GEOG 3000 Resource Management 28. Wasted Resources

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GEOG 3000 Resource Management28. Wasted
Resources

• M.D. Lee CSU Hayward Fall 2003

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What should we do with the things weve used?
Landfills?
Recycling?
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Dont throw it all away..

• In America, we produce perhaps 25-30 of the
  worlds solid waste, and this includes about 4-5
  of domestic garbage per person per day, some
  1500/year.
• Sadly, nationwide it is estimated that only about
  25-30 of our domestic garbage is recycled - it
  could easily be as high as 50-75.
• We throw away twice as much as the Europeans and
  Japanese and more than five times more than the
  average person in Mexico.
• Waste is a critical, hidden element in the true
  cost of a product and would significantly change
  the purchase price if we included the cost of it
  up front as pay as you buy, rather than pay as
  you throw!

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Waste as a resource

• When is waste a resource?
• When it still has a useful purpose that in
  economic terms, yields more benefits than incurs
  costs.
• Assessing true costs and benefits is difficult
  (because of imperfections in our socio-economic
  system).
• Uses and values are continually evolving.
• Many usable wastes still get dumped for economic,
  technical, social and other reasons.

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Waste not, want not!

• Recovery of resources through recycling can
  realize major savings in the resources required
  for production e.g. aluminum from cans - 90 less
  energy, 70 less water, 95 less pollution, 99
  less solid waste.
• However, in a perfect resource management world,
  it is better not to have to recycle, because we
  still need to use resources in the recovery
  process.
• The first step in treating waste as a resource is
  thus not to produce it in the first place -
  reduction.
• Waste managers talk about the 4 rs reducing,
  reusing, recycling and rotting (for organic
  wastes)

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Waste as a resource RRR

• Reduction- no waste, therefore requires no
  resources. Eliminates the production of the waste
  by changing the manner in which a good or service
  is produced or consumed.
• Reuse meeting the demand for goods and services
  with waste products. Requires no new resources
  for production since needs are met with already
  manufactured products. Some additional resources
  are needed, however, to facilitate reuse
  (collection, sorting, cleaning, redistribution,
  etc.)
• Recycle meeting the demand for goods and
  services with waste materials. Requires less new
  resources for the production of recycled goods
  and services than for virgin ones. A portion of
  the needs are met with materials already
  processed. Reprocessing still requires energy,
  etc. although less than with virgin materials.

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Wasted resources - implications

• The more usable waste we treat as garbage, the
  more waste we will generate and the more virgin
  resources we will use to replace these materials
  in our production cycle (with the corresponding
  externalities and opportunity costs).
• The more garbage we generate, the more land we
  lose to landfills, the more pollution we create
  in our soils, air and water, and the higher our
  garbage bills will become, more rapidly.

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Recovering resources from waste

• Resource recovery is usually termed recycling but
  can result in both reuse or recycling.
• Recovery involves pre-collection, collection and
  post-collection activities.
• On an economic basis, almost all recycling
  programs, except those that are highly
  specialized, highly selective and/or do not
  involve door-to-door material collection, are
  unprofitable.
• Many municipal recycling systems generate 20-50
  cents of revenue for every 1 they spend.

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So why recycle?

• While not profitable as a stand-alone enterprise,
  in the context of overall resource and waste
  management, recovery is economically, as well as
  environmentally, beneficial.
• The cost of recovery is almost always offset by
  reductions in regular garbage collection costs,
  reduced landfill expenses, and revenues from
  sales of recovered resources for reuse or
  recycling.
• Therefore the combined cost of waste management
  with recycling and the sale of useful waste to
  third parties is less than the cost of waste
  management without it.
• We can add all of the avoided environmental
  externalities to these benefits.

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Making waste a resource

• Reusable and recycled resources can clearly meet
  our needs for goods by substituting for virgin
  materials, but we have to create a demand for
  reusable and recycled products.
• Clearly, demand is closely related to price which
  means that the cost of recycled resources and/or
  the reprocessing technologies for making recycled
  products must be competitive with virgin
  materials and standard production systems.
• Reusable items must cost less than or equal to,
  and be as/more convenient or acceptable as
  disposable or single use items.
• Closely tied to this, therefore, is the
  development of effective production technologies
  that produce quality and attractive reusable and
  recycled products.

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Practical issues of collection

• The value of recycled resources, from the user
  perspective, is a function of their purity i.e.
  degree of sortedness, physical condition and
  presence of impurities/contaminants.
• Potentially useful resources can be rendered
  uneconomic if contaminated during their
  production, disposal, collection and handling.
• The cost to generate recyclable resources (i.e.
  from the waste manager/wholesalers perspective)
  is a function of the nature of the collecting and
  processing required (which is partly related to
  scale).
• The greater the share of the responsibility for
  streaming taken by the generator of the waste,
  the greater the potential cost offsets/profits
  for the manager/wholesaler.
• Waste can either be streamed (sorted) or
  comingled.

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Industry and Production

• The goals for business in a sustainable economy
  is to either not produce waste in the first
  place, or recycle waste produced directly back
  into the production loop.
• Because of market perversities and structural
  difficulties, waste prevention is often
  uneconomic and recyclable waste often costs more
  than virgin raw materials.
• However, many effective technologies do exist for
  effective waste reduction and recycling.
• The twin issues are how to get those technologies
  implemented and how to make recycled materials
  more cost competitive.
• This generally requires a balanced mix of
  education, laws, taxes and subsidies.

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A systematic waste philosophy

• The first step for industry should obviously be
  waste reduction - using only the minimum
  materials necessary.
• The second component is precycling - the design
  and operation of the resource use and production
  process with reuse and recycling in mind -
  creating necessary products that can be reused or
  recycled with minimum effort, cost and resources.
• The third component is having a system in place
  that facilitates reuse and recycling of useful
  waste resources - closing the materials loop
  through efficient distribution, collection
  reprocessing to create new resource streams.
• The fourth component is a competitive market for
  reprocessed waste resources that replace similar
  products made from virgin materials.

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Objectives of Promotional Tools

• Laws requiring recycling (e.g. CA Bottle Bill, AB
  939) force industry to internalize external costs
  in the production process.
• Green taxes (we dont have many of these) make
  recycled goods competitive by artificially adding
  external costs to the price of non-recycled goods
  at the cash register.
• Conversely, subsidies for the use of recycled
  materials in production reduce the production
  costs of finished products, making them more
  competitive.
• Education of producers/consumers increases demand
  and market share for recycled goods (makes
  economies of scale possible, creates competition,
  lowers prices) and leads to cheaper and more
  reliable supplies of recyclables.

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Recycling rates

• According to Chiras et al (2002), the US recycles
  some 20 of its waste generated but could
  cost-effectively recover up to 80, especially if
  fossil fuel prices rise.
• US states increasingly have laws that require
  recycling and waste reduction (e.g. can and
  bottle bills, Oregons Recycling Opportunity Act
  and Californias AB 939 waste reduction bill).
• Deposits on beverage containers have resulted in
  some states achieving over 90 return rates for
  these items with tremendous consequent benefits.
• Standardization of containers, as in Fiji,
  Denmark and other countries, would make recycling
  a lot easier, cheaper and more profitable.

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Stimulating change

• Federal and many state procurement policies now
  include specific guidelines concerning recycled
  paper, plastics, tires, etc. and have boosted
  markets for recycled products (US Fed. Govt.
  spending is 22 of GNP, CA govt. spending is 11
  of GSP!)
• For example, the Federal General Services Agency
  has developed a project called Planet GSA with a
  Buy Green component that promotes the purchase of
  recycled, energy-efficient and environmental
  products and services.
• The CA Dept. of General Services similarly
  developed a target that by 2000, 50 of purchases
  were to meet selected recycled content goals for
  paper products, compost, glass, oil, solvents,
  paint, tires, steel and plastics.

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Wasted Resources

• What will happen if we dont reduce, reuse,
  recycle or rot down our waste?
• Usable resources are comingled and dumped in
  sanitary landfills, an improvement on the open
  dumps of yesteryear, but still prone to the
  production of toxic leachate and the off-gassing
  of greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
• Suitable sites for landfills close to cities
  where most waste is generated will become even
  more scarce as landfills are filled and NIMBYism
  limits new ones.
• Waste disposal costs will rise, especially in the
  East where cities may ship garbage to the
  mid-West.
• Non-renewable resources will deplete faster and
  renewable ones will be placed under greater
  strain.

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Better incentives/disincentives

• Pay as you throw is becoming increasingly common
  in America.
• Waste producers are charged for garbage
  collection in some proportion to the volume or
  weight they produce and are charged nothing for
  separated recyclable pick-ups.
• Here, this takes the form of different
  tri-monthly fees for different size garbage cans
  and/or weekly or biweekly pick-ups of those cans.
• In other areas, people are required to buy
  official garbage bags and workers only collect
  waste placed inside these (but may encourage
  garbage compaction, not recycling).
• Where waste is an extreme problem, like NYC, a
  system of penalties act as an incentive to
  practice recycling.
• If NY sanitation workers notice any listed
  recyclables in a tenants garbage, they can issue
  a ticket which carries a fine increasing from 25
  to 400 for multiple offences.
• Increasing the connection between peoples pocket
  books and their garbage and recycling levels is a
  critical element in encouraging greater
  cooperation and compliance with programs.

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Incineration for energy?

• Over 100 US cities incinerate part of their solid
  waste, accounting for some 15 of waste disposal,
  predominantly to reduce bulk.
• Waste incineration can be a source of power
  either for electricity production, or through
  some form of community heating infrastructure.
• Incineration is problematic because only very
  expensive plants can prevent highly toxic
  smokestack emissions from combusted plastics and
  papers (dioxins, mercury, PCBs, etc.).
• Incineration is generally as unpopular as
  landfills and also prone to NIMBYism.
• Incineration is an inferior option to reuse
  recycling.