The Business of Recycling and Garbage
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-02-21/business-recycling-and-garbage
Americans generate some two hundred and fifty million tons of waste every year. Our options are to bury, burn or recycle it. Over half of it is buried in landfills, often after being transported across states lines. This is in part why garbage is a seventy billion dollar industry. Recycling is about a third of that business. It’s been praised as a huge environmental success, in the U.S. more people recycle than vote. But it has also recently come under criticism for economic reasons and for environmental issues over e-waste, among other things. Diane and her panel of experts discuss finding better ways to manage our garbage.
Guests
Bruce Parker
president & CEO of National Solid Wastes Management Association, a trade association representing for-profit waste and recycling companies in North America.
Samantha MacBride
Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, author of "Recycling Reconsidered: the Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States."
Allen Hershkowitz
senior scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council
Program Highlights
Americans generate lots of garbage, almost four and a half pounds per person, per day. Over half goes to the nation's 2400 landfills, some is incinerated, and roughly one-third is recycled. Diane and guests talked about how we handle trash today.
Recycling "Woefully Underdeveloped In The U.S."
"Recycling is woefully underdeveloped in the United States. For municipal waste we recycle about a third of our garbage...I've written books on garbage management in Japan and Europe and I've been there studying it. They recycle twice as much - at least twice as much of the waste than we do," Hershkowitz said. These areas have better policies and limit the amount of trash that can go in to landfills, he said, unlike here in the U.S.
The Influence Of Federal Policies
Federal policies have allowed states to send trash across their own lines and into other states, Parker said. "Up until 1976, there were thousands of these small open dumps throughout the United States. We've all seen them growing up. They had no sanitary protection, no environmental protection, it was during the time when people burned leaves for example out in the streets, which you can't do anymore," he said. "When you're living in a really dense area like the northeast and the central part of the United States where they don't have a lot of land density, or politically they can't put up a waste energy plant, they have to send it someplace, and therefore, they're sending it to different countries," he said.
Curbside Collection Problems
McBride emphasized that the value of glass is destroyed when it is included in co-mingled curbside collections. "It is going to be going to very low end uses as aggregate or road base. And there's absolutely no reason why glass could not be treated differently, either separately collected or better yet routed back for refill using a strong deposit system such as they have in Europe," she said.
The U.S. Is Doing "Many Good Things"
Despite all the problems with recycling and waste management, Parker pointed out that he believes the U.S. is doing many good things in the area. The issue of electronics waste is a particularly contentious one. "This is a complex question and there certainly are documented abuses in e-waste handling in developing countries, but I would also like to point out that there are e-waste recyclers in the U.S. who are working with reputable recyclers and refurbishers in countries like Ghana and also South America and trying to route exported e-waste to responsible processing, often not involving recycling, but refurbishment so that these items can be actually reused in the country of import," MacBride said.
You can read the full transcript here.
Comments
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We have recycled for years - we have only one bag of trash a week for pickup. We also try to buy items that are packaged so that we can recycle.
Great show. Answered several questions we had including plastic above 1 and 2.
Excellent show, Diane! I laugh when I hear the indignation in your voice at some of the idiotic things that come up sometimes because I share your astonishment. I think your show on topics such as this should be required listening for students !
Once again, the issue of money running our Congress was the bottom line to any of your questions as to why we can't change some of our policies. I fear that we will be unable to make any real progress on any important topic in this country until we defund our elected officials.
Thank you for your excellent programs - if half of our journalists were as inquiring, we would all be better off!
A topic that goes hand-in-hand with e-waste is security.
We all need to assure the complete destruction of our private and business information before device disposal. This includes computer hard drives, cell phones, DVDs, CDs, and more.
For details, you can check with the National Association for Information Destruction (I am a member, but not an employee).
You asked where is McDonalds in all of this. They are doing it. Here's a photo of their recycling stations in a McDonalds in Sweden. http://www.flickr.com/photos/16nine/2733382454/
Also, there shouldn't be an astronomical cost in reducing packaging costs. Many of these food companies are already reducing packaging throughout Europe. Are you telling me that these companies don't interact with their branches overseas and can't apply what they are doing there in the United States?
Here's info on hazards of composting
http://www.nachi.org/compost-pile-hazards.htm
After hearing this program, I realize that Tulsa's new trash and recycling program will use the curbside co-mingled model that destroys the economic value of the recycled glass. Knowing this, I will continue to recycle my glass at the MET where the glass is sorted by color and kept separate from other recyclables.
I was really pleased to hear this program today, but admit to having several distractions this morning. I hope it will be re-broadcast sometime soon, to help us all get the importance and sheer necessity of recycling into our brains.
Thank you.
paper bags ARE reusable.
Thank you Diane for all the great work you do! I really LOVE your show!
Recycling/waste is a very important issue. So, I have reposted this broadcast on my blog: https://www.facebook.com/Moment.Innovation
This blog covers several related Sustainability and Innovation topics, and I've posted some strategies and ideas to address this complex material challenge.
Go to NPR.org you can find some things in archives
I have given up on them. Time to just call it a divorce, sorry, that Civil War thing was a mistake. Revoke the Civil War and kick the village idiots out of the Electoral College! Here's your Battle Flag, don't let the back door hit you on the way out. Then we of the reality based kind can get on with working on real problems while they stew in some ChristianoFascist Talibanesque American Quackistan wreckage of a place and stop damaging the rest of the planet.
There are *SO* many things we can do to help recycle. Take the cafeteria at work. So many people go get food, get a new plate, plasticware, and a cup each time they go down. These are all disposed.
I was drawn into your conversation today "The Business of Recycling and Garbage" more so than on other shows. Especially when Diane and her hosts were tossing around the concept of Congress being influenced by lobby interests in regards to environmental issues and how hard it is to prevent that in Congress. It brought to mind a related idea of mine that I have long had and that you may wish to pursue on another show.
I have often thought of the Lobbies as the “Fourth” branch of our government, which unlike the other three branches: Legislative, Executive, Judicial, has no checks and balances which apply to it. I think this is a subject which desperately needs to be addressed and is like the Elephant in the room or the Forest for the Trees as far as most of us are concerned.
When you think of the Lobby’s influence in these terms, it may begin to generate some interest in amendments to the constitution that would embody some checks and balances that we the people can bring about, rather than just try to let the “Foxes” fix the hen house.