Date Collected: June 1989 ! ' le W' EWSPAPERS. TELEPHONE BOOKS. SOILED DIAPERS. MEDICINE VIALS ENCAS- ing brightly colored pills. Brittle ossuaries of chicken bones and T- bones. lideo! Sticky green mountains of yard waste. Half -empty cans of paint and tur- pentine and motor oil and herbicide. Broken furniture and forsaken toys. '1). AI. Americans produce a lot of garbage, some of it very toxic, and our garbage is not al- ways disposed of in a sensible way. The press in recent years has paid much attention to the filling up (and therefore the closing cians, junkyard owners, landfill operators, civil engi- down) of landfills, to the potential dangers of inciner- neers, microbiologists, and captains of industry —as well ators, and CO the apparent inadequacy of our recycling ef- as many ordinary men and women who help make gar - forts. The use of the word "crisis" in these contexts has bage possible. When seen in perspective, our garbage Mike become routine. For all the publicity, however, the pre - woes turn out to be serious — indeed, they have been se- 'm the cise state of affairs is not known. It may be that the lack rious for more than a century —but they are not excep- :ard of reliable information and the persistence of misinfor- tional, and they can be dealt with by disposal methods vision mation constitute the real garbage crisis. that are safe and already available. The biggest challenge aph.. But we have learned some things over the years. My we will face is to recognize that the conventional wisdom program at the University of Arizona, The Garbage Proj- about garbage is often wrong. ect, has been looking at landfills and at garbage fresh out To get some perspective on garbage let's review a few of the can since the early 1970s, and it has generated im- fundamentals. For most of the past two and a half million portant insights. During the past two years I have visited years human beings -left their garbage where it fell. Oh, E o ! all parts of the country and spoken with people who they sometimes tidied up their sleeping and activity eeo think about garbage every day —town planners, politi- areas, but that was about all. This disposal scheme func- • m stores. DECEMBER 1989 // 99 THE .ATL.A \TIC NIO\THL1' tioned adequately, because hunters and gatherers fre- and economic modernization. In a liberal democracy quently abandoned their campgrounds to follow game or these other ends compete for priority, and more often find new stands of plants. Man faced his first garbage cri- than not win. sis when he became a sedentary animal —when, rather Dumping, slopping, and scavenging were the norm in than move himself, he chose to move his garbage. The Europe and the United States until the late 1800s. It is archaeologist Gordon R. Willey argued, only partly in difficult for anyone alive now to comprehend how appall - fun, that Homo sapiens may have been propelled along ing, as recently as a century ago, were the conditions of the path toward civilization by his need for a class at the daily life in all the cities of the Western world, even in bottom of the social hierarchy that could be assigned the the wealthiest parts of town. The stupefying level of filth task of dealing with mounting piles of garbage. accepted as normal from the Middle Ages through the This brings us to an important truth about garbage: Enlightenment was augmented horribly by the Industrial There are no ways of dealing with it that haven't been Revolution. As the historian Martin 'llelosi has noted in known for many thousands of years. These ways are es- his book Garbage in the Cities (1981), one of the ironies of sentially four: dumping it, burning it, converting it into laissez -faire capitalism is that it gave rise to a kind of something that can be used again, and minimizing the "municipal socialism," as cities were forced, for the first volume of material goods — future garbage —that is pro- time since antiquity, to shoulder responsibility for such duced in the first place ( "source reduction," as it is duties as public safety and sanitation. Taking the long called). Every civilization of any complexity has used all view reminds us of one more often - overlooked truth four methods to varying degrees. about garbage: Ever since governments began facing up From prehistory through the present day dumping has to their responsibilities, the story of the garbage problem been the means of disposal favored everywhere, includ- in the West has been one of steady amelioration, of bad ing in the cities. The archaeologist C. W Blegen, who giving way to less bad and eventually to not too bad. To dug into Bronze Age Troy in the 1950s, found that floors be able to complain about the garbage problems that per - had become so littered that periodically a fresh supply of sist is, by past standards, something of a luxury. dirt or clay had been brought in to cover up the refuse. Of course, after several layers had been applied, the An Unknown doors and roofs had to be adjusted upward. Over time the Quantity ancient cities of the Middle East rose high above the HAT MOST PEOPLE CALL GARBAGE, PROFES- landscape on massive mounds, called tells. In 1973 a civil sionals call solid waste. The waste that engineer with the Department of Commerce, Charles we're most familiar with, from the house - Gunnerson, calculated that the rate of uplift owing to the holds and institutions and small businesses accumulation of debris in Bronze Age Troy was about 4.7 of towns and cities, is "municipal solid waste," or .MSW feet per century. If the idea of a city rising above its gar- Professionals talk about what we all throw away as enter - bage at this rate seems extraordinary, it may be worth ing the "solid -waste stream," and the figure of speech is considering that "street level" on the island of Manhat- apt. Waste flows unceasingly, fed by hundreds of millions tan is fully six feet higher today than it was when Peter of tributaries. While many normal activities come to Minuit lived there. a halt on weekends and holidays, the production of At Troy and elsewhere, of course, not all trash was garbage flows on. Indeed, days of rest tend to create kept indoors. The larger pieces of garbage and debris the largest waves of garbage. Christmas is a solid -waste were thrown into the streets. There semi - domesticated tsunami. animals (usually pigs) ate up the food scraps, while hu- One might think that something for which profession - man scavengers, in exchange for the right to sell anything als have a technical term of long standing should also be useful that they might find, carried much of what was left precisely calibrated in terms of volume. As we shall see, to vacant lots or to the outskirts of town, where the gar- this is not the case with MSW. Nonetheless, there has bage was burned or simply left. been a good deal of vivid imagery relating to volume. Ka- In most of the Third World a slopping- and - scavenging tie Kelly, in her book Garbage (1973), asserted that the system that Hector and Aeneas would recognize remains amount of MSW produced in the United States annually in place. The image of sulfurous "garbage mountains" in would fill five million trucks; these, "placed end to end, the Third World may be repellent, but the people who would stretch around the world twice." In December of work these dumps, herding their pigs even as they sort 1987 Newsday estimated that a year's worth of America's out paper and plastic and metal, are performing the most solid waste would fill the twin towers of 187 World Trade thorough job of garbage recycling and resource recovery Centers. In 1985 The Baltimore Sun claimed that Balti- in the world. The garbage mountains point up another more generates enough garbage every day to fill Memori- important (and often overlooked) truth about garbage: al Stadium to a depth of nine feet —a ballpark figure if efficient disposal is not always completely compatible ever there was one. with other desirable social ends, such as human dignity Calculating the total annual volume or weight of gar- 100 /2. DECEMBER IUH4 THE ATI. " \TIC MO \THLY ■ FOAM PACKAGING FROM A; ' ../t• 4 f sK� o =n LANDFILL IN SUNNYVALE, , f � � - ' �` ) ), f , .-- I - _.- ; CALIFORNIA. THE TARGET OF ° T'' , i / r , - � , � } 1 . n MANY PROPOSED BANS R , Y ti e t , _ �+. is } K rt r� a f S NATIONWIDE, FOAM �`'/ -I J,� 2,, a •'= , ,f 1 .k ACCOUNTS FOR ONLY A )!tai ' A + 9 IP' , dd t i , { THIRD OF ONE PERCENT OF - ' / \ -.• In r LANDFILL VOLUME. IF IT „'!?:<14-.v.'. t • , v ri - ` ., 4 } '.'I- T ii ' _ , i WERE BANNED, IT WOULD `���� tl aY . + � y i "- - , al SIMPLY BE REPLACED BY � ,, 'I's,:, 3 : 'W 4 -c• t ,?f 'II n SOMETHING ELSE. St ' _ ± -'0" 'll / - Lei , s ; F r O > ` '7� s l g � y y C y r y e II r • 1 p �' NAVES INOTNEMS TOO N$ L C OMPAN Y , M ' ; (- ';4 , 4, i � T ,,Yz _ 1.`i ' 4 're "*,41.°7.-' 3" �3 y . s.: _f- bage in the United States is difficult because there is, of concentrate and orange juice from scratch; and consider course, no way one can actually measure or weigh more the fact that producers of orange -juice concentrate sell than a fraction of what is thrown out. All studies have had the leftover orange rinds as feed, while households to take shortcuts. Not surprisingly, estimates of the size don't.) The average household in Mexico City produces s- of the U.S. solid -waste stream are quite diverse. Figures one third more garbage a day than does the average at i are most commonly expressed in pounds discarded per American household. The reason for the relatively favor- person per day, and the studies that I have seen from the able U.S. showing is packaging —which is to say, moder- es past decade and a half give the following rates: 2.9 nit No, Americans are not suddenly producing more X. ( pounds per person per day, 3.02 pounds, 4.24, 4.28, 5.0, garbage. Per capita our record is, at worst, one of relative r and 8.0. \l• own view is that the higher estimates signifi- stability. Is candy overstate the problem. Garbage Project studies of ns actual refuse reveal that even three pounds of garbage What's in a Landfill? (0 per person per day may be too high an estimate for many of 1 parts of the country, a conclusion that has been corrobo- SANITARY LANDFILL IS TYPICALLY A DEPRESSION Ite rated by weight -sorts in many communities. Americans Tined with clays, in which each day's deposit of ,te are wasteful, but to some degree we have been condi- fresh garbage is covered with a layer of dirt or tioned to think of ourselves as more wasteful than we tru- plastic or both. A great deal of mythology has 'n ly are —and certainly as more wasteful than we used to built up around the modern landfill. We have stuffed it De be. with the contents of our imaginations. It is a fact, howev- =e, Evidence all around us reinforces such perceptions. er, that there is an acute shortage of sanitary landfills for as Fast -food packaging is ubiquitous and conspicuous. the time being, especially in the northeastern United :a- Planned obsolescence is a cliche. Our society is filled States. From 1982 to 1987 some 3,000 landfills have been he with symbolic reminders of waste. What we forget is ev- filled up and shut down nationwide. The customary for- HV ervthing that is no longer there to see. We do not see the mulation of the problem we face (you will find it in virtu - ld• 1,200 pounds per year of coal ash that every American ally every newspaper or magazine article on the subject) of generated at home at the turn of the century and that was is that 50 percent of the landfills now in use will close a's usually dumped on the poor side of town. We do not see down within five years. As it happens, that has always de the hundreds of thousands of dead horses that once had been true —it was true in 1970 and in 1960 — because 1t1- to be disposed of by American cities every year. We do most landfills are designed to be in use for only about ten ,ri- not look behind modern packaging and see the food years. As noted, we are not producing more household if waste that it has prevented, or the garbage that it has garbage per capita (though we are probabrs' producing saved us from making. (Consider the difference in terms more garbage overall, there being more and more of us). al- I of garbage generation between making orange juice from The problem is that old landfills are not being replaced. : 89 DECEMBER 1989 /3 101 THE A 1 - L.4 \'TIC NIO\TH Texas, for example. awarded some 250 permits a year for packaging. Less than one percent of the contents by landfills in the mid - seventies but awarded fewer than fif- weight was disposable diapers. The entire category of I ty last year. things made from plastic accounted for Tess than five per- I The idea persists nevertheless that we are filling up cent of the landfills' contents by weight, and for only 12 I landfills at an exponential rate, and that certain products percent by volume. The real culprit in every landfill is with a high public profile are disproportionately respon- plain old paper— non- fast -food paper, and mostly paper I sible. I recently ran across articles in two different news- that isn't for packaging. Paper accounts for 40 to 50 per- i papers from Oregon in which the finger of blame was cent of everything we throw away, both by weight and by I pointed at disposable diapers; one of them claimed that volume. disposable diapers accounted for a quarter of the contents If fast -food packaging is the Emperor's New Clothes of I of local landfills and the other put the figure at "five per- garbage, then a number of categories of paper goods col- i cent to thirty -two percent." A recent editorial in The New lectively deserve the role of Invisible \tan. In all the I I York Times singled out fast -food packaging for straining hand - wringing over the garbage crisis, has a single voice the capacity of the nation's landfills. Fast -food packaging been raised against the proliferation of telephone books? I is, perhaps not surprisingly, almost everyone's villain of Each two- volume set of Yellow Pages distributed in ( choice. I have over the years asked many people who Phoenix last year —to be thrown out this year — weighed ( have never seen the inside of a landfill to estimate what 8.63 pounds, fora total of 6,000 tons of wastepaper. And r percentage of the contents consists of fast -food pack- competitors of the Yellow Pages have appeared virtually aging, and the answers 1 have gotten have ranged from everywhere. Dig a trench through a landfill and you will ( five to 35 percent, with most estimates either 20 or 30 see layers of phone books, like geological strata, or layers percent. of cake. Just as conspicuous as telephone books are ( The physical reality inside a landfill is considerably newspapers, which make up 10 to 18 percent of the con- i different from what you might suppose. I spent some tents of a typical municipal landfill by volume. Even ( time with The Garbage Project's team over the past two after several years of burial they are usually well pre- ( years digging into seven landfills: two outside Chicago, served. During a recent landfill dig in Phoenix, I found ( two in the San Francisco Bay area, two in Tucson, and newspapers dating back to 1952 that looked so fresh you 1 one in Phoenix. We exhumed 16,000 pounds of garbage, might read one over breakfast. Deep within landfills, 1 weighing every item we found and sorting them all into copies of that New York Times editorial about fast -food ( twenty -seven basic categories and then into 162 sub- containers will remain legible until well into the next groupings. In those eight tons of garbage and dirt cover century. ( there were fewer than sixteen pounds of fast -food pack- As the foregoing suggests, the notion that much biode- aging: in other words, only about a tenth of one percent gradation occurs inside lined landfills is largely a popular I of the landfills' contents by weight consisted of fast -food myth. Making discards out of theoretically biodegradable ( O d I . 1 { 1 14 .r r ,tT ( t � I +1 ; t :;y f f 7"N s - - GLASS BOTTLES, LIKE THESE FROM THE TRUMAN ERA, e RECOVERED AT PHOENIX'S M! ■ -� _ RIO SALADO LANDFILL, ARE NOT AS PLENTIFUL AS THEY "1 r ■ III } - u:.0 tno �,.,. - ONCE WERE IN GARBAGE. Ve • I n. i oil ■ 1.•d June 1"n9 RIO SUADO Sample: 5-2 cuss FEWER ARE BEING MADE _ - b coolest Date: 1952 < __ Date e n...a. i ae 1989 "•'. ,,_ AND MORE ARE BEING I ,- .,t ,xz - - 1... - _ RECYCLED. I 102 /i4 i DECEMBER 192iv ■ a THE ATLANTIC MONTHLI' materials, such as paper, or plastic made with cornstarch, toxic chemicals, yes, but most households lacked the ar- is often proposed as a solution to our garbage woes (as ray of pesticides, cleansers, and automotive fluids that things biodegrade, the theory goes, there will be more one can find today in virtually every American home. room for additional refuse). Laboratories can indeed bio- Moreover, the landfill movement that matured after the degrade newspapers into gray slime in a few weeks or Second World War, though hardly messianic, was led by months, if the newspapers are finely ground and placed people who had a vision. They believed that in the dis- in ideal conditions. The difficulty, of course, is that posal of garbage two birds could almost always be killed newspapers in landfills are not ground up, conditions are instead of one. far from ideal, and biodegradation does not follow labora- This is a historically peculiar trait of garbage science in tory schedules. Some food and yard debris does degrade, the United States. The safe and efficient disposal of gar - but at a very, very slow rate (by 25 to 50 percent over ten bage has never been deemed a high enough end in itself to fifteen years). The remainder of the refuse in landfills by the professionals here. The goal has always been to seems to retain its original weight, volume, and form. It get rid of garbage and do something else — create energy, is, in effect, mummified. i his may be a blessing, be- make fertilizer, retrieve precious metals. In the case of cause if paper did degrade rapidly, the result would be an sanitary landfills, their proponents hoped not only to dis- enormous amount of inks and paint that could leach into pose of mountains of garbage but also to reclaim thou - groundwater. sands of acres of otherwise "waste" land and, literally, to The fact that plastic does not biodegrade, which is of- give something back to America. The ideal places for ten cited as one of its great defects, may actually be one landfills, they argued, were the very places that most sci- of its great virtues. Much of plastic's bad reputation is un- entists now believe to be the worst places to put garbage: deserved. Because plastic bottles take up so much room along rivers or in wetlands. It is in unlined landfills in in our kitchen trash cans, we infer that they take up a lot places like these that, not surprisingly, the problem of of room in landfills. In fact by the time garbage has been chemical "leachates" has been shown to be a matter of compressed in garbage trucks (which exert a pressure of grave concern. up to fifty pounds per square inch on their Toads) and Environmental scientists believe that they now know buried for a year or two under tons of refuse, anything enough to design and locate safe landfills, even if those plastic has been squashed flat. In terms of landfill vol- landfills must hold a considerable amount of hazardous ume, plastic's share has remained unchanged since 1970. household waste such as motor oil and pesticides. The And plastic, being inert, doesn't introduce toxic chemi- State of Delaware seems to be successful at siting such cals into the environment. landfills now. But places like Long Island, where the wa- A new kind of plastic that is biodegradable may in fact ter table is high, should never have another landfill. In represent a step backward. The definition of "biodegra- the congested northeastern states there may simply be no dable" plastic used by most manufacturers focuses on room for many more landfills, at least not safe ones. tensile strength. Plastics "totally" degrade when their Some 1,550 twenty -ton tractor trailers laden with garbage tensile strength is reduced by 50 percent. At that point— now leave Long Island every_ week bound for landfills after as long as twenty years —a biodegradable plastic elsewhere. But the country at large still has room aplenty. item will have degenerated into many little plastic The State of New York recently commissioned an envi- pieces, but the total volume of plastic will not have ronmental survey of 42 percent of its domain with the ex- changed at all. The degeneration agent used in biodegra- press aim of determining where landfills might be prop - dable plastic, usually mostly cornstarch, makes up no erly located. The survey pinpointed lands that constitute more than 6 percent of a biodegradable plastic item's to- only one percent of the area but nevertheless total 200 tal volume; the 94 percent that's left represents more square miles. plastic than would be contained in the same item made The obstacles to the sanitary landfill these days are with nonbiodegradable plastic, because items made with monetary— transporting garbage a few hundred miles by biodegradable plastic have to be thicker to compensate truck may cost more than shipping the same amount to for the weakening effect of the degenerating agent. Taiwan —and, perhaps more important, psychological: no one wants a garbage dump in his back yard. But they are not insuperable, and they are not fundamentally geo- T HE POTENTIALLY TOXIC LEGACY OF LANDFILLS graphic. Quite frankly, few nations have the enormous that may long ago have been covered over by hos- (and enormously safe) landfill capabilities that this one pitals and golf courses illustrates one of the terri- has. Iraj Zandi, an environmental scientist who teaches ble ironies of enlightened garbage management: an idea at the University of Pennsylvania, said to me recently that seems sensible and right is often overtaken by during a discussion about landfills, "Have you ever taken changes in society and in the contents of its garbage. The a flight from San Diego to Philadelphia? For three thou - idea of the sanitary landfill was advanced by civil engi- sand miles you look down out of the plane and there's neers who lived in a simpler age. Industries used very nothing there!" 9 DECEMBER 1989 AC 103 THE ATLANTIC N1O>:THL1' -' • M- ,.0 - S�:' I n. k ,--.. i 4 `' 'rl.� / . i 'i 7 � 5 s ----- , , T S ''a�� „r " '= ue "' � y Y t • . � . 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COMPOSITION, BUT IT Y 4 • " . • r DOESNTTAKEUPMUCH - -„ *A' , , ' ' ,- ` d'^ " $UN 6'[1 � . . �. . i , 8 , __ 1 r _, 1 T ' I' '1 ' rl ' rrl'''I . r y L .. l �. 1 ... 1 , 1 y ., 1 i , ', SPACE IN LANDFILLS AND, I1, SOWS rR r* Po rY M� . � WHEN BURIED, IS STABLE tl 1 4 1 f * >? # ' f 4 1p I ■ I • 1 $ AND UNLIKELY TO RELEASE .y8 �Sr- s` - : ; s -r' y , 1 ',I174,, t �r F * t. r ` , s ' 1 # ,, ;, e a ' n � h . `A a Aa b TOXIC CHEMICALS INTO ` .I t fi r. k.° x fit' p, s`i ., THE ENVIRONMENT. The Technological Fix used for fertilizer. The negative side of this process was ' c that the reduction plants emitted pungent odors and a r A MERICANS HAVE NEVER BEEN CONTENT TO DO black, molten runoff that polluted nearby streams. By things the old-fashioned way, and when garbage the 1920s most plants had been deemed impossibly dis- i has been involved, they have always been re- gusting and shut down, leaving a vacancy that was quick - ceptive to any new, state -of- the -art means of ly filled by incinerators. . disposal — especially if it promises savings in money or, By 1920 there were incinerators in twelve American r better, a tidy profit. The very first technological fixes in cities, including Topeka and Berkeley, and on the eve of 1 this country were a technique known as reduction, which the Second World War some 700 incinerators were in op- i heralded the age of recycling, and the incinerator, a de- eration. Then, rather abruptly, incinerators fell into a pe- vice whose popularity has enjoyed enormous ups and suf- riod of decline. The advantages of incinerators were i fered enormous downs. plain (they burned garbage up), but so were the disad- c In reduction, which was imported from Europe but vantages (they discharged foul odors, noxious gases, and t never widely adopted there, wet garbage and dead ani- gritty smoke). For aesthetic reasons rather than reasons s mals were stewed in large vats in order to produce grease of health or the environment (this was decades before r and a substance called residuum. The grease was sold for - anyone had heard of "risk factors" or acid rain) munici- 1 ■ three to ten cents a pound and was used in the manufac- palities in the 1950s began shutting down their inciner- F cure of soap, candles, glycerine, lubricants, and perfume. ators and focusing on sanitary landfills. f The residuum brought five to ten cents a ton and was Then came the energy crisis. Amid skyrocketing fuel f 104 /6 DECEMBER 1989 N THE ATL- \TIC \I O \THLY o The newest means of incineration, a European import _ x �' ".; i 3 called mass burn, will have more staving power, because - t: it is simple. Garbage is fed into a furnace, where it falls !' t o " = . a onto moving grates th tumble it at temperatures up to ` - �3 1. • ' .. .� � 2400 F. The burning mass heats water, and the steam 9 . - `' drives a turbine to generate electricity, which is sold to a , i - 9 - • " ` r E fi ., . - :' utility. To curb pollution, the waste gases are blown into +, \\ v 1 $� A ; f, s i .,� ` electrostatic precipitators, or acid scrubbers, and then ; A t '' through fabric filters called baghouses. The ash residue _ w '�; is extracted, cooled, and, generally, dumped in a munici- r' s �, . ''" s -4,,- pal landfill, where it takes up roughly ten percent of the – aim Q r ' y , C 4 ` `� � i l� r room it would have taken as raw garbage. There are more `F 0 . t y� than a hundred mass -burn incinerators in operation today in the united States, and there may be about 300 by ` • �� \`��' " '' ° # ' 1995, when perhaps a quarter of America's garbage will . i. ill �; ,r ' - s go through their doors. '.; -ms The main drawback to mass -burn incinerators is that 7 , * , - 4 1`e ' - : for all their pollution controls, they can release into the - 4 .a. , N 4s 44: atmosphere small amounts of certain metals, acid gases, ' ' x . e ` c T and also classes of chemicals known as dioxins and fu- ;` � ::(, � '"41k , "- raps, which have been implicated in birth defects and 4 '' �` several kinds of cancer. No one really knows what the ; � . long-term risks are from the emissions released by incin- _ _ , ''' ; �,,,. r .. ", ; - erators. A portion of the ash produced by mass -burn `* {y . ' a �t.; ` - . plants is also toxic, containing dangerous levels of lead f .J , _ and cadmium, and some cities have had difficulty finding o, • " - - t i _., landfills for this ash. Quite apart from health issues, `� �� : ? Y` s � �4 mass -burn incinerators are hugely expensive —they cost ' = s' ;; 4 4 e % a as much as $400 million apiece —and the task of getting ; . < <i - y - ,: y . y ., .,: , ' : , , , - -u� zj one sited and built attracts the kind of pork - barrel chica- -Fr ii .,= .,.. ,t,,,,,.,.,, 3 nery and eco- bravado that one might expect, with best - • ; ".+ •.•• •• +" « . ii case scenarios pitted against worst -case ones. Plants can usually be operated safer —for a time. But plants get ?4,':_ . 4 - old, and performance begins to decline. Nevertheless, t , -- ' . f . � . , . �� 4 incineration is a big piece of the future, and enyironmen- z x r- y---,.-- til tl s „y w R' -- `r.��r� ,_ ` �: ` - _ ., - talists —at least mainstream environmentalists—seem more or less resigned to mass -burn plants as the only con - is costs and a fear of resource shortages, incinerators were ceivable alternative to a heavier reliance on landfills, a reinvented and renamed. The idea behind the "re- many_ of which, as noted, are old and unsafel• located. source- recovery" plant was simple: not only would it s- burn trash to cinders but also it would garner from it any Demand -Side Economics valuable materials and at the same time provide heat and electricity to customers nearby. By 1977 some twenty HE YARDS OF AMMER1CA'S WASTEPAPER AND n new resource - recovery plants were in use, another ten scrap -metal dealers are located near interstates ,f were being built, and about thirty -five were on the draw- and in warehouse districts, and they contain >• ing board. piles of crushed automobiles, railroad cars But resource - recovery plants tried to accomplish too filled with cans, and baled newspaper and cardboard e much. A surfeit of variables had to be factored into their stacked several stories high. These are the trading pits of i- operations. For one thing, the machinery was complicat– the recycled- materials markets. There is a big split be- d ed. The plants were dependent for their profitability on tween those who would recycle to make money and those .s sales of recovered materials, but the secondary- materials who would recycle to do good, and I was made painfully e markets are exceedingly erratic. Overestimates of the aware of it one night at an Association of Recycling In- i- waste stream meant that many plants had difficult.• just dustries convention, where I was scheduled to speak. r- getting enough garbage to operate. Some operators end- Talking to a wastepaper dealer, I described with satisfac- ed up importing garbage from out of state. Today only a tion the municipal newspaper - recycling program that the l j few resource recover plants remain in operation. city of Tucson had just begun. The dealer looked at me i9 DECEMBER 1989 /7 105 THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY in horror. He said, "You're telling me hors' well the com- OPPOSE THERE WERE A LOT OF ROOM FOR GROWTH petition is doing —the ones who are subsidized by the and that the demand for recycled paper, plastic, and . taxpayers to take away our livelihood. Don't you under- aluminum were insatiable. How much garbage stand? There never has been a shortage of recycled news- would Americans be prepared to recycle? The only factor papers. The shortage is in demand. Markets fill up just that could conceivably drive a systematic recycling effort like landfills. There are just so many car panels and cere- is money. Money is the reason why junk dealers pay at- al boxes that need to be made. I suppose you believe GM tention to some kinds of garbage and not to others, and it is going to say, `Hey, great! Here's a bunch more newspa- is the reason why most people return cans to supermar- i pers for door panels. Let's make some more cars.' The kets, and newspapers to recycling centers. T more Tucson recycles, the less I do." I belabor that point because it is so often lost sight of, i h Twelve years later I count wastepaper dealers and oth- and because there are studies that seem to suggest —er- ` e er for -profit recyclers among my friends and also among roneously, I think —that for noble motives alone people is the most valuable resources available to the United would go to considerable lengths to make recycling a ba- States for dealing with garbage. The champions of mu- sic feature of American Life. Barry Commoner. the biolo- It nicipal recycling, who in communities across the country gist and environmentalist, recently conducted a study of T have been trying to move in on bottles, newspapers, and a hundred households in Easthampton, Long Island, in ° le cans in the belief that recyclable commodities represent which participants were asked to separate their garbage R virgin territory, have found that the territory is already in- - into four containers: one for food debris and soiled paper rt habited. Recycling by anyone should be encouraged, in (to be composted into fertilizer), one for clean paper, one I ` my view, but it is important to understand at the outset for metal cans and glass bottles, and one for all the rest. sr what kind of recycling works and what kind may end up Commoner found that because the garbage was rationally. vi doing more harm than good. discarded, a stunning 84 percent of it could be sold or re- Newsprint illustrates one potential problem. Only cycled. Only 16 percent had to be deposited in a landfill. Tr about ten percent of old newspapers go on to be recycled Of course, this experiment lasted only a few weeks, and d; into new newspapers. What newspapers are really good the households surveyed had actively volunteered to i er for is making cereal and other boxes (if it's gray on the in- take part. Recognizing that his results were perhaps a lit- I c ` side, it's from recycled stock), the insides of automobiles tle skewed, Commoner conducted a survey in Buffalo, 81 (the average car contains about sixty pounds of recycled New York, and ascertained that a reassuring 78 percent of newsprint), wallboard, and insulation. All these end uses all respondents said, sure, they'd be willing to separate are near saturation. Scrap dealers are in the precarious po- their garbage into four containers. However, only 26 per - sition of being able to obtain enough newsprint to supply cent of the respondents said that they thought their demand completely but not daring to sell so much that neighbors would be willing to do so. This "What would the price of newsprint plummets and puts them out of the neighbors do ?" question has a special resonance for business. What happens when the market is suddenly Garbage Project researchers. We have found over the i flooded with newsprint? Last year the State of New Jer- years, by comparing interview data with actual trash, that * sey implemented new legislation requiring every com- the most accurate description of the behavior of any Tr munity to separate at curbside, and collect, three cate- household lies in that household's description of the be- ci. gories of recyclables. As a result, in recent months the havior of a neighboring household. in price of used newspaper in most parts of New Jersey has There have been studies that have claimed that the Yc plummeted from up to $40 a ton to -$25 a ton —in other people most likely to recycle are those with the most words, you have to pay to have it taken away. If legisla- money and ch.: most education, but all these studies are tion like this became widespread, without complemen- based on people's "self- reports." A look through house - tart' measures to increase demand for recycled -paper hold garbage yields a different picture. From 1973 to products, the effects could be precisely opposite those 1980 The Garbage Project examined some 9,000 Loads of intended. refuse in Tucson from a variety of neighborhoods chosen I The fact is that for the time being, despite the recrimi- for their socioeconomic characteristics. We carefully sort - nations and breast - beating, we are recycling just about as ed the contents for newspapers, aluminum cans, and much paper as the market can bear. As noted, the market glass bottles (evidence that a household is not recycling), for recyclable paper is glutted; expansion is possible only and for bottle caps, aluminum pop -tops, and plastic six - overseas. The demand for recyclable plastic and alumi- pack holders (possible evidence, in the absence of bot- num has not vet been fully met, but Americans have ties or cans, that a household it recycling). A lot of com - It been doing a pretty good job of returning their plastic plicated statistical adjustments and cross - referencing had c bottles and aluminum cans, and the beverage industry, to be done, but in the end we made three discoveries. by pass bottle bills, has pre-empt- First, m. which hates it when states p p p people don't recycle as much as they say they do N ed the issue in most places by opening up successful re- (but they recycle just about as much as they say their cycling centers. neighbors do). Second, household patterns of recycling 106 /8 UF.CF, \IBF.R tvrsv THE ATLA \TIC MO \'THL1 vary over time recycling is not vet a consistent habit. with some 700 or 800 students in various forms of repose; Third, high income and education and even a measure of virtually all of them held on their laps what first appeared environmental concern do not predict household recv- to be pairs of white wings. The wings turned out to be cling rates. The only reliable predictor is the price paid large foam clamshells, which held hot food. I asked one for the commodity at buyback centers. When prices rose group of lunchers what they thought about a ban on poly - for, say, newsprint, the number of newspapers found in styrene foam. Great idea, they said between mouthfuls, local garbage suddenly declined. and without irony. The ban has since gone into effect, If there is a prosperous future for recycling, it probably even though the major producers and users of chloro- lies in some sort of alliance between wastepaper and fluorocarbons agreed to a phase -out. scrap dealers and local governments. Where recycling is Source reduction is to garbage what preventive medi- concerned, municipalities are good at two things: collect- cine is to health: a means of eliminating a problem before ing garbage and passing laws to legislate monetary incen- it can happen. But the utility of legislated source reduc- tives. Wastepaper and scrap dealers are good at some- tion is in many respects an illusion. For one thing, most thing different: selling garbage. Local programs run by consumer industries already have —and have responded bureaucrats and tied to strict cost - accounting measures to— strong economic incentives to make products as need predictable prices. Stability in a commodities mar- compact and as light as possible, for ease of distribution ket is rare. Secondary- materials dealers thrive on daily, and to conserve costly resources. In 1970 a typical plastic hourly fluctuations. soda bottle weighed sixty grams; today it weighs forty - eight grams and is more easily crushed. For another, who Life - style Override is to say when packaging is excessive? We have all seen small items in stores —can openers, say— attached to big N OT LONG AGO I STOPPED IN BERKELEY', WHERE pieces of cardboard hanging on a display hook. That a ban was being considered on the use of ex- piece of cardboard looks like excessive packaging, but its panded polystyrene foam —the substance that purpose is to deter shoplifting. Finally, source - reduction is turned into coffee cups and hamburger measures don't end up eliminating much garbage; ham - boxes and meat trays. The ban had originally been pro- burgers, eggs, and VCRs, after all, will still ha%e to be posed because chlorofluorocarbons are used in the blow- put in something. ing of foam objects and are believed to contribute to the Most source - reduction plans are focused on a drastic depletion of atmospheric ozone, and because foam ob- reduction in the use of plastic. And yet in landfills foams jects are aesthetically repugnant to many people and and other plastics are dormant. While some environmen- symbolize the garbage problems we have. At the Berke- talists claim that plastics create dioxins when burned in ley campus of the University of California, I passed incinerators, a study by New York State's Department of Sproul Plaza. It was lunchtime, and the plaza was filled Energy Conservation cleared the most widely used plas- 4 ri Ix r T` thy :,. - x � 4 : ` rte -- \+�' t ' r _ . ' A NEWSPAPER BROUGHT r ge i r ,,T 1. ' ". - , a 1 „.y.:,-,e., TO LIGHT AT THE RIO `. ,. • : . r . -•, c - • 4 : ” z SALADO LANDFILL, 1989. 'IX 'ia ` MAKING MORE DISCARDS ` .'4 ; . 1 . : :r - OUT OF BIODEGRAD- f , . »f ABLE MATERIALS IS OFTEN ' } t PROPOSEDASASOLU- R , • s ,4, TION TO OUR GARBAGE ! ! , . . • . PROBLEMS. BUT THE IDEA '' .';� ` J " ' 'E ' - 4 THAT MUCH BIODEG- V • . -- s. ilk.,. tr '* - ?O M '^.. 3, it 4 RADATION OCCURS IN 1s i Es ` .. 1 LINED LANDFILLS IS A MYTH. 108 /7 DECEMBER 197+4 1 T HE ATL-4 \TIC M ONTHLY tics of blame. The senior staff scientist of the National tombs were reused, and caches contained only a few Audubon Society, Jan Beyea, contends that plastics in pieces of broken pottery or chipped obsidian knives.. landfills are fine so long as they don't end up in the Whatever the stimulus, that which archaeologists in the oceans. There plastic threatens marine animals, which 1950s saw among the ancient Maya as decadence we can can swallow or become enmeshed in it. Beyea's big com- see today as efficient resource utilization. Among the plaint is against paper, whose production, he believes, Decadent Maya everything was recycled or reused, and creates large volumes of sulfur emissions that contribute virtually no resources were put away beyond easy retriev- to acid rain. al. The Decadent Maya were living on the edge. They Ultimately, the source - reduction question is one of had no choice. life -style override. The purists' theory is that industry is The United States is still well within a Classic phase, forcing plastics and convenience products on an unwill- at least in terms of its disposal habits. And I am not wor- ing captive audience. This is nonsense. American con- ried that even if present trends continue, we will be . sumers, though they may in some spiritual sense lament buried in our garbage. To a considerable extent we will 1 packaging, as a practical matter depend on the product keep doing what other civilizations have done: rising identification and convenience that modern packaging above our garbage. (One of the great difficulties I have allows. That's the reason source reduction usually doesn't met in excavating landfills is finding municipal sites that work. have not already been covered by new facilities.) Our "wasteful" life -style is a product of affluence; dis- A rough consensus has emerged among specialists as to regard for the environment is not. Indeed, our short -term how America can at least manage its garbage, if not make 1 aesthetic concerns and long -term practical concerns for it pretty or go away. Safely sited and designed landfills the environment are luxuries afforded us only by our should be employed in the three quarters of the country I wealth. In Third World countries, where a job and the where there is still room for them. Incinerators with ap- next meal are significant worries, the quality of the envi- propriate safety devices and trained workers can be use- 1 ronment is hardly a big issue in most people's minds. fully sited anywhere but make the most sense in the Concern for the environment can be attributed in major Northeast. And states and municipalities need to cut part to the conveniences —and the leisure time they af- deals with wastepaper and scrap dealers on splitting the ford —that some activists seem to want to eliminate. money to be made from recycling. This is a minimum. • Several additional steps could be taken to reduce the big- gest component of garbage: paper. Freight rates could be ONE OF THIS NIAKES LS UNIQUE. FOR ALL OUR revised to make the transport of paper for recycling 1 newfangled technologies, Americans are not that cheaper than the transport of wood for pulp. Also, many f different from those who inhabited most of the things could be done to increase the demand for recycled world's other great civilizations. Our social history fits paper. For example, the federal government, which uses neatly into the broader cycles of rise and decline that oth- more paper by far than any other institution in America, er peoples have experienced before us. Most grand civil- could insist that most federal paperwork be done on recy- izations seem to have moved, over time, from efficient cled paper. Beyond confronting the biggest- ticket item scavenging to conspicuous consumption and then back head -on, most garbage specialists would recommend a again. It is a common story, usually driven by economic highly selective attack on a few kinds of plastic: not be- realities. cause plastic doesn't degrade or is ugly or bulky but be- In their beginnings most civilizations, both ancient cause recycling certain plastics in household garbage and recent, make efficient use of resources. The Preclas- would yield high -grade costly resins for new plastics and sic Maya, who inhabited the rain forests of the southern make incineration easier on the furnace grates, and per - Yucatan from 1200 to 300 B.C., seem to have lived rela- haps safer. Finally, we need to expand our knowledge tively simple farming lives. They built a few small tem- base. At present we have more reliable information about ples, constructed large houses out of thatch on low dirt Neptune than we do about this country's solid -waste platforms, and interred their dead with one or two mono- stream. chrome pots. Around 300 B.C. something extraordinary One way or another, Americans will someday stand as happened. A Classic Maya life -style of conspicuous con- exemplars of responsible garbage management. This • sumption was born. The Classic Maya went in for exces- could happen in the not too distant future, when time sive display: fancy ceremonial clothes and feathered and resources and society's margin of error run out, and a headdresses; tall temples with intricately carved facades; Decadent America learns painfully to reuse and make do cache offerings of jade and shell mosaics; and lavish bur- with whatever is at hand. Or it could come sooner, in a ials. This cult of conspicuous consumption spread palmier and more recognizable time, if Americans, scoff - throughout southern \lesoamerica. Toward the end of ing at history's odds, were to em-ace a curious goal: to major civilizations things are usually quite different. create the first civilization that became "decadent" be- 1. During the Maya Decadent Period temples were small, fore its time. D ,9 DECEMBER 1989 020 109 - -,.--J. �.��� • WASTE MANAGEMENT NEWS • ...:.. .... • PLASTIC RECYCLING POLL FINDS AM RECEDE; /AORE GM From the results of the survey, resear- MORE SIMPLE PROGRAMS NEEDED chers have concluded that there would be U P D AT E A recent Gallup Organization poll, com- a greater level ofparticipation if curbside missioned by Waste Management Inc., collection programs were instituted by found that slightly more than half the local communities. Americans say they recycle some of their LaPorte, though, felt that while the right garbage. Despite the popularity of recycl- nient collection was a step in the right ing, more than half the people who don't direction, "The growth of recycling is de- From hamburger containers recycle claim it is inconvenient. pendent markets, o s n d th those (recyc- to de raae doubts. "In one respect, we've come a long way. Tableonconandthat'slargelydepen- degradable Ten years ago we would have found a very dent on consumer demand for products small percentage of Americans were re- that are made from recycled content. A $16 MILLION program to recycle cycling," said Jane LaPorte, Waste Man - Without that demand, we're unlikely to plastic hamburger containers and agement of North America's vice presi- get the full support of manufacturers who other packages will soon get under dent. "Today, half are. At the same time, create the goods" way in cooperation with Mc- half ofour citizens are not recycling atall ." Donald's Corporation and eight of the larg- The poll, a random telephone survey est U.S. plastics producers. Customers will of 1,000 individuals, also found that 81 be asked to separate the polystyrene contain - percent of the respondents preferred curb - ers, placing them in a basket marked "for re- side pick -up, while 44 percent found drop - cyclable plastic only." One hundred Mc- off points appealing. Donald's restaurants in the New England g The survey also showed that 72 percent area have agreed to participate initially, with of the people who recycle cite environ- the potential for all 450 joining next year. A mental concerns as their primary reason; pilot program showed participation rates of about 70 percent, and company officials esti- 31 percent recycled for financial reasons; mate the program would cost a restaurant and I6percent said they live incities where bout $400 a month. recycling is mandatory. According to the National Polystyrene Re- cycling Company, formed by plastics pro- ducers, a recycling center for the materials will set up in Leominster, MA. Similar facili- ties will be built elsewhere. When operating at full capacity, the plants would be able to process 65 million of the one billion pounds of polystyrene used annually in food service packaging. By 1995, the official goal is mov- Stott County, Minnesota ing that amount from its present estimated RECYCLING WHITE GOODS figure of 6.5 percent up to 25 percent. Com- ments the director of New York -based Envi- When an amendment to the county's solid waste ronmental Action Coalition: "Until they ordinance prohibited land disposal of appliances in 1988, have the infrastructure in place to handle Scott County didn't leave its residents looking for a place those packages wherever they are, it is still to dispose of their old water heaters, refrigerators and blue smoke and mirrors." clothes dryers. Instead, the county worked with its only Companies involved in the polystyrene landfill, Louisville Landfill, and helped to fund a recycling program are Amoco Chemical, ARCO Chem- program that last year processed approximately 3,000 ical, Chevron Chemical, Dow Chemical, Fine appliances. Oil and Chemical, Huntsman Chemical, Mo- For $10, residents and private haulers can take major bil Chemical and Polysar Inc. appliances to the landfill where they are stockpiled until On another front, emphasis on using "de- being removed by Major Appliance of St. PauL Major gradable" plastic products has come under Appliance ships them to a processing facility where fire from major plastic producers as well as serviceable appliances are reconditioned. The rest are many environmentalists who cite the un- shredded and the materials sold to materials markets. knowns about residues and how effectively Under a new program effective July 1, 1989, any hauler materials truly break down in landfills, etc. that provides the county with a receipt from an approved "These plastics are being sold as a way to recycler will be reimbursed $15 per appliance by the reduce waste and that is a hoax," says county. Jeanne Wirka of Environmental Action Al Frechette, Scott County's Environmental Health oundation in Washington, DC. Proponents program manager feels that by providing the of degradability say the plastic producers reimbursement, haulers will be able to pass the savings simply fear losing part of their market as onto their customers and provide collection services for $5 products that used to be pure plastic are per appliance or less and keep the material out of ditches mixed with nonplastic materials like corn and illegal dumps. starch. • .2 /