EPA APPROVES RAC/CBOT FUNDING
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved $200,000 in grant funding for the Recycling Advisory Council/Chicago Board of Trade Recycling Partnership to initiate trading of recycled materials. EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and the Climate Change Action Plan are providing the funding through a grant agreement with the National Recycling Coalition.
The EPA funding will provide the resources necessary to accelerate the design and implementation of a centralized trading system that will meet the needs of the recycling industry. EPA also is participating as a full-time partner in the CBOT project along with the NRC/RAC, CBOT, the Seattle-based Clean Washington Center and the New York State Office of Recycling Market Development. The grant funds will be used by the CBOT project partners to finalize material quality specifications, develop inspection and testing procedures for the materials to be traded and identify and train potential traders.
EPA Administrator Carol Browner says the action "amplifies President Clinton’s regulatory-reform pledge to utilize more market-based mechanisms to achieve environmental protection. This new system ... will allow buyers and sellers to verify that they are paying and receiving fair market value for quality materials. We expect that this will make buying and selling recyclables more competitive and efficient."
The EPA funding will allow the project partners to bring the system on line later this year. CBOT will provide an electronic market system which is designed to enable better market access, improved material quality, more effective dispute resolution and more accurate price information. The funding will be critical in finalizing material specifications, and inspection and testing protocols, and identifying and training potential traders, according to David Dougherty, director of the Clean Washington Center and a member of the RAC.
MSW GENERATION TO STAY STATIC
U.S. generation of municipal solid waste will increase less than one percent per year through the year 2000, according to a study from the Freedonia Group, Cleveland. Unlike the period from the mid-late 1980s to the early 1990s, per capita generation will remain basically flat due to legislation -- generally on the state level – which limits the landfilling of yard waste, the second-largest component of the waste stream by weight. Source reduction
activities will also have an overall impact, according to the study, called Municipal Solid Waste Materials & Management.
However, some incremental gains in waste generation are expected based on cyclical recovery in real GNP and consumer spending activity, reductions in average household size and growth in the commercial building stock, which will combine to promote higher consumption of packaging and other nondurable goods, the primary products in the solid waste stream. Paper and paperboard will continue to lead the municipal solid waste stream by weight, accounting for more than 40 percent of waste generated by 2000.
HOMASOTE, N.J. COUNTY FORGE LONG-TERM PLAN
Homasote Co., West Trenton, N.J., and the Mercer County Improvement Authority of New Jersey have signed a 15-year supply contract aimed at streamlining the county’s paper recycling efforts and closing the resource recovery loop.
The contract allows Mercer County recycling trucks to dump residential wastepaper taken from curbside directly into Homasote’s plant.
Under the old plan, all residential wastepaper was routed through a local recycling center for sorting. The new system provides a more direct route for recyclables.
For easier access, Homasote has converted two of its loading docks into a ramp, and used recycled concrete along with one of the company’s own recycled products – a joint expansion filler called Homex 300. Trucks now have direct access to a conveyor belt transporting waste paper to the Hydrapulper – where the paper is converted into pulp to make Homasote products.
GBB CITES EDUCATION OVER EXPENDITURE
There is a statistically significant correlation between level of education in participants and the percent of diversion achieved by curbside recycling programs, according to a study conducted by GBB, Falls Church, Va. The study, Evaluation of Diversion and Costs for Selected Drop-Off Recycling Programs, also noted no apparent correlation between higher levels of expenditure – on education or the program as a whole – and percent diversion. In addition, GBB found that site characteristics and program design – ease of use, size of target population – may be related to diversion rates in programs that are achieving high diversion at low costs.
The study was developed by GBB in concert with Burroughs Consulting, Recycling Concepts and the Solid Waste Association of North America under the U.S. EPA’s Municipal Solid Waste Innovative Technology Program, and is based on data from eighteen diverse drop-off recycling programs in the U.S. and Canada.
PHILLY FORMS COMMERCIAL COUNCIL
Philadelphia has formed a Commercial Recycling Council, comprised of managers from PECO Energy, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, ARAMARK Corp., Manayunk’s Sonoma Restaurant, Jackson-Cross, SEPTA, WAWA and other businesses affected by the city’s six-month-old commercial recycling regulations.
"The goal of the council is to provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas between businesses and the city," says David Biddle, Philadelphia’s commercial solid waste coordinator.
"We want to work closely with the commercial sector as we educate and enforce recycling."
Topics to be addressed by the Council include setting up an efficient data tracking system, encouraging companies to buy recycled products, and maximizing cost savings through recycling.
Philadelphia's Commercial Recycling Regulations, in effect since October 15, 1994, require that all buildings served by private trash haulers recycle. All affected businesses must have a Recycling Plan.
L.A. COMPLETES CURBSIDE SET UP
Los Angeles has completed the rollout of its curbside recycling program by delivering the final yellow recycling bins to a West side neighborhood. Begun in 1990, L.A.’s program has become one of the largest and most ambitious curbside recycling programs in the U.S.
All 720,000 households serviced by the City’s Bureau of Sanitation have received a yellow bin for all their recyclables, including cans, glass containers and plastic bottles. Newspapers, magazines and corrugated cardboard are also collected. City-serviced households also receive separate bins for yard waste and non-recyclable trash.
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