This report (SW-93ts.j) was written by
THOMAS D. CLARK
U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
1971
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This is an environmental protection publication in the solid waste management
series (SW-93ts.j).
Single copies of this publication are available from solid waste management publications
distribution, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 5555 Ridge Avenue, Cincinnati,
Ohio 45213.
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Mr. Clark, an economist with the Federal solid waste management program, presented
this talk at the 17th Annual Meeting of the Institute of Environmental Sciences in Los
Angeles on April 27, 1971; it is reprinted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
from the 1971 Annual Technical Meeting Proceedings (p. 39-43) with permission of the
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Mt. Prospect, Illinois.
Ill
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The amount of solid waste collected from each
person daily has increased from 2.75 pounds in 1920
to 5.3 pounds in 1968 and is projected to be 8
pounds by 1980. Therefore, managing solid wastes in
a manner that will maintain the quality of the
environment at a reasonable cost has become
increasingly difficult. The present disposal
techniques-burning, dumping, and landfilling-result
in an apparent loss of resources. With reclamation,
however, waste materials such as old bottles, cans,
and paper may be processed into usable commodities.
Congress recognized this when it passed the Resource
Recovery Act of 1970, which is designed to promote
and encourage recycling of solid wastes through the
use of research and development, education, and
economic and financial incentives.
Processes for recovering resources from solid waste
are subject to economic constraints in that the cost to
the user of the reclaimed material must be
competitive with that of raw materials.
In this paper, we shall look at what is being done to
recycle significant items of solid waste and
litter-paper, aluminum cans, glass containers, and
textiles-and the economic barriers that operate
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against success in these efforts. Finally, we shall
examine some proposals that might lower these
barriers. This discussion is based on dialogue held
with various trade associations and firms active in the
field of recycling, as well as with a public-spirited
group in Berkeley, California, and the Goodwill
Industries. It also draws upon a report prepared for
the Solid Waste Management Office by the Midwest
Research Institute on the economics of the salvage
market. 1
Some Items of Solid Waste
Paper
Paper constitutes the single largest item in solid
waste; it accounts for almost 50 percent of both litter
and solid waste streams. If most of the paper content
could be removed from the solid waste stream and
recycled, solid waste collection and disposal costs
would be reduced significantly.
The paper industry has long been using scrap paper as
a raw material. A certain type of cardboard called
combination paperboard, for instance, is produced
almost entirely from waste paper. Its uses include
packaging, book covers, and backs for pads of paper.
Because of competition from paperboard made from
virgin pulp, however, the production of combination
paperboard has been declining in recent years.
Another end use for waste paper is the manufacture
of newsprint from old newspapers. In 1961, the
Garden State Paper Co.,* Garfield, New Jersey,
developed a process by which old newspapers are
pulped, deinked, and processed into newsprint. The
finished product compares favorably with virgin
newsprint. Garden State has three plants in the
United States: Garfield, New Jersey; Alsip, Illinois
(outside Chicago); and Los Angeles. It is presently
considering establishing a plant somewhere in the
Ohio Valley that will draw upon cities such as
Louisville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis for its supply of
old newspapers.
A Garden State Paper Co. plant must have an ensured
daily supply of 300 tons of newspaper for it to
*Mention of commercial products does not imply
endorsement of the U.S. Government.
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operate at the break-even point. From this 300 tons,
the plant produces about 280 tons of newsprint and
sells it for about $5 to $7 below the market price for
virgin newsprint; it usually sells all it can produce.
The quality of the recycled newsprint compares
favorably with that of the virgin product. It is
superior in printability and tear-strength. Although its
tensile strength is less than that of virgin newsprint,
the recycled newsprint has about five times the pull
exerted by the presses. Because sharper knives are
required to cut the printed newspapers, recycled
newsprint is unsatisfactory for small publishers who
might not be able to maintain their equipment as well
as the larger publishers.
According to the chairman of Garden State, currently
about 22 percent of the newsprint used in the United
States is collected and reused. If paper drives
increased this rate of collection, plant capacity of
paper recyclers could not absorb the additional
amounts. In fact, if a new source of waste paper
provided substantial amounts on a fairly continuous
basis, this new source would supplant, not
supplement, the others. As an example, the city solid
waste workers in Madison, Wisconsin, collect
segregated and bundled newspapers separately. The
collected newspapers are sold to a paperstock dealer
and are then recycled in the Garden State's Chicago
plant. This Madison program does not increase the
amount of paper recycled, however; it merely
substitutes Madison-collected paper for
Chicago-collected paper.
The paperstock dealers and brokers play an important
role in getting the waste paper from the sources to
the users. Usually the dealer sorts and bales the paper
and ships it to the user. The broker acts as a
middleman and arranges the purchases.
An axiom of the salvage business that "scrap
materials are purchased, not sold" is particularly true
for the paperstock business. When the supply of
paperstock exceeds the demand and the price falls,
small dealers may be forced out of business.
Recognizing the need to preserve the dealers as
sources of this raw material, some users, such as the
Garden State Paper Co., put a floor on the price they
will pay just to keep the small dealer in business.
Family-owned paperstock firms, as well as firms
dealing with other scrap materials, have also been
disappearing. The sons of owners go to college and,
after earning degrees, are unwilling to take over the
family business. When the owners retire, so do the
businesses.
Collections of waste newspapers from residential
sources can be turned on and off as the supply
warrants. If the supply of old newspapers is short,
paperstock dealers can work with such civic and
charitable groups as Boy Scouts, churches, and PTA's
to sponsor fund-raising paper drives. If there is an
oversupply, these drives can be discouraged and
turned off.
Aluminum Cans
A friend of mine and I were once discussing
environmental pollution, and he made the following
comment: "I remember as a kid that when I'd walk
through the woods and see a rusty can, I would view
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it with disgust; now I would rather see a tin can
rusting away than an aluminum one that doesn't
disintegrate at all."
Such statements, made by people who care about the
environment, concern the aluminum industry, which
has invested huge sums to produce and promote
aluminum cans and to expand the market. Currently,
aluminum cans hold a small but expanding percentage
of the beverage container market; although sales of all
aluminum products have fallen off recently, sales of
aluminum cans in 1969 rose about 16 percent. So far,
aluminum cans are mostly marketed in areas of large
population concentrations, such as the Los
Angeles-San Diego and the Boston-New York
corridors.
In response to criticism of the environmental insult
that could be caused by their product, Reynolds,
Alcoa, and Kaiser have initiated programs to collect
used aluminum containers. These programs are
designed to assist in controlling litter and to recover
the aluminum for reuse. The aluminum in the
containers is fairly clean and free of alloys and can
easily be used as a raw material.
$200 per ton. Because such items as steel cans, lead
and steel pipe, bricks, and wood are found hidden
among the sacks and boxes of aluminum cans, the
cost of acquiring the aluminum is higher than $200
per ton.
For a sample cost analysis, consider the September
1969 figures the Reynolds collection center in Los
Angeles reported to the Midwest Research Institute.
During that month, the center processed 22.9 tons of
aluminum acquired at $330 per ton. The cost of
processing, which included processing, building and
equipment depreciation, labor, miscellaneous
expenses, and freight, was another $308 per ton.
Handling costs at the receiving plant, which included
conversion costs, cost of metal lost in conversion,
etc., were $170 per ton. The total cost of $808 was
$268 more than the $540 per ton for Grade I shot.
Reynolds has exceeded the estimated break-even
point of 32.5 tons per month for its Los Angeles
center. As other aluminum companies attain their
break-even point, they should be willing and even
eager to retrieve old aluminum products.
Reynolds Metals Co., the Nation's second and the
world's third largest producer of aluminum, has
established a reclamation recycling program.
Can-collection centers have been set up in areas where
there is an abundance of all-aluminum cans-Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Tampa, Houston, New York,
and Newark. Individuals and organizations are urged
to bring in aluminum cans and other clean household
aluminum scrap, such as foil. (Reynolds even
distributes large plastic bags to aid in collection.) At
the center, the aluminum is redeemed at 10 cents per
pound; without contaminants this would amount to
Reynolds is not the only aluminum company with a
collection program: Alcoa has a similar collection
center in San Diego and Kaiser in San Francisco.
Furthermore, the Adolph Coors Company, a brewery
in Golden, Colorado, is cooperating with the three
aluminum companies to collect cans. Coors, which
puts a large percentage of its beer in aluminum cans,
operates collection centers through more than 200 of
its distributors in Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Kansas,
Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming,
and parts of Texas and California.
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According to the Midwest Research Institute, the
redemption centers are collecting somewhat less than
5 percent of all aluminum cans produced. Although
this does not seem significant, the industry believes
these cans would have ended up as litter. Hopefully,
however, as the collection programs expand and are
given more publicity, a greater percentage will be
removed from the solid waste stream.
Glass Containers
Glass containers, like aluminum cans, are
nondegradable and are a specific target of the
environmentalists. Of particular concern is the
increasing trend to the use of no-deposit,
nonreturnable beverage containers. Legislation has
been proposed in the Congress and in various State
legislatures to ban the sale of beverages in
nonreturnable containers. One municipality, Bowie,
Maryland, has passed such an ordinance. It was being
contested in the courts before its effective date of
April 1,1971.
In response to adverse publicity, the glass industry,
acting through the Glass Container Manufacturer's
Institute, Inc. (GCMI), has for a number of years
been actively attempting to solve litter and solid
waste disposal problems involving nonreturnable glass
containers. For example, in 1953 it was one of the
founders of Keep America Beautiful, Inc., whose
purpose is litter control. The GCMI position is that
banning nonreturnable containers is not the solution.
According to GCMI data, glass containers represent
about 5 percent of municipal solid waste and about 6
percent of roadside litter. Furthermore, of the glass
containers in roadside litter, one-way beverage
containers account for less than half; the rest are
deposit bottles and other types of glass containers.
The beverage market has been geared to the use of
convenience containers. Many grocery store chains
refuse to bother with returnable beer bottles; some
don't even handle returnable soft drink bottles. Given
a choice, the consumers also apparently prefer the
convenience of nonreturnable bottles and are willing
to pay a higher price and forgo deposits. As a result,
not only has the use of returnable bottles decreased,
but so has the number of their round trips. In 1969,
Pepsi-Cola was introduced in New York City in the
16-ounce, returnable bottle. To protect the inventory
of 600,000 cases, the deposit on each bottle was
raised from 2 cents to 5 cents. Within 6 months, this
inventory of 14,400,000 bottles had disappeared into
the solid waste stream and the consumers had
forfeited $720,000 in deposits.
According to an interesting survey that Allied
Supermarkets, Inc., conducted in its Michigan stores,
shoppers preferred returnable to nonreturnable
bottles by a margin of 63.5 percent to 36.5 percent.2
Allied reported, however, that "actual sales show
nonreturnables out-selling returnables."
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As an alternative to a direct ban of nonreturnable
beverage containers, the solution might be to
somehow remove them from the solid waste stream
and to reuse them or recycle the glass. Currently, to
promote support for this solution, more than 100
glass-container manufacturing plants in 25 States are
redeeming from the public and recycling used bottles
and jars. The used glass containers are redeemed at
the plant site for 1 cent a pound ($20 per ton)
provided the containers are separated by color and
are free of metal contaminants. Collection centers
have also been set up in other areas. Owens-Illinois,
for example, is running an experimental bottle
collection center in a shopping center in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. There the company pays only # cent a
pound because it must transport the glass to its plant
in Charlotte, Michigan. In its first 2 weeks of
operation, the center collected 260,000 bottles or
jars, or 130,000 pounds of glass, for which the
company paid $650. The glass industry has also been
aided by community groups who collect glass to raise
funds as well as to better the environment.
According to the GCMI, the industry is willing to
receive the old glass. Traditionally, the glass container
industry has used cullet (crushed glass) for about 5
percent of its raw material; most of this was obtained
in-house. The use of cullet hastens the melting of the
other ingredients-sand, limestone, and soda ash-in
the glass furnaces. Industry research, however,
indicates that cullet can be used for 30 percent of the
raw material, and perhaps for as much as 50 percent.
Because the cullet is more adaptable for direct feed
into the glass furnaces, the $20 per ton the industry
pays for cullet is comparable to the $18 it pays for a
ton of raw materials.
Research has also been conducted on other potential
uses of cullet. One such use is Glasphalt, a street and
highway paving material. In Glasphalt, crushed glass is
substituted for crushed limestone aggregate in
traditional asphalt. The University of Missouri at
Rolla developed and is testing this material as a
project partially funded by a Solid Wastes Office
research grant. Test sections of road are paved with
the material at Rolla and at glass company facilities in
Toledo, Ohio, and Winchester, Indiana.
Although Glasphalt would provide a use for waste
glass, it could never seriously compete in volume with
regular asphalt, for if all the glass containers used in
the United States were converted into Glasphalt,
there would be only enough to produce a
maintenance layer of about 300 miles of four-lane
highway each year.
Crushed salvaged container glass might also be used to
produce building materials such as bricks and
insulation, reflector materials, sewer pipes, costume
jewelry, and chicken grit.
Textiles
Although textiles are not a significant percentage of
all solid waste, they are included in this discussion
because of their history of and potential for
recycling.
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The old-rag man is a thing of the past. He used to go
around with his cart and collect discarded textiles
from housewives. These old textiles were primarily
used as industrial wiping rags.
But things have changed now. For one thing, the
industrial wiping rag market has declined. Industry
uses more disposable paper wipers at the expense of
cotton rags, and with the increasing use of synthetic
and permanent press fabrics, there are fewer suitable
absorbent cotten textiles to collect and recycle as
wiping rags.
The householder might dispose of discarded textiles
through social service organizations such as Goodwill
Industries, Salvation Army, Volunteers of America,
or the Society of St. Vincente de Paul. The textiles
are collected from bins placed in shopping center
parking lots; through special clothing drives
conducted with the cooperation of schools, Boy
Scouts, etc.; and through special pickups at the
homes. In addition, retail clothing stores might
donate their unsalable merchandise to the
organizations.
Once, articles of used clothing were shipped abroad
where there was a demand for them as wearing
apparel. With the increasing affluence in the rest of
the world, however, this market has so dwindled that
it is practically nonexistent.
When the textiles are received at the Goodwill plant,
they are sorted into salable and nonsalable items. The
salable items are given minor repairs, cleaned, pressed,
and put on the racks at the retail outlets. (Because
the clothes sold at the Goodwill stores are usually a
year behind those at regular clothing stores, Goodwill
hopes there are no drastic year-to-year changes in
fashion!)
Let's examine the ways by which textiles currently
are collected and recycled. Of course, the greatest
source is the clothing and textile industries that sell
their scraps to textile dealers.
Ingenious housewives often recycle textiles right in
the home. Wearing apparel that wears out or is
outgrown, e.g., diapers, linens, can be converted into
cleaning rags, doll clothes, or baby clothes.
Textiles unsalable as wearing apparel may or may not
be sorted according to fiber content, but they are
bundled and sold to textile dealers. The dealers are
primarily concerned with the cotton content of the
bundles for use as industrial wiping rags. The other
textiles can be used in the manufacture of such items
as paper and roofing materials. A Goodwill plant in
an industrial area, such as northern Ohio, may
produce the wiping rags itself.
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Economic Barriers to Recycling
From the above discussion, we can see that there are
two basic economic barriers to the successful
recycling of solid waste-collection and markets for
the reclaimed resources. The conclusions that can be
drawn from the examples on paper, aluminum cans,
glass containers, and textiles are generally applicable
to other consumer items as well. (Industrial and
commercial solid wastes, being fairly homogeneous,
are more readily adaptable to recycling; recycling
nonconsumer items should be the topic of another
discussion.)
Mechanical Sorting of Solid Waste
Residential solid waste is usually pretty
heterogeneous. With very few exceptions, such wastes
are not segregated before collection, and, therefore,
separating reclaimable materials from residential solid
waste becomes a costly problem.
One promising technique, which is being researched
by the Black Clawson Company, Middletown, Ohio,
utilizes a hydrapulper to pulp solid wastes, reclaim
secondary fibers, and separate inorganic products like
metals and glass. Special filtering and screening
devices reclaim fibrous materials, which can be used
to make paper products; unusable organics, such as
plastics and rubber, are rejected. A plant receiving
500 tons of refuse per day will yield 200 tons of
usable materials: 100 tons will be paper pulp (dry
basis);45 tons, metal; and 55 tons, glass.1 The other
300 tons will be nonreclaimable organics;
miscellaneous materials such as stone, ceramics, and
metal fines; ash; dirt; suspended particles; and
moisture. A cost analysis reveals that a 500 ton per
day plant will cost $13.54 per ton of reclaimed
materials to operate, and that $13.75 per ton could
be realized from sales of reclaimed materials, for a net
gain of $0.21 per ton. Such analysis does not include
a credit for disposal costs foregone.
Another promising mechanical sorting technique is
the incinerator residue recovery process developed by
the Bureau of Mines. According to an unpublished
report, "the process, which is comprised simply of a
series of shredding, screening, grinding, and magnetic
separation procedures, yields metallic iron
concentrates, clean nonferrous composites, clean fine
glass fractions, and a fine carbonaceous ash tailing."-*
Theoretically, 82.9 percent, by weight, of the
incinerator residue should be salable. According to
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Bureau of Mines data for the described process, a
plant handling 250 tons of incinerator residue per day
will have costs of $7.67 per ton of salable residue.
Such costs for handling 1,000 tons per day would be
$4.89 per ton. If all the recovered material can be
marketed and if credit is taken for landfill space and
operating costs saved, this process could very well
prove to be economically desirable, particularly for
the larger plant.
Segregation at the Source
These approaches are very well and good. But they
involve processes that might or might not be
economical. The most economically promising
process might be the most difficult to establish, but
in the long run it might be the most successful. It
involves the housewife-the person who can exert the
most influence to accomplish primary segregation.
To support the war effort during World War II (and,
incidentally, to obtain additional ration stamps), the
housewife would regularly flatten tin cans, save them,
along with newspapers and grease, and turn them in.
Schools and groups such as Boy Scouts regularly held
paper drives. Saving and reclaiming salvageable
materials became a way of life.
Today we need the same patriotic enthusiasm to
protect our environment that we had 25 to 30 years
ago to protect our country. Some of this enthusiasm
is present and is being capitalized on by
public-spirited groups across the country. In some
communities, the Boy Scouts will hold periodic paper
drives. "Ecology" drives are held to raise funds for a
charitable purpose by collecting old bottles and cans.
But these drives are quite often onetime affairs.
Some groups have established continuing collection
centers. One such group is Ecology Action in
Berkeley, California. In April 1970, in response to
Earth Day, Ecology Action started a recycling
collection center in the parking lot of the Consumer
Cooperative of Berkeley. With little or no publicity
on its part, it has had phenomenal success. Tonnages
received have increased by about 15 percent for every
weekend it has been in operation. As a matter of fact,
it has become almost too large for the group to
handle itself. Ecology Action estimates it serves
between 1,500 and 2,000 families and reclaims some
100 tons of waste materials per month.
Ecology Action is run by a few young concerned
citizens who have level heads under their long hair.
The householders seem to accept and appreciate
Ecology Action's insistence that newspapers be tied
in bundles and include no magazines; glass containers
have all labels removed and be washed, segregated by
color, and free of any metal contaminants; and metal
cans have labels removed and be washed and
flattened.
Before it started its collection center, Ecology Action
obtained firm agreements from various firms and
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dealers in the Bay area for the sale of the collected
materials. It also receives financial and moral support
from the business community and the blessings of the
Berkeley City Council. But again, the backbone of
this operation is the housewife. In Berkeley, at least,
she had been willing to segregate and prepare her
bottles, cans, and newspapers and to have her
husband put them in the back of the car and take
them to the center. Surely, similar collection
activities can operate elsewhere.
It will be interesting to see if Ecology Action can
maintain its success. If it can, it plans to expand its
activities by instituting satellite neighborhood
collection points throughout the entire community.
Ecology Action has an ambitious program; with the
continued help of the housewife, it can succeed.
Even when items in solid waste can be economically
and successfully mechanically sorted or manually
segregated, markets must exist for the reclaimed
materials. There's the rub. If industry cannot
economically and successfully market products made
from reclaimed materials, then no incentive will exist
for recycling. This the paper industry, for one,
recognizes. Last October the American Paper
Institute sponsored a seminar in Washington, D.C., on
recycling waste paper.4 An opportunity was provided
for discussion between government officials and the
top management of the paper industry. The recurring
theme of that seminar was that it would take
concerted effort by both industry and government to
accomplish greater recycling of waste paper.
Suggestions for Federal Action
Proposals have been made that involve action the
Federal government could take to accomplish greater
recycling. These are only proposals; before any of
them can be accepted or rejected, they must be
closely studied and scrutinized, with all possible
ramifications investigated. Blind action can do more
damage than good.
Because the Federal government is one of the largest
purchasers and users of paper and paper products in
the country, it has been suggested that regulations
could be formulated to require that the paper and
building materials it purchases must contain a certain
percentage of recycled fiber and that tax and other
economic incentives could be provided to encourage
recycling.
Other suggestions might merit scrutiny. For instance,
freight rates for scrap materials, which are set by the
Interstate Commerce Commission, might be more in
line with those for raw materials. (In 1966, the
average cost per ton to haul ferrous scrap material
was $4.12, whereas the cost for iron ore was $1.64.)
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Or, controlled reuse of liquor bottles could be
permitted. Or, because about 60 percent of the
newsprint in this country comes from Canada, the
tariffs on imported newsprint could be increased and
the use of recycled newsprint encouraged thereby.
Depletion allowances for mined, reusable natural
resources might be reduced to further encourage
recycling. Taxes or fees on recyclable disposable
items could be imposed, which would be refunded if
the items were properly redeemed.
Summary and Conclusions
By examining present efforts to recycle paper,
aluminum cans, glass containers, and textiles, we have
seen that the two economic constraints of successful
recycling of solid waste are collecting and marketing
the reclaimed resources. Solid wastes can be manually
sorted and mechanically separated on an economic
basis if a market exists for the reclaimed materials.
Such a market will exist if a demand exists for
recycled products. If recycling is successful, the
burden on the solid waste disposal system would be
decreased. But it will take the full cooperation of
everybody-- government, industry, and the housewife.
Our environment can expect no less of us.
References
iMidwest Research Institute. Economic study of
salvage markets for commodities entering the solid
waste stream. (Report in preparation.) Work
performed under Contract No. CPE 69-3.
2Returnable bottles favored in poll, but not at stores.
The Wall Street Journal, 51(43):3, Dec. 14, 1970.
3U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines.
Solid waste research. College Park, Md. p. 1.
Unpublished report.
4Recycling Waste Paper; Proceedings of Seminar Held
October 16, 1970, Washington, D.C. New York,
American Paper Institute. 42 p.
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Acknowledgment
The help given me by personnel at the following Berkeley; The Aluminum Association, New York;
industries and institutions is greatly appreciated: Glass Container Manufacturer's Institute, New York;
Anchor-Hocking Corp., Lancaster, Ohio; Garden American Paper Institute, New York; and Mead
State Paper Co., Garfield, N.J.; Ecology Action, Corp., Cincinnati.
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