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solid waste management
CLOSING
THE
CIRCLE
by Samuel Hale, Jr.
IN THE TWO YEARS that I have
been with the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), and
particularly since joining the Federal
solid waste management program, I
have observed that there is a breach
that is just beginning to heal between
people such as you, who have been
working for a long time, with very
little public enthusiasm or support,
to improve the environment, and
those who discovered the issue in the
spring of 1970 when the first Earth
Day celebration occurred.
It was a shock, I am sure, to hear
from freshly-enlightened environ-
mental spokesmen that no one had
been doing anything about the
environmental crisis before they
discovered it. While most of the
pioneers in the environmental move-
ment have welcomed the fact that
Mr. Hale is Deputy Assistant
Administrator for Solid Waste Management
Programs, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Washington, D.C.
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their long-ignored cause finally
surfaced and became the cause of
millions, some, rankled perhaps by
the sudden shift in public expectations,
countered by accusing their critics of
exaggerating the problems.
But the profound, worldwide
reexamination of environmental issues
which has occurred in the past two
years should by now have moved all
of us to realize the seriousness and
complexity of the environmental
crisis of which solid waste is a part.
We have all learned that we cannot
go on using the finite resources of
this planet as if they were infinite—
and that we can no longer deal with
environmental problems as if they
were simple, isolated problems,
susceptible to solution outside the
broad social, political, and economic
framework of which they are a part.
Solid waste management is a root
environmental issue and illustrates,
perhaps more clearly than any other
environmental problem, that we
must change many of our traditional
attitudes and habits. We must work
to adapt our institutions, both public
and private, to the problems and
opportunities of solid waste, of
resource recovery, and of misuse of
our national resources.
The broad front on which we fight
the solid waste battle today is a fluid
one, and we can hardly make a move
without being beset by a cacophonous
roar of claims and counterclaims
about precisely what we should do
and shouldn't do to win it.
It seems to be a characteristic of
our society that as soon as a problem
has been discovered, we feel it should
be solved at once in a simple and
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expedient way; if this fails, to despair
of its being solvable at all. This is
no doubt part of what has been
termed our frontier mentality, and
it is due, in part at least, to this
mentality that when the first wave of
public awareness of the environmental
crisis hit our country, we hadn't even
begun to take the first small steps
toward proper disposal of the ever-
growing solid waste of our high-
production, high-consumption society.
A thoroughly urbanized people, we
had gone on acting as if all we had
to do was to throw away our ugly
discards, whatever their nature, into
a pile somewhere—preferably, out
of our immediate sight.
The frontier solution to the urban
solid waste problem was the open
dump—aesthetically offensive,
contributing to rodent and insect
problems, wasteful of land, contribut-
ing often to air and water pollution,
and with nothing to recommend it
except that it was cheap, quick, and
dirty. We were proud to regard ours
as the most sophisticated society in
the world when it came to exploiting
raw resources, processing them,
manufacturing them into goods, and
transporting and distributing them
with great efficiency. But we had
given almost no thought at all to
closing the city dump, when suddenly
we were told that the ecological
circle had to be closed throughout
the world—that cheap, quick-and-
dirty intrusions into the environment
had to cease—unless man were to
perish.
As a result of this realization, the
field of solid waste management, like
other environmental fields, has been
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in ferment in the past few years.
Signs of this can be seen everywhere:
• Thousands of neighborhood recycling
centers and redemption depots have
sprung up throughout the country,
as citizens and industry alike
responded with commendable zeal
to the realization that resource
recovery is a basic ecological issue.
• In some communities, the war on
waste has centered on convenience
packaging and the nonreturnable
beverage container as the principal
villains.
• Environmentalists increasingly decry
the wastefulness of burning or
burying our once-used resources and
call on localities to do something to
recover "urban ore".
• There has been a vocal demand that
we apply space-age technology to the
solid waste problem, with the
suggestion that the techniques that
got us to the moon can lift us out of
the dump.
Maqy members of the solid
waste management establishment,
overwhelmed by their own collection
and disposal problems, have been
quick to say that these signs of
interest and change do not really help
us solve the solid waste problem. The
recycling centers, they point out,
salvage an insignificant fraction of
the solid waste load. Adequate
markets for secondary materials
simply don't exist, affluent Americans
will throw away deposit bottles if
the nonreturnables are banned, and,
while we place our faith in instant
technological solutions, presently-
available technological, institutional
and management solutions seldom get
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beyond the planning stage.
The fact is, however, that the
incomplete picture just drawn is of
a public anxious to help solve a
problem. It seems to me that those of
us concerned with this field, whether
from business or from government,
must settle down and clarify for the
people what the real options are in
solid waste management—what the
real obstacles are, and where the real
opportunities lie for managing this
problem in a sane and sensible way.
Like many other problems, hidden
within it are the seeds of opportunity.
It is for this reason, then, that I
would like to explore what I see as
some of the most important of those
issues with you today.
environmental quality
The most pressing issue in the solid
waste field, it seems to me, and
perhaps the most basic, centers around
the environmental aspects of
traditional solid waste collection and
disposal. Few would argue that
substantial improvement is needed in
this area—and that it is needed in
the very near future.
According to our 1968 National
Survey of Community Solid Waste
Practices, only 6 percent of the
Nation's land disposal sites met
accepted minimum requirements for
a sanitary landfill. Some 14,000
communities relied on open dumps,
a majority of which were, by design
or by accident, openly burning. Some
70 percent of the country's municipal
incinerators were judged to have
inadequate air or water pollution
controls—even in 1968 when
standards were substantially more
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lenient than they are today. No more
than a handful of the municipal
incinerators currently in place meet
EPA's existing Air Quality New
Source Performance Standards. In
coastal communities, problems
centered not so much around open
dumps or air-polluting incinerators,
as around ocean dumping. Our
evidence indicates that such commun-
ities have annually barged close to
50 million tons of solid wastes and
sludges out to sea, and seldom in
treated form.
For a number of reasons, the picture
in 1972 is not quite as bleak as it was
in 1968.
Stiffer air pollution laws have
virtually eliminated most open
burning of municipal and related
wastes—often, interestingly enough,
with the unexpected additional
benefit of spurring a community or
groups of communities to completely
reconsider and reformulate not only
their disposal practices, but also the
structures and institutions through
which they handle their waste
collection and disposal. The most
familiar example of such benefits to
those of you here is, of course, the
actions of Minneapolis and the
formation of MRI by the private
sector. Other examples of much needed
organizational change induced by
strengthened air pollution laws can
be found elsewhere however.
Particularly noteworthy is the trend
toward the use of regional sanitary
landfills that can be observed across
the country.
i Active enforcement of water pollution
laws is also beginning to play a role
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in improving the environmental
aspects of solid waste disposal, but in
a more limited way than air pollution
actions. We know, for example, of
seven large open dumps that have
been closed under EPA's Harbors and
Refuse Act-—and existing evidence
would indicate that this trend will
increase in areas where dumps are
located adjacent to rivers and
waterways.
• After years of neglect, States are
beginning to give attention to the
environmental aspects of solid waste
management. Many States have
passed and are in the process of
implementing laudatory programs to
license land disposal sites and to
ensure that applicable air and water
pollution standards and zoning and
other restrictions are met. New
incinerators cannot be constructed
unless they comply with EPA's new,
and very tight, national air emission
standards.
• My own office is developing, and will
soon be issuing, guidelines that
establish standards that must be
adhered to by all Federal agencies in
the operation of their own land
disposal sites and incinerators.
In spite of this recent progress—
much of which, it should be noted,
has been the serendipitous byproduct
of actions aimed, not at solid waste,
but at air and water pollution—we
still today rely primarily on that
appalling ecological anachronism,
known as the open dump as our
principal method for disposing of
our nation's discards. We must move
more quickly to abandon this
seemingly inexpensive but environ-
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mentally costly method of disposal.
Progress toward this end will not,
in my view, depend primarily on the
development of new technological
solutions or on sporadic actions by
environmental or other groups but
rather on the birth of a genuine
public commitment—expressed
through government at all levels—to
environmental values which will not
condone cheap, quick and dirty
disposal practices.
Towards this end, we are placing
renewed emphasis on Mission 5000
as a nucleus of other citizen
involvement and support activities
which are already underway. As you
know, Mission 5000 was begun almost
two years ago as a cooperative effort
on the part of all levels of government
and many service and civic
organizations, as a grass roots effort
to support the closing of dumps in
favor of more environmentally
acceptable means of disposal.
Thus far, about 2,000 dumps have
been closed. We plan to support this
activity, in cooperation with States
and local governments, and the public,
until our original goal of 5,000 dump
closings has been reached. We believe
the public is beginning to understand
that there is no real conflict between
the immediate need to improve our
disposal practices and the fact that
we must simultaneously move as
quickly as we can toward the day
when a much lower percentage of
our wastes will need to be disposed.
As public understanding increases
we can be sure that the institutions
which serve the public will be called
on to insure that all solid waste
activities are conducted in
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environmentally acceptable ways.
Our obsolete disposal practices are
bound to be a clear and early target.
Consequently, in EPA we fully intend
to examine in depth the issue of
stronger regulation of disposal
practices prior to the time next year
when the Resource Recovery Act of
1970 expires and new legislation will
be written. In our view, the adverse
environmental effects of improper
disposal are so great and the need to
retain proper land disposal as a viable
option, along with resource recovery,
is so clear that there may be very
compelling arguments for the Federal
government or the States to assure
effective regulation of solid waste
disposal.
efficiency and effectiveness
of solid waste systems
Closely related to the question of
environmental regulation of solid
waste management systems is the
question of the efficiency and
effectiveness of those systems. As
increasingly strict environmental
requirements are placed on solid
waste practices, we can expect to
hear claims about the costs of those
requirements and the inability of
individuals, cities or corporations to
pay the costs. In large part, costs are
a function of the efficiency and
effectiveness of systems providing
solid waste services. Meeting necessary
environmental standards in solid
waste may be very expensive if we
rely upon inefficient institutions to
manage our wastes. It may be,
however, that meeting such require-
ments could cost little more than we
are currently spending—and perhaps
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less in some areas if we take steps to
ensure that solid wastes are handled
in the most efficient, effective manner
possible.
In addressing this issue I am fully
aware of its diverse and varied aspects,
including the level and quality of
service and the availability of service
to all in a given community, systems
productivities, optimum size and
scale of individual systems, the public-
private interface, and so forth. Let
me start from some basic contentions
which by now are a part of the
"conventional wisdom" in the solid
waste management field.
First, for many reasons which tend
to vary from locality to locality, most
local solid waste management systems
are not as efficient today as they
could or should be. Most systems
could make significant improvements
in efficiency and productivity with
relatively simple changes—by
rerouting trucks, for example, or by
rationalizing areas served by private
contractors to prevent costly overlap,
or by using different collection
vehicles with different manpower
inputs. We have seen the impact of
such system modification in work we
have done with Cleveland and
Huntington Woods, Michigan, in
reducing overall collection costs in
both cities by more than 20 percent—
and we are confident that it is
possible elsewhere.
Second, there are many examples
of systems that are "good" when
viewed in terms of environmental
quality, efficiency, and quality of
service. This is hardly news to the
private sector, since many of the
examples which come readily to mind
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are private systems. In fact, many of
the normal characteristics of the best
private systems—the discipline of
user charges as an incentive to
efficiency, the use of systems analysis
and management information systems
techniques to manage collection
operations, the use of excellent
sanitary landfill operations coupled
with very creative approaches to
subsequent land development, and so
forth—are the very components which
we would argue are necessary to
operate a model or optimum system,
whether public or private.
Third, having an environmentally
sound solid waste management system
need not break a community
financially. Our evidence indicates
that the per unit (family, person, etc.)
cost of systems that maintain high
environmental standards is not
excessive when related to current
expenditures, except perhaps in the
cities in the Northeast which may
have to implement long-haul
arrangements to disposal sites. While
we would not claim that communities
would spend less in the process
of upgrading their systems
environmentally,sve do think that
the increased costs will be quite small,
particularly if communities take steps
to emulate efficient systems that
currently exist around the country.
Keep in mind that disposal, which is
the cost element that must increase
as we upgrade environmental
standards, currently represents less
than a quarter of total community
solid waste management costs.
Increases there can be largely offset
by savings in the other part of the
cost (the three quarters that is spent
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for collection) where substantial
savings generally are possible.
Finally, it is our contention that
solid waste management systems, if
they are to be effective, need, in most
cases, more efficient and stable
sources of financing for both capital
investment and operations. In our
view, solid waste management systems
should be based on user charges for
individuals, commercial enterprises,
and so forth. These charges should
cover and equitably distribute the
full costs of operating environmentally
sound solid waste systems in a manner
analogous to the provision of what
are generally thought of as public
utility services—electricity, gas, water
or the telephone. In fact, the overall
analogy of solid waste services to
these services is one which should be
carefully explored by every
community.
There are admitted problems with
the user-charge approach, including
administrative costs, difficulties of
determining rates for different types
and levels of service, and the
regressivity of such charges against
the poor. As evidenced in many
localities already, however, these
problems can be minimized through
such steps as combining solid waste
billing procedures with water or
electric bills, varying the levels of
charges to charge the poor less than
the non-poor, and so forth. Compared
with these problems, the benefits of
the user charge are overwhelming.
They eliminate an existing drain on
general revenue sources traditionally
used to finance solid waste services;
they establish a basis for front-end
financing opportunities different from
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normal municipal sources, thereby
increasing local flexibility; and most
important, they introduce, by their
very nature, strong incentives for
efficiency in local solid waste
management systems.
Many issues are readily apparent
in these remarks about the efficiency
and effectiveness of solid waste
systems. Most apparent, perhaps, is
the fact that the costs of more
stringent environmental standards
and the growing realization that the
private sector provides a far larger
share of residential and commercial
solid waste management services than
was heretofore thought, may lead
States or local governments to seek
economies elsewhere—to consider
such steps as rate regulation, limiting
service areas through franchises or
contracts, or as abolishing irrational
jurisdictional boundaries that create
obstacles to achieving proper
economies of scale.
Such actions, in fact, are already
beginning to surface in many areas
across the country and undoubtedly
will accelerate. This trend is of
special importance to the private
sector, given its very large role in
solid waste management, since it
raises the whole issue of the public-
private sector interface in solid
waste management.
I am sure that we feel strongly
that the public has a right to
environmentally sound waste services
delivered at a reasonable price. We
also feel that in light of the growing
importance of the private sector and
the public utility analogy drawn
earlier, the public-private interface
issue is a major one. Finally, we feel
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that most States and localities
currently are not well equipped to
adequately address other than
environmental aspects of private solid
waste management services. We also
realize that all levels of government
are venturing into new and unfamiliar
territory in this area and that states
like Colorado, as they pioneer new
arrangements like the public utility
concept, on the one hand will be
setting important precedents for the
future and, on the other hand, have
few historical lessons to guide them.
We're very much concerned that these
pioneering efforts be successful and
that they set the proper course for
the future. We're working closely
with public and private bodies to
assure such success.
resource recovery
Of greatest concern and interest
to those concerned with the
environmental aspects of solid waste
management is the issue of—and the
need for—resource recovery and
recycling. To many Americans, there
is perhaps no greater symbol of our
imbalance with nature and our
maladaptation to its realities than the
fact that we discard millions of tons
of wastes every year which do, in fact,
have value. As William Ruckelshaus
said last year, "The American people
realize now that trash need not be
mere junk. It has the potential of
becoming a significant vein of
resources, a mother lode of
opportunity for men of vision who
can see beyond the horizon."
The American people are right.
And those of us who serve them can
no longer view solid waste
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management solely in terms of
collection and disposal. We must help
them understand, however, that
something more than the magic of
science and technology is required to
convert all this waste back into useful
resources.
In fact, in proportion to
consumption, resource recovery has
been steadily losing ground in recent
years in virtually every materials
sector. Approximately 200 million
tons of paper, iron, steel, glass,
nonferrous metals, textiles, rubber,
and plastics flow through the economy
yearly—and materials weighing
roughly the same leave the economy
again as waste. In spite of neighbor-
hood recycling projects, in spite of
container recovery depots, in spite of
paper drives, anti-litter campaigns,
and local ordinances banning the
non-returnable bottle, in spite of
the emergence of valuable new
technological approaches, only a
trickle of the "effluence of affluence"
is today being diverted from the
municipal waste stream.
The principal obstacles are
economic and institutional, not
technological. That is to say, the
cost of recovering, processing and
transporting wastes is so high that
the resulting products simply cannot
compete, economically, with virgin
materials. Of course, if the true costs
of such economic "externalities" as
environmental impact associated with
virgin materials use were reflected in
production costs and if there were
no subsidies to virgin materials in
the form of depletion allowances,
favorable freight rates and the like,
the use of secondary materials would
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become much more attractive. But
they are not now, and there are no
economic or technical events on the
horizon, short of governmental
intervention, that would indicate a
reversal of this trend. If allowed to
continue to operate as it does now,
the economic system will continue to
select virgin raw materials in
preference to wastes. This fact should
be etched into the awareness of those
who look to recycling as a way out
of the solid waste management
dilemma.
To bring about recycling, our
society is going to have to find ways
to stimulate the use of secondary
materials. In effect, we are going to
have to stop subsidizing virgin
materials use and take steps to assure
that secondary materials can compete
on an equal footing. Recycling, then,
is essentially an economic, social and
political question which must be
resolved by an informed people in
the economic and political arenas.
For this reason, EPA is currently
examining a wide range of issues and
problems associated with resource
recovery through studies, investiga-
tions and demonstration grants.
Included in these efforts are analyses
of the potential impact of possible
changes in tax policy (such as a tax
on energy or virgin materials, changes
in depletion rates, or tax credits to
users of post-consumer wastes),
transportation rates, and import/
export regulations. The desirability
of regulating virgin resource use
from federally controlled land is also
under study, as are the impact of
State and federal purchasing
specifications and the feasibility of
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some national standards for waste use.
We are also initiating studies to
determine types of products that
could be made from wastes for which
a demand exists, or could be
developed, in agriculture or the
construction industry, for example.
Certainly, much more waste could be
absorbed by industry, and we believe
future research and development
effort should be directed at the
specific needs of the consuming
industries—instead of at merely
extracting materials and hoping that
a market will materialize.
These studies are not going to go
on eternally. We will conclude them
as rapidly as possible with the goal
of making some interesting and
practical recommendations to the
Congress in the very near future.
source reduction
Upgrading our collection and
disposal systems to environmentally
acceptable levels and maximizing
the amount of waste we recover are
important—but still only partial steps
toward our society's and the world's
goal of defusing the environmental
crisis. The ultimate aim must be the
reduction of both the waste we
generate and the amount of resources
we consume. We classify activities
associated with this goal under the
rubric of source reduction.
The issue of source reduction and
its component parts or sub-issues are
exceedingly complex. Understood by
some, but not yet appreciated by
most, it strikes at the very core of
the way materials flow through our
economy and the values, technologies,
and traditions that determine that
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flow. Although source reduction may
in fact be the supreme environmental
issue, it is at present only tangentially
related to the field of solid waste
management. To the extent that
progress is not made in this area,
however, unending burdens will
continue to be placed, and probably
at an increasing rate, on those
responsible for handling the products
of over-consumption.
For this reason and because it is
every man's obligation to help close
the ecological circle those in the solid
waste management field should not
turn their backs on this issue. We
must with others explore and assess
the viability of such options as:
performance standards that will result
in longer-lived products, the sub-
stitution for present waste-intensive
processes of production those
processes with low waste yields,
substitution of products with low
materials requirements for those with
high material requirements, steps to
ensure that products are not over-
packaged. We must also seek to
ensure that changes are pursued
intelligently and that the
environmental benefits of actions
taken are greater than, or at least
equal to, the economic and social
costs of such actions. This will take
time.
summary
I have attempted to describe, in
capsule form, what I regard as major
issues in the solid waste field, not
only for today but for some time to
come. I am not under the illusion
that EPA's current efforts will
"solve" the solid waste problem or
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greatly lighten the burden shouldered
by various levels of government or
by private organizations. I do feel
however that our current efforts—if
effectively combined with the efforts
of the other public and private
organizations involved—will serve
to show how some of the available
opportunities in this field can be
better taken advantage of and help
throw a needed beam of light on the
path we should take in the future.
We are not dismayed by the
variegated and sometimes conflicting
impulses to action that occur in the
solid waste management field today.
Instead, we are grateful for these
signs of a new public awareness
and energy, and we believe that
organizations such as yours and ours
should help channel this long-awaited
public interest in meaningful and
constructive ways.
As this is done, we can be certain
that a public, already showing
themselves willing to voluntarily
limit the number of children they
have, carry their bottles, cans, and
papers to the local recycling center,
and impose on themselves other
personal sacrifices in the interest of
saving the earth will, when properly
informed, make the proper social
decisions that will lead our society
from the open dump to the closed
circle in the solid waste management
field.
UO 708R
GPO 1973O—493-320
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