A Systems Approach to Sustainable Materials
Management
Prepared for:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Research and Development
Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program
Prepared by:
Industrial Economics Inc.
2067 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02140
617-354-0074
21 September 2015
-------
-------
Table of Contents
Table of Contents i
List of Tables iii
List of Figures iii
Abbreviations and Acronyms v
Section 1: Introduction and Background 1
Section 2: Sustainable Materials Management Principles 3
2.1 Introduction to SMM 3
2.2 The Global Practice of SMM 5
2.3 SMM Opportunities and Challenges 7
2.4 SMM Analytical Framework: Triple Value Impacts 9
Section 3: Material Flows and Common SMM Practices in the U.S 12
3.1 U.S. Context: Material Flows 12
3.1.1 U.S. Material Flows - Extraction 12
3.1.2 U.S. Material Flows - Post-Extraction 13
3.1.3 U.S. Material Flows - Post-Consumption 14
3.2 Impacts of U.S. Materials Use 17
3.3 Role of SMM Practices in Addressing Impacts of Materials Use 19
3.3.1 Materials Recovery and Recycling 20
3.3.2 Materials Recovery and Recycling in the Triple Value Framework 22
3.3.3 Energy Recovery 23
3.3.4 Energy Recovery in the Triple Value Framework 25
3.3.5 Landfill Mining 27
3.3.6 Landfill Mining in the Triple Value Framework 28
3.3.7 Product Take-Back 29
3.3.8 Product Take-Back in the Triple Value Framework 29
3.3.9 Source Reduction 32
3.3.10 Source Reduction in the Triple Value Framework 32
3.3.11 Green Design 33
3.3.12 Green Design in the Triple Value Framework 34
3.3.13 Green Remediation 34
-------
3.3.14 Green Remediation in the Triple Value Framework 35
3.4 Summary of Impacts of SMM Practices 36
Section 4: Strategies for Support of Sustainable Materials Management 41
4.1 Approach to Designing and Implementing SMM 41
4.2 Step 1: Identify Key Stakeholders and Stakeholder Goals 42
4.3 Step 2: Array SMM Practices to Develop Options for Achieving Goals in the
Context of the Stakeholder Process 44
4.4 Step 3: Assess the Practical Feasibility of SMM Options Developed in the
Stakeholder Process 45
4.5 Step 4: Prioritize and Conduct Analyses to Assess Key Costs, Benefits, and Interactions
Among Feasible SMM Options 49
Section 5: Conclusions and Applications 56
Bibliography 57
-------
List of Tables
Table 1. Examples of EPA's national SMM efforts 7
Table 2. Intersection of SMM and other SHCRP sectors (land use, built infrastructure, and
transportation) at the community level 8
Table 3. Total 2012 U.S. MSW generated, recycled, and discarded by material 16
Table 4. Summary of seven common SMM practices and example benefits in sustainability sectors38
Table 5. Matrix detailing the intersections between SMM practices and goals 45
Table 6. Community-level programs and policy options and other important authorities to involve to
implement SMM Practices 46
Table 7. Methods to map and quantify community flows of materials and energy 49
Table 8. Analytical approaches to support evaluation of SMM strategies- 51
Table 9. Overview of SMM practices, associated decision scope, key interactions, and data
requirements for evaluation, and current data availability 53
List of Figures
Figure 1. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of materials use in the triple
value framework 10
Figure 2. Total extraction and unused extraction of biomass, fossil fuels, industrial and construction
minerals, and ores in the U.S 13
Figure 3. Total U.S. MSW generation and per capita generation from 1960 to 2012 15
Figure 4. Composition of C&D materials landfilled (after recycling) 17
Figure 5. Composition of C&D materials recycled 21
Figure 6. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of materials recovery and
recycling in the triple value framework 25
Figure 7. The economic, social, and environmental of impacts of energy recovery in the triple value
framework 27
Figure 8. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of landfill mining in the triple
value framework 28
Figure 9. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of product take-back in the triple value
framework 30
-------
Figure 10. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of source reduction in the triple
value framework 33
Figure 11. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of green design in the triple value
framework 35
Figure 12. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of green remediation in the triple value
framework 36
Figure 13. The combined environmental, economic, and social impacts of SMM approaches in
the triple value framework 37
Figure 14. The urban metabolism framework 48
-------
Abbreviations and Acronyms
C&D
Construction & Demolition
EPA
Environmental Protection Agency
EPAORD
Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development
IRR
Integrated Resource Recovery
IWM
Integrated Waste Management
MSW
Municipal Solid Waste
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
SHCRP
Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program
SMM
Sustainable Materials Management
-------
Section I: introduction and Background
As part of its mission to "protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment—air, water
and land—upon which life depends/' the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a number of
intersecting goals.1 One goal that addresses multiple media and sources of environmental risk and
benefits is EPA's commitment to "Cleaning Up Communities and Advancing Sustainable Development."
This goal is accompanied by several agency-wide strategies, one of which aims to "expand support of
community efforts to build healthy, sustainable, green neighborhoods" and reduce and prevent health
risks.2
EPA's Office of Research and Development's (ORD's) Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research
Program (SHCRP) works to develop tools to support community-level policies that operationalize
sustainability and achieve meaningful improvements in quality of life. SHCRP supports community
efforts to integrate policies that address land use, building and infrastructure, transportation, and
sustainable materials management (SMM). SHCRP's SMM efforts focus on improving flows of materials
and associated waste streams to improve economic and social conditions in urban communities while
minimizing the ecological footprint of materials.
Traditionally, community-level decisions about materials have centered on minimizing the cost and
environmental impacts of "end-of-pipe" waste management options for household and commercial
wastes. Landfills, energy recovery facilities, and recycling have been the most common options
considered. SMM aims to expand the thinking of communities to bring a systems approach to the way
materials use and management can be addressed. An SMM approach expands beyond end-of-life
impacts to consider the ecological, economic, and human health impacts associated with material
supply chains, and to incorporate decisions about design, manufacture, and purchasing that can reduce
impacts to communities during use and disposal phases of materials' life cycles. SMM approaches often
draw on principles of industrial ecology to promote waste reduction or elimination by reusing by-
product materials as an input for other products or services, as well as by improving waste
management.
This report presents SMM approaches that can be used and outlines how these practices can help
increase sustainability of communities. The organization of this discussion centers on the triple value
framework - a life-cycle view of materials focused on interactions between flows of materials, energy,
water, and food in the economy, society, and environment - as the basis for building a community-level
SMM strategy. The paper uses the triple value framework to identify and examine different SMM
practices and outline the interrelationships that can drive the impacts of policies related to materials.
This paper also evaluates the available data and modeling approaches to support place-based policy and
decision-making, and identifies areas for future research and development to support the adaption of
SMM in communities. The discussion is organized as follows:
1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Sustainable and Healthy Communities:
Strategic Research Action Plan 2012-2016." June 2012. Available at:http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-
06/documents/she-strap.pdf
2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "FY 2014-2018 EPA Strategic Plan." April 10,2014. Available at:
http://www2.epa.gOv/sites/production/files/2014-09/documents/epa strategic plan fvl4-18.pdf
-------
Section 2: Sustainable Materials Management Principles defines SMM in the SHCRP context
and provides a brief overview of its global development. The section describes key opportunities
and challenges affecting SMM implementation, and introduces the triple value framework for
structuring SMM-related analysis.
Section 3: Material Flows and Common SMM Practices in the U.S. characterizes national-level
material flows and SMM opportunities in the U.S., and briefly describes the economic, social,
and environmental impacts of common SMM practices. The section layers SMM practices into
the triple value framework, and identifies important points of system intersection that can
affect the success of SMM efforts.
Section 4: Strategies for SMM outlines a four-step approach to SMM implementation that
includes stakeholder interaction, analytic priorities, and potential opportunities for SHCRP to
encourage the process.
Section 5: Conclusions and Recommendations discusses next steps for SHCRP in promoting
SMM for communities and designing tools to support the process of adopting SMM.
-------
Section 2: Sustainable Materials Management Principles
This section presents a working definition of SMM, describes its development as a strategy for
addressing waste and materials management, and provides a brief overview of the global practice of
SMM. The section also outlines key opportunities and challenges that communities face in identifying
and implementing SMM strategies, and notes several analytical approaches that support SMM program
implementation.
2.1 Introduction to SMM
EPA defines SMM as an "approach to serving human needs by using/reusing resources most
productively and sustainably throughout their life-cycles."3 SMM aims to reframe decisions addressing
waste to consider options that move beyond typical options for end-of-life management of materials,
such as recycling, composting, energy recovery, and landfilling. SMM uses and expands on end-of-life
strategies to consider the use and reuse of materials across the life-cycle, from extraction through
manufacture, use, and disposal. The aim is to develop, use, and dispose of materials in a way that is both
productive and sustainable. Ideally, SMM policies ensure that materials provide needed functions in a
way that conserves resources, reduces waste, slows climate change, and minimizes the environmental
impacts of the materials consumed across the communities where they are produced, used, and
discarded. These practices also aim to be economically efficient and include less easily monetized
community benefits, such as societal impacts and improved quality of life.
Integrated Waste Management, Integrated Resource Recovery, and SMM
Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) is one of several different approaches to increasing the
sustainability of waste and materials management. Two other common strategies are integrated waste
management (IWM) and integrated resource recovery (IRR).
IWM aims to reduce material use and recycle materials to minimize raw material extraction and reduce,
recycle, and manage discarded materials in ways that most effectively protect human health and the
environment. Like community-driven SMM efforts, this approach evaluates local needs and conditions, and
then selects and combines the most appropriate waste management activities to satisfy theses needs and
conditions.
IRR efforts reflect the view, consistent with SMM, that "waste" of all types is, due to the materials it contains,
a potentially valuable resource that can be used to provide raw materials, generate clean energy, grow food,
supply water, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This approach incorporates broader principles of
efficiency and reuse, low impact development, decentralized wastewater management, energy generation and
nutrient recovery.
While both approaches embrace principles that are consistent with SMM, both focus more specifically on
"waste" management options than SMM, which extends materials management options to consider impacts
and management of materials across systems and at every point in the material life-cycle.
3 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "What is Sustainable Materials Management?" April 13,2012. Available at:
http://waste.supportportal.eom/link/portal/23002/23023/Article/32995/What-is-Sustainable-Materials-
Management? ga=1.118638025.196330328.1411689832
-------
SMM has its origins in global efforts to focus on materials management and sustainability. In this
context, the definition of SMM used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) embodies four main principles:4
• preserve natural capital;
• design and manage materials, products, and processes for safety and sustainability from a life-
cycle perspective;
• use the full diversity of policy instruments to stimulate and reinforce sustainable economic,
environmental, and social outcomes; and
• engage all parts of society to take active, ethically-based responsibility for achieving sustainable
outcomes.
Balancing the multiple objectives of SMM can be difficult. The approach requires a full understanding of
the critical interactions of material flows through the economy, society, and the environment; often
these flows involve global movements of resources that are difficult to measure and track, and changes
often rely on decentralized adjustments in the behavior of individuals. At both a national and a
community level, common SMM strategies and objectives have centered on the following goals:5
• Decrease urban demand for material consumption
• Decrease resource intensity of products & services
• Use substitute materials with lower life-cycle impact
• Encourage local sourcing of materials & products
• Increase recycling rates for commodity materials
• Recover and reuse wasted or underutilized resources
• Assure proper disposal for unwanted solid wastes
• Create economic incentives for material efficiency
The SMM strategies that are best aligned to achieve these goals typically encompass a suite of
integrated practices (e.g., recycling, take-back strategies, green design, and others) that are tailored to
the social, economic, and environmental contexts in which they are implemented. Successful SMM
efforts most often emerge from careful, broad interaction efforts between leadership and stakeholders
that are supported by high-quality data and a range of economic and environmental analyses. SMM
stands apart from other efforts in that it aims to provide a holistic view and manage materials across all
sectors of society and all activities. This may require long-term thinking about both the impacts of
human behavior, and the most effective ways to improve it.
4 These are principles for SMM recommended by OECD presented in:
OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%20svnthesis%20-%20policv%20brief final%20GG.pdf
OECD documents were selected to provide an overview of the global SMM principles as OECD is an international
organization focused on promoting policies that promotes the social, economic, and environmental well-being of people
around the world. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD] is composed of 34 countries
member countries with interacting market economics and 70 non-member economics to promote economic growth,
prosperity, and sustainability development.
5 These objectives are derived from the principles and framework presented in:
Fiksel, J. "A Framework for Sustainable Materials Management." Journal of the Minerals Metals & Materials Society. 2006.
58 (8]: 15-22. Available at: http: //www.eco-nomics.com/images/Framework for SMM.pdf Fiksel's triple-value
framework has been selected as the organizing principle for this paper because it has been broadly used to EPA to frame
community-related sustainability efforts.
-------
ibal Practice of SMM
Globally, the effort to integrate SMM into policy has emerged over the past decade, as OECD, EPA, and
other national governments have taken on efforts to promote sustainable materials use.6 As early as
2005 and 2008, OECD conducted workshops to explore the future development of SMM activities and
policies within member countries and beyond. Among the workshop participants were representatives
from EPA's Office of Policy and Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response; these offices have
assumed a leadership role in integrating SMM into U.S. policies.
According to the OECD, policy options explored in OECD SMM workshops and later implemented in
participating countries have contributed to the recent 42 percent improvement throughout the OECD
countries in "resource productivity," a metric that estimates the materials produced per unit of
resources used.7 Examples of SMM programs, ranging from instituting recycling and reuse to waste
prevention across the OECD member countries, have been summarized in a green policy brief
distributed by OECD on SMM.8
Over the past decade, individual OECD countries have documented significant improvements from SMM
policies. In Japan, which OECD considers one of the most resource-efficient economies, a set of SMM
measures has helped to increase the reuse and recycling of materials by 41 percent from 2000 to 2008.9
Japan has now decreased its material intensity (the quantity of material used to produce a unit of
goods), to 37 percent, which is below the OECD average in 2005.10
In the U.K., a 2009 investment of 23 billion GBP (British Pound) in SMM-related projects produced a
savings of 18 billion GBP in less than one year from waste reduction efforts and materials management,
with further savings of 33 billion GBP expected.11 The majority of these savings (22 billion GBP) are again
associated with waste reduction and materials management.12 These national successes often reflect
significant changes in operations at individual companies. For example, one U.K. clothing firm, which
spends about 550 million EUR managing waste in its shoe manufacturing process, has been able to
6 A starting point to explore international SMM policies can be found here:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Sustainable Materials Management - Sustainable Consumption and Production."
Available at: http://www.epa.gov/oswer/international/factsheets/200810-sustainable-consumption-and-
production.htm#OC
7 Participating countries involved in the recent 42 percent improvement in resource productivity included all OECD
countries, excluding Chile, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Israel. A
comprehensive list of OECD member countries can be found here:
http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/list-oecd-member-countries.htm
OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%20svnthesis%20-%20policv%20brief final%20GG.pdf
8 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
9 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
10 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
11 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
12 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
-------
streamline production and reduce waste by as much as 67 percent, energy use by 37 percent and
solvent use by 80 percent along its supply chain.13
OECD also calculates that SMM efforts to improve resource productivity have increased local economic
activity, particularly in waste collection and treatment, pollution management and control, production
of renewable energy, and production of secondary materials through recycling. For instance, in the E.U.,
these four areas provide nearly 3.5 million jobs in addition to the energy and materials produced, and
employment in sectors emphasizing materials management and recovery is growing at an annual rate of
more than eight percent.14 A recent study by Friends of the Earth estimates that across the E.U., 322,000
direct jobs could be created in recycling if recycling increased from 50 percent to 70 percent for key
materials.15 When considering the indirect jobs from this increase in recycling, the total potential job
creation could be about 550,000 in the E.U.16
In the U.S., a range of government, business, and community organizations have adopted and promoted
SMM strategies. EPA's federal efforts focus on policy support and capacity building; the Agency assists
stakeholders in efforts to redesign waste management to incorporate SMM. One effort focuses on
federal government operations; EPA directs the Federal Green Challenge, a national program that
challenges 402 federal agencies to lead in implementing SMM principles to reduce the federal
government's environmental impact.17 Under the Federal Green Challenge, participants select at least
two of six target areas - waste, electronics, purchasing, energy, water, or transportation - and commit
to annual performance improvements of at least five percent from baseline performance in each target
area using key metrics such as electricity, natural gas, and/or fuel oil consumed per year for the energy
target area and tons of waste generated per year for the waste target area. As part of its response to the
Federal Green Challenge, the U.S. Navy's Naval Station Great Lakes increased materials recycling by 114
percent, reflecting efforts to compost (an effort that diverted more than 300 tons of food scraps and
landscape waste from landfills), reuse construction and demolition debris, and increase the convenience
of recycling.18
In addition to the Federal Green Challenge, EPA is pursuing a range of SMM-related national programs
and challenges, as summarized in Table 1.
13 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%20svnthesis%20-%20policv%20brief final%20GG.pdf
14 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
15 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
16 OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%n20svnthesis%n20-%n20policv%n20brief final%n20GG.pdf
17 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Federal Green Challenge - Current Participants." Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/fgc/participants.html
18 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Federal Green Challenge - Waste." February 2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/fgc/waste.html
-------
Table 1. Examples of EPA's national SMM efforts
EPA Effort
Description
Focus: Food Recovery
Challenge
Organizations and businesses can join the EPA food recovery challenge and
set specific goals to prevent and reduce wasted food. By finding opportunities
to purchase less, donate extra food and compost, participants save money,
help communities, and protect the environment. More information available
here: http://www.eDa.gov/eDawaste/conserve/smm/foodrecoverv/index.htm
Focus: Electronics Challenge
EPA works with original equipment manufacturers and retailers to promote
responsible electronics recycling. Participants in the challenge commit to
increasing the collection of electronics and to sending 100 percent of
collected electronics to certified third-party recyclers. More information
available
here: htto://www.eDa.gov/eDawaste/conserve/smm/electronics/index.htm
Broad Support: Provide
Sound Science and
Information
EPA supports SMM discussions and decisions by stakeholders at all levels of
government throughout the nation by offering critical information and
methods that the public and stakeholders can use (e.g., data on waste
generation and life-cycle assessment methods) to help design and measure
the impacts of SMM efforts. More information available
here: http://www.epa.gov/smm/basic.htm
Broad Support: Facilitate
Discussion
EPA works continually to facilitate and advance the national dialogue on SMM
by regularly convening with key SMM stakeholders to discuss how best to
implement SMM practices in communities. More information available
here: htto://www.eDa.gov/smm/basic.htm
2.3 SMM Opportunities and Challenges
Despite evidence of growing global interest in SMM, sustainable materials approaches are far from
ubiquitous, in part because of the complexity of the systems and the limited authority of specific
stakeholders. In the U.S., for example, local communities often make decisions about waste
management and materials policy, and are therefore critical stakeholders in adopting SMM, but often
they have limited resources to develop and implement systems-level solutions. Opportunities to move
waste management practices toward SMM are often linked to cycles of existing waste management
contracts and infrastructure; a key challenge for EPA and others in encouraging SMM, therefore, is
ensuring that communities have access to information and tools that help them readily evaluate SMM
options when opportunities to implement them arise.
In addition to waste management policies and contracts affecting materials use (e.g., ordinances related
to plastic bags and other products), community-level decisions about infrastructure, buildings,
transportation, and land use can have important materials implications. By integrating SMM principles
into decisions beyond "waste" and into other policy areas (e.g., infrastructure, land and water use,
energy, and transportation), communities can often reduce costs, energy consumption, resource (e.g.,
water) consumption, and other impacts (e.g., traffic disruption related to movement of materials, loss of
open space) while promoting economic development. In parallel with its SMM efforts, SHCRP is
exploring opportunities for communities to improve the sustainability of three distinct areas: buildings/
infrastructure, transportation, and land use. To illustrate the relationships and impacts across these key
areas, Table 2 outlines community-level SMM decisions; specific intersections with
-------
infrastructure/buildings, transportation, and land use; and economic, social, and environmental impacts.
While this paper centers on materials policies, the success of many SMM efforts may be driven in part
by the extent to which policies intersect with other sustainability efforts.
While SMM policies, by definition, represent opportunities to improve economic efficiency and
environmental quality, implementation can be difficult, particularly when authority to make policy
decisions, resources to implement change, and access to information that can inform complex decisions
are not aligned. Challenges to SMM implementation tend to fall into four general categories:
• Financial barriers: Some SMM policies, particularly those involving infrastructure investments,
can be costly to implement, and benefits of improved materials management may be delayed,
difficult to measure, or may accrue to different sectors and populations than those who incur
implementation costs;
• Limited coordination and authority: To be effective, some SMM policy decisions (e.g., product
takeback or regional waste facility options) require coordination across multiple communities,
stakeholders, or levels of government; coordination and consensus can be difficult to achieve;
• Timing challenges: SMM policies can involve changes in long-term waste management contracts
and facilities with planning horizons that do not align with policy options. In addition, SMM
policies may require several years to realize benefits or cost savings, and may be difficult to
justify in contexts driven by revenue or "payback" objectives;
• Limited local benefits: SMM policies often accrue benefits across materials' life-cycle and large
geographic scales, but only a portion of these benefits accrue to the community or stakeholder
implementing the policy; this can reduce the attractiveness of SMM options to community
decision-makers.
A critical step in addressing these challenges is making information and tools available so that
communities can readily incorporate SMM options into their policy planning. In particular, tools that
allow communities to identify and assess tradeoffs and benefits associated with SMM strategies, and
compare these with more traditional waste management practices, can help communities pursue SMM
practices that are most beneficial and feasible within specific community characteristics and resource
constraints. A key component of SHCRP's SMM strategy is developing and providing these tools.
Table 2. Intersection of SMM and other SHCRP sectors (land use, built infrastructure, and transportation) at
the community level.
Sector
Intersecting
with Materials
Management
Intersection at
Community Level
Examples of SMM Strategies
Impacts
Transportation
SMM can affect demand for
local and long-distance
transport of finished and raw
materials and wastes
Materials and practices
related to transportation
infrastructure may be
affected
"End of pipe" (waste) options
(e.g., recycling)
Source reduction (e.g., material
bans)
Green remediation
Economic: may affect jobs for
local material processing and
transportation of wastes, may
affect wear on infrastructure
Social: may change traffic
patterns and have benefits
associated with avoided traffic
impacts
Environmental: may affect GHG,
criteria pollutant, and air toxics
emissions; water quality; and
-------
Sector
Intersecting
with Materials
Management
Intersection at
Community Level
Examples of SMM Strategies
Impacts
open space associated with
transportation and its
infrastructure
Infrastructure/
buildings
SMM can affect materials
used in buildings and
infrastructure
Can affect building operations
"End of pipe" (waste) options
(e.g., recycling)
Source reduction (e.g., material
bans, reusing recycled building
materials for new construction)
Green design
Economic: may affect cost of
construction and operations,
including energy use, property
values and taxes
Social: improved design and built
environment can affect traffic,
health, and quality of life
Environmental: may affect GHGs
and eco-system degradation,
improve land use and design,
traffic patterns, and reduce
materials and resource use and
impacts
Land use
SMM affects demand for land
use for waste management
(e.g., landfills)
Encourages less-damaging
remediation
"End of pipe" (waste) options
(e.g., recycling, energy recovery,
landfill mining)
Source reduction (e.g., material
bans)
Green remediation
Economic: may affect property
values and taxes
Social: may affect open space
opportunities, and associated
human health and quality of life
Environmental: may reduce land
and water contamination,
preserve open space; changes in
practice can also result in energy
or materials recovered from
landfills.
2.4 SMM Analytical Framework: Triple Value Impacts
To identify effective materials management options, decision-makers must be able to identify and
measure impact changes in materials use and related impacts across the economy, society, and the
environment. EPA has used the "triple value framework" as a systems-level approach for defining and
examining these complex options.19 The basis of the triple value framework is a comprehensive life-cycle
view of materials. Specifically, the framework captures the relationships and interactions between
stocks and flows of materials, energy, water, and food from extraction through disposal, and then
considers and incorporates a broad range of environmental, social, and economic endpoints that can be
affected by changes in the system.
This approach allows stakeholders to analyze and explore the system from many different perspectives,
and can in some cases, reveal hidden synergies or conflicts. In the case of materials, the triple value
framework considers not only the effects of disposal, but impacts associated with changes in other life-
19 J. Fiksel, R, Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach to
Sustainable Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014], pp. 691-702.
-------
cycle stages, including impacts on the environment (e.g., contribution to global climate change),
economy (e.g., jobs created or eliminated), and society (e.g., changes in land use and traffic associated
with different materials practices). The framework can be adapted and expanded to explore diverse
policy options, and can support an assessment of policies that may address multiple goals of SMM
and/or desired sustainability-related results, or may create tradeoffs across the system. Figure 1
provides a high-level, conceptual view of the triple value framework as it relates to material supplies
(stocks), demand for, and use of (flows) across the economy, and notes significant (but not
comprehensive) economic, social, and environmental effects of material use.
Figure l.The economic, social, and environmental impacts of materials use in the triple value
framework.
Economy
(Financial St Built Capital)
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
M i|
^ Uses land & ^
material
Creates resource
scarcity arid rising
raw materia! costs
resources for
industrial
facilities and
feedstocks
*
Allows for produ cts &
packagingtobe
distributed to customers
Society
(Human & Social Capital)
Energy Use, Service
Use. Product Use
Creates rising hearth care
and remediation costs
Degrades
ecosystem
Contaminates land
and water and emits
pollution from solid
waste disposal
services i t services
<7^7
I Environment
(Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
Uses land &
material
resources for
buildings,
recreation, and
other
amenities
1
Product demand that drives the extraction and use of materials is reflected in purple (category 1) arrows. Materials
discarded during extraction, manufacture, use, and at the end of product life are captured by gray arrows (category
2); these arrows reflect processes and flows where discarded materials (e.g., waste and emissions) may have a direct
impact (either positive or negative) on the environment. Orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that
result from materials management, such as human health-related costs. Because these flows and processes intersect,
SMM strategies may affect all three categories of impacts to varying degrees. While the impacts of SMM strategies
are indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows across diagrams, the effects on flows are not to scale; changes in
stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted from: J. Fiksel, R, Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The
Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach to Sustainable Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy:
Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-702.)
-------
Depicted graphically, the goal of SMM is simply to change the flows (arrows) in the systems, either by
reducing the volumes and flows of materials ("making the arrows more slender") or by eliminating or
establishing new relationships (removing and adding new arrows).
The triple value framework provides a platform for describing and measuring the impacts and
interactions of policies and activities that comprise SMM strategies. The remainder of this paper will use
this model as a starting point for considering SMM impacts.
-------
Section 3: Material Flows and Common SMM Practices in the U.S.
SMM is emerging globally as a component of sustainability-related policies at both national and local
levels. SHCRP's priority is to improve the accessibility of SMM options and tools for communities in
the U.S., and to enable local governments and stakeholders to adopt more sustainable policies and
practices that promote environmental, economic, and social benefits.
The SMM practices and options likely to be most appropriate for communities are driven, in part, by
the context of current U.S. materials management practices and the suite of emerging technologies.
To characterize the scope of materials use and the potential impacts of SMM, this section briefly
summarizes waste generation practices and patterns in the U.S. The section then describes several
specific practices that represent common components of SMM strategies available to communities,
and illustrates the types of impacts that these practices have on the dynamics and flows in the triple
value framework.
3.1 U.S. Context: Material Flows
At its most basic, the triple value framework is a model of stocks and flows, illustrating how flows of
materials and other "goods" and their associated impacts affect the "stocks" of the environment
and the services it provides (natural capital), the economy and its capital, and society and its social
capital (humans and social structures). SMM and other efforts to encourage sustainability aim to
reduce damaging flows and impacts across the three types of capital, while maintaining needed
services and goods.
The cumulative impacts of flows on the "stocks" of environmental, economic, and social capital are
often measured as "footprints." To identify the most effective materials management approaches in
a community, an initial step is often understanding the "material footprint" of that community.
Similar to a carbon footprint, a material footprint is an estimate of the total material generated in a
system, and typically is based on a material flow analysis that captures impacts across the life-cycle,
including extraction, manufacture, use, and disposal. National data on material flows in the U.S.
provide an illustration of the elements and data that could be used to form a material footprint for a
community, and also demonstrate the potential magnitude of impacts that could be addressed by
broader adoption of SMM policies in the U.S.
This section provides an overview of the national materials flow based on high-level data that are
readily available. Identifying high-quality local and even national-level data on specific material flows
and interactions, however, remains a key challenge for communities, and forms a critical step in
developing SMM strategies. This section briefly notes available data; Section 4 discusses available
data and data sources in more detail.
3.1.1 U.S. Material Plows - Extraction
All material resources are first extracted from the natural environment. Extraction often has
significant impacts on the environment, and reduced extraction of raw materials is an integral part
of SMM, aligning with the principle of preserving natural capital.
While many products and services used in the U.S. rely at least in part on non-U.S. materials
extraction (and some U.S. raw materials are exported), domestic U.S. extraction illustrates the order
of magnitude of extraction impacts. From 2006 to 2010, the U.S. extracted around 78.8 billion tons
12
-------
of biomass (from the feed, food, and forestry industries), fossil fuel, industrial and construction
minerals, and ores.20 Of this, 53 percent of all materials went unused, and qualified as generated
waste.21 Some of these materials can become part of community waste streams, particularly in
communities with facilities that are involved in extraction, or in handling, processing, or managing
extracted materials. In addition, land use in and near affected communities, and the wastes that
remain on site at extraction sites, can become materials-related policy challenges. Figure 2
summarizes total U.S. materials extraction and unused extraction-related materials (e.g., waste), by
categories of biomass, fossil fuels, industrial and construction minerals, and ores.22
Figure 2. Total extraction and unused extraction of biomass, fossil fuels, industrial and construction
minerals, and ores in the U.S.23
¦
¦ lllllllll
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
I Extracted Biomass
I Unused Biomass
| Extracted Fossil Fuel
I Unused Fossil Fuel
¦ Extracted Industrial &
Construction Minerals
Unused Industrial &
Construction Minerals
| Extracted Ores
¦ Unused Ores
3.1.2 U.S. Material Flows - Post-Extraction
After extraction, raw materials (both those extracted in the U.S. and imported raw materials) are
processed and/or manufactured into products. From 2006 to 2010, the U.S. consumed roughly 40
billion tons of biomass, fossil fuel, industrial and construction minerals, and ores.24 A portion of
20 Materialflows.net. "Global Material Flow Database." March 2014. Available at:
http://www.materialflows.net/data/datadownload/
21 Calculated from data found on: Materialflows.net. "Global Material Flow Database." March 2014. Available at:
http://www.materialflows.net/data/datadownload/
22 For information on specific material categories considered in biomass, fossil fuel, ore, and industrial and
construction extraction, see:
http://www.materialflows.net/fileadmin/docs/materialflows.net/SERI WU MFA technical report final 20140317.p
df
23 Materialflows.net. "Global Material Flow Database." March 2014. Available at:
http://www.materialflows.net/data/datadownload/
24 Post-extraction is the total amount of materials used in the economy (used domestic extraction plus imports],
minus the materials that are exported.
13
-------
these materials become waste during production, and represent a source of discarded materials
that must be managed. Aggregated estimates of total materials discarded during production can be
periodically available for some sectors but quantities and types of waste vary significantly by sector
and facility; community-level impacts are likely to be specific.
3.1.3 U.S. Material Flows - Post-Consumption
After post-extraction materials (i.e., products) are used by communities, residual post-consumption
materials (often categorized as waste) are generated. Post-consumer materials can include
materials that are designed to be discarded, such as packaging, as well as residuals from products
that are consumed (e.g., food remnants) and products that have reached the end of their uses (e.g.,
electronics). At the national level, data on U.S. post-consumption materials is aggregated to reflect
sources of the material, such as:
• municipal solid waste (including household and commercial waste),
• construction and demolition waste, and
• biosolids.
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is typically managed at a community-level. MSW, generally known as
trash, consists of everyday items such as product packaging, grass clippings, furniture, clothing,
bottles, food scraps, newspapers, appliances, paint, and batteries from residences, schools,
hospitals, and businesses.25 Generation of MSW is diffuse and collection and management of these
materials often involves significant resources.
In recent decades, U.S. generation of MSW has increased steadily with population. From 2000 to
2012, EPA's report estimates that total MSW generation increased by eight percent, from 231.9
million tons to 251 million tons, an increase driven in part by population growth and in part by
changes in purchasing patterns and changes in materials such as packaging.26,27 According to EPA,
the increased rate of materials consumption reflected in the rate of MSW generation "has led to
serious environmental effects such as habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, overly stressed fisheries,
and desertification."28 Since 2005, however, MSW generation has plateaued at around 250 million
Materialflows.net. "Global Material Flow Database." March 2014. Available at:
http://www.materialflows.net/data/datadownload/
25 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United
States: Facts and Figures for 2012 and 2000." February 2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012 msw fs.pdf
Sewage is not included in MSW.
26 Specific materials included in MSW can be found in table 8 of this document: U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2012
and 2000." February 2014. Available at: http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012 msw fs.pdf
27 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United
States: Facts and Figures for 2012 and 2000." February 2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012 msw fs.pdf
28 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Materials Management: State of the
Practice 2012." September 2012.
14
-------
tons, which EPA notes coincides with an increase in recycling.29 Figure 3 outlines MSW generated
since I960.30
EPA's annual waste characterization report31 provides model-driven estimates of the national
quantities of specific material in MSW, along with the percentages recycling, landfilled, and sent to
energy recovery. Because most solid waste is managed at the community level, more specific detail
on the content and recovery of specific materials is sometimes available for specific locations, but
specific data collected depends on the structure of contracts for hauling, recycling, and disposing of
wastes.
MSW is typically managed by a combination of landfilling, recycling, and other materials recovery
(composting and energy recovery). A number of specific materials in MSW are recovered for
recycling due to established secondary materials markets. Figure 3 provides summary information
about MSW generation and recovery from EPA's 2012 waste characterization report.32
Figure 3. Total U.S. MSW generation and per capita generation from 1960 to 2012
ra
*_
a>
ro
4-»
o
o
4-»
£
o
£
300
250
200
150
100
50
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2012
Year
Total MSW Generation Per Capita Generation
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
>
¦c
-------
Table 3. Total 2012 U.S. MSW generated, recycled, and discarded by material
Materials
Materials
Discarded in
Generated as MSW
Materials Recycled
Landfills
Material
(millions of tons)
(millions of tons)
(millions of tons)
Paper and paperboard
68.62
44.36
24.26
Glass
11.57
3.20
8.37
Metals
Steel
16.80
5.55
11.25
Aluminum
3.58
0.71
2.87
Other nonferrous metals
2.00
1.36
0.64
Total metals
22.38
7.62
14.76
Plastics
31.75
2.80
28.95
Rubber and leather
7.53
1.35
6.18
Textiles
14.33
2.25
12.08
Wood
15.82
2.41
13.41
Other materials
4.60
1.30
3.30
Total materials in products
176.60
65.29
111.31
Other wastes
Food, other
36.43
1.74
34.69
Yard trimmings
33.96
19.59
14.37
Miscellaneous inorganic wastes
3.90
N/A
3.90
Total other wastes
74.29
21.33
52.96
Total municipal solid waste
250.89
86.62
164.27
Construction and demolition (C&D) waste is another set of materials that are typically managed at
a community-level. C&D consists of unused materials and debris generated during the construction,
renovation, and demolition of buildings, roads and bridges. C&D waste material flows represent a
significant policy challenge for many communities because of their volume, and also because they
are generated in unpredictable quantities that fluctuate over time with activities that relate to
infrastructure and housing and periodically, destruction from natural disasters. Because C&D
involves, by definition, built infrastructure, SMM policies that address C&D waste would ideally be
linked to sustainability initiatives involving transportation, buildings, and in some cases, land use.
C&D materials consist primarily of concrete, wood (from buildings), asphalt (from roads and roofing
shingles), gypsum (the main component of drywall), metals, bricks, glass, plastics, salvaged building
components (doors, windows, and plumbing fixtures), and trees, stumps, earth, and rock from
clearing sites. Though some C&D materials, such as road-related concrete and asphalt, are readily
recycled, other materials are difficult to recover due to contamination and variability in generation
and supply. EPA does not assemble national data on C&D waste, and data from other sources is
16
-------
limited and sporadic. Therefore, data that reflect how C&D waste is changing over time is not
available. One recent estimate suggests, however, that approximately 149 million tons of C&D waste
was landfilled in C&D landfills, landfills that exclusively handle C&D waste, in 2011.33 Figure 4 breaks
down the composition of C&D materials landfilled:34
Figure 4. Composition of C&D materials landfilled (after recycling)
Biosolids, the nutrient-rich organic materials that result from the treatment of sewage sludge,
represent a third set of materials that are generally managed at the community-level. Biosolids
management options for local governments include processing and using (or selling) biosolids as a
fertilizer, incineration, or landfilling. EPA estimates that approximately 7.18 million dry tons of
biosolids were produced in the U.S. in 2004.35 While this material flow is not as large as other post-
consumer materials, treatment of water, sewage, and the solids associated with both represents a
significant focus - and cost - for communities.
3.2 Impacts of U.S. Materials Use
Historically, due to the relative abundance of land and the higher cost of other options, most
residual materials in the U.S., including extraction, post-extraction, and post-consumption waste,
have been landfilled.36 Until the 1980s, most landfills were managed by local communities across
the U.S. More recently, as technical requirements for landfill liners and other regulations have been
implemented, land disposal of materials has been consolidated into larger regional and commercial
facilities. According to EPA estimates, more than 1,100 MSW landfills currently operate across the
33 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
34 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
35 King County. "Appendix B - Biosolids Use in the US and World." Biosolids Recycling. January 21,2015. Available at:
http://www.kingcountv.gov/environment/wastewater/Biosolids/DocumentsLinks.aspx
36 Other methods of waste disposal do exist, such as ocean disposal and oversees shipping of waste. However, given
this paper's focus on materials management of communities based in the U.S., this document will only go into detail
on landfilling.
0rr-
Other
Materials
15%
Wood
20%
Metal
3%
Roofing
18%
Concrete
13%
Asphalt
5% Other
Gypsum
Aggregates
9%
17
-------
U.S., managing 4.5 billion tons of materials per year.37 This contrasts with 2,283 landfills managing
6.9 billion tons in 1990.
Stricter regulation of landfills began after the 1970s, when the ecological and human health impacts
of unregulated landfills emerged in communities across the country such as Love Canal, New York;
these contamination incidents spurred the development of the Superfund law (CERCLA) to
remediate sites and RCRA, which requires engineering and operational standards for open MSW
landfills, including liners and leachate collection systems and capping requirements that reduce risks
at newer facilities as older facilities close. More recently, systems for capturing methane gas, a
potent greenhouse gas, from material decomposition have gained popularity, both as a strategy for
recovering energy and as a method for addressing greenhouse gas emissions.
Even safely-operated landfills can have negative effects on communities due to impacts of traffic,
odors and noise, and they may be viewed as an unattractive and perhaps uneconomical use of land
when compared to other land use options. Finally, landfills can represent an inefficient use of
resources, both in terms of land use and because some materials disposed in landfills have market
value that could be recovered, and could offset additional virgin materials extraction and use.
Even as SMM practices and recycling demand increase, the demand for landfilling and its associated
impacts are likely to grow as population increases, in part because existing infrastructure and land
availability continues to make landfilling the least expensive waste management option in many
places. Globally, increases in both population and standard of living will also likely increase demand
for landfills. EPA projects "that between 2000 and 2050, the world population will grow 50 percent,
global economic activity will grow 500 percent and global energy and materials use will grow 300
percent."38 The U.S. represents around one-third of the world's current total material consumption,
domestic population and economic growth will present U.S. communities with increasing materials
use and management challenges.
In addition to disposal of post-consumer materials, some communities face detrimental impacts
from resource extraction for materials use. While some of these impacts are directly associated with
materials management (e.g., tailings piles), resource extraction can also affect water, energy, and
food security, both in the local communities where it takes place and more broadly. Materials
extraction and processing increase demand for, and scarcity of, water, energy, and land resources,
and can come into direct conflict with other land use priorities such as agriculture. In the U.S., a
majority (83 percent) of materials extraction is focused on finite mineral resources, including ores,
fossil fuels, and industrial minerals.39
While agriculture is not comparable to extraction of minerals in that the crops grown are, at least to
some extent "renewable," the impacts of agricultural practices can be complicated. One example of
the complexity of the resource extraction system is biofuels production, which demands extensive
water and land, and even energy, to ensure the production of feedstocks for energy.
37 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Landfill Methane Outreach Program - National and State Lists of Landfills
and Energy Projects." March 2015. Available here: http: //www.epa.gov/lmop/proiects-candidates/index.html
38 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Sustainable Materials Management: The Road Ahead." June 2009. Available
at: http://www.epa.gov/smm/pdf/vision2.pdf
39 Calculated from data obtained from:
Materialflows.net. "Global Material Flow Database." March 2014. Available at:
http://www.materialflows.net/data/datadownload/
18
-------
Overall, the economic and social impacts of managing waste can be significant for communities.
According to U.S. Census data on municipal budgets, American communities on average spend more
money on MSW management than on fire protection, parks and recreation, libraries or
schoolbooks.40 For instance, in 2011, New York City spent $2.2 billion on sanitation of which more
than $300 million was spent on transporting its citizens' trash by train and truck to out-of-state
landfills.41 SMM focuses on the extent that some of these materials can be diverted or eliminated
from waste management systems, and save money while conserving resources.
Production and disposal of materials can also have negative social impacts on communities,
particularly those near production and disposal sites. According to the 2010 U.S. census, 249 million
people (roughly 81 percent of the U.S. population), live in urban communities.42 The concentration
of people in urban centers presents specific challenges related to volumes of waste, and relative
scarcity of land and options for management. Census data reveals that populations likely to live
close to facilities that generate or manage waste are comprised of more minority, low income, and
linguistically-isolated citizens, who are also less likely to have high school educations relative to the
U.S. population as a whole. As a result of this proximity, low-income residents in urban communities
may be subject to disproportionate exposures of hazardous substances at facilities that handle
concentrated volumes of urban and production wastes.
In both the urban and broader U.S. context, community-based SMM approaches are designed to
help identify opportunities to reduce or improve material management at all stages of the system,
from extraction to consumption to disposal, by helping communities assess the broader
environmental, economic, and social impacts that result from different processes.
3.3 Role of SMM Practices in Addressing Impacts of Materials Use
SMM aims to change the materials-related practices of the U.S. in a manner that reduces material
extraction and consumption.
SMM Principles
SMM strategies operate through changes in design, use, disposal, and recovery, according to the four
principles developed by OECD's workgroup on SMM and outlined in Section 2 (repeated here):
• Preserve natural capital;
• Design and manage materials, products and processes for safety and sustainability from a life-
cycle perspective;
• Use the full diversity of policy instruments to stimulate and reinforce sustainable economic,
environmental, and social outcomes; and
• Engage all parts of society to take active, ethically-based responsibility for achieving sustainable
outcomes.
40 Humes, Edward. "Grappling with a Garbage Glut." Wall Street Journal. April 18,2012. Available at:
http://www.wsi.eom/articles/SB10001424052702304444604577337702024537204
41 Humes, Edward. "Grappling with a Garbage Glut." Wall Street Journal. April 18,2012. Available at:
http://www.wsi.eom/articles/SB10001424052702304444604577337702024537204
42 U.S. Census Bureau. "Frequently Asked Questions - How many people reside in urban or rural areas for the 2010
Census? What percentage of the U.S. population is urban or rural?" Available at:
https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqld=5971
19
-------
Existing SMM strategies are designed to consider a number of different system dynamics, but they
typically employ one or a combination of several well-known practices that address different aspects
of materials extraction, use, and disposal. SMM literature has identified seven practices that are
either commonly used or emerging in the U.S. The remainder of this section focuses on the seven
most commonly-discussed practices; these represent the suite of practices that collectively address
all aspects of the materials system and also generally reflect well-documented technology and
market options for communities:43
• Materials Recovery and Recycling
• Energy Recovery
• Landfill Mining
• Product Take-Back
• Source Reduction
• Green Design
• Green Remediation
While they are often described interchangeably with SMM, these practices are not themselves
synonymous with SMM. Outside of the SMM context, the practices may have significant benefits by
one measure, but can also be designed in a way that is less beneficial by another measure. For
example, a recycling program that targets a single material and uses an energy- and emission-
intensive process that has negative impacts on the surrounding community is not consistent with an
SMM strategy. SMM aims to avoid this type of tradeoff through system approaches that increase
the net benefits while reducing the net negative impacts.
When applied in a context consistent with OECD's SMM principles and supporting SMM-related
goals (e.g., decreasing resource intensity of products and services, or encouraging local sourcing of
materials), these practices can help reduce material flows and mitigate negative impacts that
current materials practices impose upon the economy, society, and environment.44 The following
section briefly describes each of these practices, and illustrates how it can contribute to
improvements in the social, economic, and environmental systems captured in the triple value
framework relative to the traditional waste management practice of landfilling.
3.3.1 Materials Recovery and Recycling
Post-consumer materials recovery and use as inputs into new processes and products (also known
as recycling, which in this document also includes the composting of organic materials), is the most
established and widespread of the common SMM practices. It is already an effective waste diversion
option in the U.S.; in 2011, EPA reported more than 9,000 active U.S. curbside recycling programs.45
Recycling programs involve collecting, sorting, and processing materials that would otherwise be
43 These practices were identified as practices commonly cited in EPA and literature sources on SMM, including:
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Materials Management: State of the
Practice 2012." September 2012, and
- Fiksel, J. "A Framework for Sustainable Materials Management." Journal of the Minerals Metals & Materials Society.
58 (8]: 15-22. Available at: http: //www.eco-nomics.com/images/Framework for SMM.pdf. These are not intended
to be a comprehensive list of practices.
44 Fiksel, J. "A Framework for Sustainable Materials Management." Journal of the Minerals Metals & Materials Society.
58 (8]: 15-22. Available at: http: //www.eco-nomics.com/images/Framework for SMM.pdf.
45 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Materials Management: State of the
Practice 2012." September 2012
20
-------
landfilled. The recovered materials then enter secondary materials markets and become inputs to
new products.
Recycling programs can differ widely across communities, both in the materials collected and in
collection and sorting processes. Some communities have limited drop-off options for specific
materials; others have single-stream curbside or broader wet-dry collection systems where
residents must separate MSW into wet (e.g., organics such as food and yard waste, food wrappers,
used tissues, and paper towels) and dry (e.g., recyclables such as bottles, cans and cardboard)
categories. Indirectly related to recycling, more than 7,000 communities in the U.S., implement Pay-
As-You-Throw (PAYT) programs that charge households by weight for non-recyclable MSW; because
most programs charge less, or nothing, for recycling, this provides an economic incentive to
recycle.46 As of 2012, 34.5 percent of U.S. MSW (roughly 87 million tons) is recycled annually.47
Though not tracked as well as MSW, recycling of C&D materials is also significant, particularly for
road-related debris, where reuse of asphalt and concrete in re-laying roads is the most cost-effective
approach to construction. Recent estimates suggest that of the approximate 149 million tons of C&D
waste generated in 2011, 52 million tons were recycled.48 Figure 5 breaks down the composition of
C&D materials recycled:49
Figure 5. Composition of C&D materials recycled
46 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Materials Management: State of the
Practice 2012." September 2012
47 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United
States: Facts and Figures for 2012." February 2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012 msw fs.pdf
48 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
49 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
Wood
13%
Gypsum
Shingles/
.Roofing
1%
Portland
Cement
Concrete
56%
Metal
1%
Other
5%
_ Asphalt
Pavement
6%
21
-------
Biosolids, once recovered, are also "recycled" through application to soils to provide nutrients;
recent estimates suggest that of the 7.18 million dry tons of biosolids produced in the U.S., 55
percent of biosolids were recycled and applied to soils for beneficial use.50
If properly recovered, biosolids can be low in pollutants and rich in nutrients and organic matter,
and can provide nutrients and conditioning to soils to improve fertility, reduce the need for
inorganic fertilizers, promote crop growth, and decrease demand for inorganic fertilizers.51
3.3.2 Materials Recovery and Recycling in the Triple Value Framework
Recycling is a well-established practice and recycling technologies continue to evolve to better
economically recover existing and new materials, such as nonmetallic components of circuit boards
(roughly three percent of all electronic waste).52 Tailored blending technologies for mixed materials
that are difficult to separate or have limited secondary markets can also produce durable products
such as fences, sewer grates, and park benches.53
As the technology evolves, recycling systems and networks are also expanding and increasingly
incorporating practices from industrial ecology, which seeks to link organizations in a particular
network through material flows, wherein by-product materials of one entity can be used as inputs
for another.
Even as a singular practice, recycling can have substantial economic, social, and environmental
benefits, both at the community level and globally. Most significantly, recovered materials reduce
demand for virgin materials, avoiding the energy, water, land use, solid waste, and emissions
associated with extraction. Other benefits of recycling include broader societal impacts, including
reduced risk of resource scarcity, reduced raw material costs, positive health impacts, and
decreased remediation costs. Recycling can achieve these benefits while improving local economic
conditions by creating local jobs in recovery (extraction) of secondary materials.
Figure 6 illustrates recycling's impacts within the triple value framework, including its effects on the
flow of materials across the economy, environment, and society and its broader benefits. The
system impacts of recycling are reflected conceptually in the changing size of certain flows (width of
arrows in the diagram). Direct benefits can include decreases in end-of-life impacts, and a
corresponding "new" source of materials (the green recycling arrow denoting recovered secondary
materials) that offsets the demand for, and impacts related to, virgin raw materials. Demand for
products and the material intensity of those products, however, is not affected.
50 The recovery of biosolids for land use, land disposal, or incineration must comply with numerical limits for metals,
pathogen reduction standards, site restriction, crop harvesting restrictions and monitoring, and other requirements.
King County. "Appendix B - Biosolids Use in the US and World." Biosolids Recycling. January 21,2015. Available at:
http://www.kingcountv.gov/environment/wastewater/Biosolids/DocumentsLinks.aspx
51 King County. "Appendix B - Biosolids Use in the US and World." Biosolids Recycling. January 21,2015. Available at:
http://www.kingcountv.gov/environment/wastewater/Biosolids/DocumentsLinks.aspx
52 Earth 911. "Back to the Future with New Recycling Technologies." Available at: http: / /www.earth911.com/eco-
tech/trash-heading-back-to-the-future-with-new-recvcling-technologies/
53 Earth 911. "Back to the Future with New Recycling Technologies." Available at: http: / /www.earth911.com/eco-
tech/trash-heading-back-to-the-future-with-new-recvcling-technologies/
22
-------
3.3.3 Energy Recovery
Some materials with a high organic content represent an economically efficient source of energy,
either through combustion or through recovery of gas associated with decomposition. In 2012, EPA
estimates that approximately 12 percent of national MSW, (or 29.3 million tons) was converted into
energy.54 Landfill gas can be converted into electricity, used directly as a fuel for local industries or
specialized applications, or processed into pipeline-quality natural gas for distribution.
Approximately 600 landfills in the U.S. use landfill gas capture and energy conversion, utilizing
methane and carbon dioxide released from decomposing organic matter in landfills as stocks for
usable fuels.55
A related technology, anaerobic digestion, uses enclosed systems and microorganisms to break
down biodegradable material and create biogas. Most commercial anaerobic digestion systems in
the U.S. are designed to accept manures and sludge with high organic content. Around 3,500
wastewater treatment plants (24 percent of wastewater treatment plants in the U.S.) and 190
commercial livestock farms currently have anaerobic digestion systems to supply power to their
operations.56,57
A third established technology for recovering the energy value of materials is combustion of MSW to
drive steam turbines. While this technology is more prevalent in Europe, over 60 communities in the
U.S. have commercial-scale waste-to-energy plants.58 Newer combustion technologies such as
plasma gasification are also under development in other countries and under consideration in the
U.S.59
54 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United
States: Facts and Figures for 2012." February 2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012 msw fs.pdf
55 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
56 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
57 University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems. "U.S. Wastewater Treatment Factsheet." 2014. Available
here: http://css.snre.umich.edu/css doc/CSS04-14.pdf
58 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
59 Wolman, D. "High-Powered Plasma Turns Garbage into Gas." January 20,2012. Available here:
http://www.wired.eom/2012/01/ff trashblaster/
23
-------
24
-------
Figure 6.The economic, social, and environmental impacts of materials recovery and recycling in
the triple value framework
Economy
(Financials Built Capital)
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
Allows for products &. packaging
to be distributed to customers
Society
(Human & Social Capital)
Reduces
solid waste disposal
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for industrial
facilities and
feedstocks
Reduces resource
scarcity and raw
material costs
Diverts
materials from
waste stream
for use as
feedstocks
XI
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
Reduces
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pol 1 ution em i ssions
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings,
recreation, and
other amenities
Environment
I (Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
Under recovery and recycling, materials are diverted from the waste stream to be used as feedstocks; this is
represented by the green (category 4) arrow. Product demand stays constant while extraction of land and
material resources decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple (category 1) arrows. Materials discarded
during extraction, manufacture, use, and at the end of product life decrease and the impacts of land and water
contamination and pollution emissions are reduced. This is captured by light and dark gray arrows (category 2).
The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that result from recovery and recycling,
such as reduced resource scarcity, raw material costs, and human health-related costs. Stocks affected are in
blue. While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows across diagrams,
the effects on flows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted from: J. Fiksel, R,
Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach to Sustainable
Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-702.)
3.3.4 Energy Recovery in the Triple Value Framework
Energy recovery provides benefits that differ in some ways from recycling, but can overlap in others.
Specifically, energy recovery through combustion of materials or methane capture reduces demand
for other energy sources, particularly fossil fuel extraction and use, and reduces the associated
ecosystem service degradation, energy use, GHG and pollutant emissions that are associated with
fossil fuels. In addition, facilities that recover energy through combustion typically recover and
recycle metals and other non-combustible materials to ensure efficient fuel blending.
One indication of the extent of potential material energy value is this fact: if the entire food scraps
stream generated in the U.S. (34.75 million tons per year) were anaerobically digested,
approximately 10 billion kWh of electricity (approximately 0.7 percent of U.S. residential electricity
25
-------
demand in the U.S.) could be generated from the resulting biogas.60 While this source does not have
the generating potential of large-scale renewables such as solar, at a local level, the energy recovery
potential, combined with the benefits of improved waste management, can be attractive.
Specifically, energy recovery decreases solid waste disposal requirements, particularly for organic
materials that are responsible for virtually all greenhouse gas emissions associated with MSW and
are often sources of odor and land and water contamination. Energy recovery through combustion
typically reduces waste volume by 90 percent, reducing demand for landfill space.61 Similar to
recycling, indirect impacts of energy recovery include reduced threat of resource scarcity (e.g., fossil
fuel use), avoided health and remediation costs, and increased jobs or local employment associated
with energy production and distribution.
Figure 7 illustrates potential energy recovery impacts on material flows and on the economy,
environment and society. A key positive impact in energy recovery is the production of energy from
secondary materials. Similar to Figure 6 (recycling), energy recovery also reduces disposal of
materials in landfills, and offsets some virgin material demand, particularly for fossil fuels. Figure 7
does not assume recovery of other materials (though as noted, combustion processes are often
paired with recovery of metals and other non-combustible materials).
One strategic consideration for communities in adopting SMM strategies is the extent to which
energy recovery options represent complementary or competing policies when considering recovery
and recycling. While some materials are relevant only in one context (metals, which are not subject
to energy recovery, and manures, which are difficult to "recycle" without digestion), organic
materials such as plastic and paper have value both as fuel and as secondary materials. As
communities investigate SMM options, the tradeoffs across these systems are important to
consider.
60 This fact assumes 3,200 standard ft3 methane generation potential per ton and 35% efficiency of internal
combustion engines.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental Assessment
of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
61 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
26
-------
Figure 7.The economic, social, and environmental of impacts of energy recovery in the triple
value framework
Economy
(Financial& Built Capital)
Society
(Human & Social Capital)
Allows for products & packaging
to be distributed to customers
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
Environment
(Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
solid waste disposal
Reduces
Reduces resource
scarcity and fossil
fuel costs
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
materiais from
waste stream
for use as
energy source
Diverts
contamination of
land and water and
po11 ution em issions
Reduce!
contamination of
land and water and
pol iution em issions
Reduces
land fit virgin
material
resources used
for buildings,
recreation, and
other amenities
Decreases
land &virgin
material
resources used
for industrial
facilities and
energyfeedstocks
Decreases
Under energy recovery, materials are diverted from the waste stream to be used as an energy source; this is
represented by the green (category 4) arrow. Product demand stays constant while extraction of land and
material resources for energy feedstocks decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple (category 1) arrows.
Materials discarded during extraction, manufacture, use, and at the end of product life decrease and the impacts
of land and water contamination and pollution emissions are reduced. This is captured by light and dark gray
arrows (category 2). The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that result from
energy recovery, such as reduced resource scarcity, fossil fuel costs, and human health-related costs. Stocks
affected are in blue. While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows
across diagrams, the effects on flows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted
from: J. Fiksel, R, Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach
to Sustainable Solutions," Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-
702.)
3.3.5 Landfill Mining
Landfill mining refers to a suite of existing and emerging technologies that aim to recover materials
from MSW and C&D landfills. The strategy involves excavation and processing stabilized landfill
material to recover materials with value, such as metals (ferrous metals can be recovered with
magnets), stabilized organics, and other recyclables such as plastics. An estimated 32 landfill mining
27
-------
projects have been executed in the U.S. but the technology has not reached broad economic
viability.62
3.3.6 Landfill Mining in the Triple Value Framework
Similar to recycling (and, if materials are recovered for energy value, energy recovery), landfill
mining represents a method of materials recovery that could offset demand for virgin materials and
resources. Figure 8 illustrates potential economic, societal, and environmental impacts of landfill
mining on material flows. Although the impacts are similar to impacts of recycling, landfill mining
occurs after disposal in landfills and does not affect initial solid waste disposal; land and water risks
associated with landfills are not directly reduced. However, landfill mining could in some cases be
part of remediation of landfill sites, and would in that context directly contribute to improvements
in land use and ecosystem quality.
Figure 8.The economic, social, and environmental impacts of landfill mining in the triple value
framework
Economy
(Financials; Built Capital)
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
Allows for products & packaging
to be distributed to customers
Society
(Human & Social Capital)
Contaminates land and water
and emits pollutionfrom
solidwastedi sposa 1
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for industrial
facilities and
feedstocks
Reduces. resou r ce
scarcity and raw
material costs
Recovers
materials from
landfills
for use as
feedstocks
vy
©
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
Reduces
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings,
recreation, and
other amenities
IEnvironment
* (Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
With landfill mining, materials are recovered from landfills to be used as feedstocks; this is represented by the
green (category 4) arrow. Product demand stays constant while extraction of land and material resources
decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple (category 1) arrows. Materials discarded during extraction,
manufacture, use, and at the end of product life stay constant as do land and water contamination and pollution
emissions associated with solid waste disposal, however, the impacts of land and water contamination and
pollution emissions from land and material extraction for feedstocks are reduced. This is captured by light and
dark gray arrows (category 2). The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that result
from landfill mining, such as reduced resource scarcity, raw material costs, and human health-related costs.
62 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia Environmental
Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities." September 2014.
28
-------
Stocks affected are in blue. While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows
across diagrams, the effects on flows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted
from: J. Fiksel, R, Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach
to Sustainable Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-
702.)
As with recycling, indirect impacts of landfill mining include reduced threat of resource scarcity (e.g.,
fossil fuel and minerals), and increased local employment associated with mining. Figure 8 illustrates
impacts that SMM policies involving landfill mining can have on material flows. Along with the
benefits of recovering materials and avoiding virgin extraction and production, landfill mining may
represent a new source of revenue and employment in communities during the implementation of
landfill mining projects.
3.3.7Product Take-Back
As part of an SMM strategy, product take-back can help ensure recovery and economical reuse of
high-value materials by diverting them from the disposal system. Many take-back programs require
coordination among policy-makers, point-of-sale merchants, and product manufacturers.
Manufacturers, in particular, have a critical role in the success of these programs, both by accepting
returned products, and, longer term, by developing products that minimize environmental impacts
and facilitate return and remanufacture.
In the U.S., voluntary take-back programs have been implemented by some electronics companies
for certain products such as computers and cell phones; in developing these programs companies
have supported efforts to recover materials from these products for feedstock in new electronic
products.63 In 2012, electronic take-back networks handled 29.2 percent of the 3.4 million tons of
electronic waste generated.64 EPA reports that in 2010, 2,240 tons of cell phones were sent back to
manufacturers, resulting in recovery of $33.6 million in precious metals that year.65 The recovery of
such materials has reduced the demand for virgin materials, saving enough energy to provide
electricity to 2,486 U.S. households per year.66
3.3.8 Product Take-Back in the Triple Value Framework
Comprehensive product take-back programs implemented by the manufacturers and retailers have
the direct effect of reducing the MSW material flows that communities must manage. The most
important positive impact in product take-back is the direct recovery of materials by producers to be
reused in the manufacture of new products. Materials recovered from these efforts offset demand
for virgin materials and avoid impacts associated with material extraction and production. Indirect
63 Electronics Take Back Coalition. "Facts and Figures on E-waste and Recycling." June 25,2014. Available at:
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/wp-content/uploads/Facts and Figures on EWaste and Recvcling.pdf
According to the Electronics Take Back Coalition, "experts estimate that recycling 1 million cell phones can recover
about 24 kg (50 lb.] of gold, 250 kg (550 lb.] of silver, 9 kg (20 lb.] of palladium, and more than 9,000 kg (20,000 lb.]
of copper."
64 Electronics Take Back Coalition. "Facts and Figures on E-waste and Recycling." June 25,2014. Available at:
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/wp-content/uploads/Facts and Figures on EWaste and Recvcling.pdf
65 Electronics Take Back Coalition. "Facts and Figures on E-waste and Recycling." June 25,2014. Available at:
http://www.electronicstakeback.com/wp-content/uploads/Facts and Figures on EWaste and Recvcling.pdf
66 West, Larry. "Why Recycle Cell Phones?" About News. Available at:
http://environment.about.eom/od/mobilephones/a/whv recycle cell phones.htm
29
-------
impacts of product take-back programs include reduced risk of resource scarcity and high raw
material costs, reduced negative health effects, increased local employment association with
collection, and reduced remediation costs. In addition, better product design and systems
developed to use secondary materials can improve the efficiency of the manufacturers' business.
Figure 9 illustrates the potential impacts of SMM strategies involving product take-back across the
economy, environment, and society.
One consideration for communities in adopting SMM strategies is the extent to which product take-
back represents complementary or competing policies when considering recovery and recycling. If
local community recovery and recycling programs target materials slated for product take-back,
recycling revenues from those materials could be affected. Moreover, multiple collection options
could potentially confuse residents and affect recovery. As communities investigate SMM options,
tradeoffs across these systems will be important to consider.
Figure 9.The economic, social, and environmental impacts of product take-back in the triple
value framework
Economy
(Financial & Built Capital)'
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
Diverts m ater iafc from w aste
stream for use as feedstock
AHows for products & packaging
to be distributed to customers
P
-R M
-% -
Society
(Human & Social Capital)
r
soli
Reduces
d waste disposal
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
Reduces - -
scarcity and raw
material costs
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for industrial
facilities and
feedstocks
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
W-
Reduces
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings,
recreation, and
other amenities
—
Environment
(Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
Under product take-back, materials are diverted from the waste stream to be used as feedstocks; this is
represented by the green (category 4) arrow. Product demand stays constant while extraction of land and
material resources decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple (category 1) arrows. Materials discarded
during extraction, manufacture, use, and at the end of product life decrease and the impacts of land and water
contamination and pollution emissions are reduced. This is captured by light and dark gray arrows (category 2).
The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that result from product take-back, such
as reduced resource scarcity, raw material costs, and human health-related costs. Stocks affected are in blue.
While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows across diagrams, the
effects onflows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted from: J. Fiksel, R, Bruins,
A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach to Sustainable
Solutions/' Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-702.)
30
-------
31
-------
3.3.9 Source Reduction
"Source reduction" encompasses a range of strategies to eliminate waste by reducing materials use
upstream. Source reduction initiatives typically consider the entire product life-cycle footprint and
target materials reduction throughout the system by changing product design, manufacturing
processes, and/or supply and purchasing policies. Source reduction can enable manufacturers to
rapidly increase productivity, reduce energy and materials costs, foster product and market
innovation, and provide customers with value at less environmental impact.
Some source reduction strategies target certain materials (e.g., toxic substances and packaging);
some consider energy use in manufacturing and long-distance transport in supply chains.
Manufacturing changes generally aim to reduce water, energy, and materials use and waste
generation. Beyond manufacturing, some source reduction occurs in residential settings as
efficiency improvements, such as water-efficient fixtures.67
Several high-profile corporate source reduction efforts have been documented in product
manufacturing. For instance, Nestle Waters pledged to reduce plastic consumption across its brand
portfolio. The company has redesigned its plastic water bottle so that it uses 60 percent less plastic
than its original plastic water bottle design first introduced in the mid-1990s, reducing use of plastic
resin for water bottle production by 80 million pounds annually.68
3.3.10 Source Reduction in the Triple Value Framework
Depending on its design, source reduction can affect all parts of the system, reducing impacts across
the life-cycle, and even reducing infrastructure demands such as buildings and transportation
structures. Producing equivalent (or superior) goods with fewer material resources improves
economic and social conditions while reducing environmental impacts (e.g., ecosystem degradation
from resource extraction). As with other SMM approaches, these reductions in material demand
can, in turn, reduce the risk of resource scarcity, high material costs, health impacts, and
remediation costs.
Figure 10 illustrates the impacts of source reduction on material flows through the economy,
environment, and society.
67 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Conserving Water." April 24,2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gOv/greenhomes/ConserveWater.htm#wateruse
68 Nestle Waters North America Inc. "Nestle Waters North America Continues Plastic Reduction Efforts with New,
Lighter Bottle." December 15,2009. Available here: http://www.nestle-watersna.com/en/nestle-water-
news/pressreleases/nestlewatersnorthamericacontinuesplasticreductioneffortswithnewlighterbottle
32
-------
Figure 10. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of source reduction in the triple
value framework
Economy
(Financial & Built Capital)
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
Allows for products & packaging
to be distributed to customers
Reduces
solid wa ste d i sposal
Society
(Human & Social Capital)
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for industrial
facilities and
feedstocks
Reduces resource
scarcity and raw
material costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
r Environment
(Natural Capital)
Reduces
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
T
Renewable& Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings,
recreation, and
other amenities
Under source reduction, the feedstocks used as materials are decreased; this is represented by the green
(category 4) arrow. Products and packaging are still distributed to customers while extraction of land and
material resources for product production decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple (category 1) arrows.
Materials discarded during extraction, manufacture, use, and at the end of product life decrease and the impacts
of land and water; contamination and pollution emissions are reduced. This is captured by light and dark gray
arrows (category 2). The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that result from
source reduction, such as reduced resource scarcity, raw material costs, and human health-related costs. Stocks
affected are in blue. While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows
across diagrams, the effects on flows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted
from: J. Fiksel, R, Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach
to Sustainable Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-
702.)
3.3.11 Green Design
"Green design" is often paired with, or a component of, source reduction. The term green design
refers to a collection of product and building philosophies, whose collective aim is to minimize
environmental impact through mindful design.
Green design is most well-known in its application to the buiit environment, with programs such as
LEED certification that focus on new building designs that reduce material use during construction
and energy use during operations.
33
-------
Product applications of green design include initiatives, such as "Design for the Environment", that
involve industry-led efforts to select safer chemicals and materials for products.69 For instance,
companies such as HP have utilized "Design for the Environment" principles to decrease the
environmental impact of materials used in their products. In 2012, HP redesigned its products to use
plastics free from hazardous substances, such as phthalates, brominated flame retardants, and
polyvinyl chloride.70 Currently, brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride have been
completely eliminated from their notebook products.71
3.5.12 Green Design In the Triple Value Framework
Green design, either as part of source reduction efforts or separately, emphasizes reduction in
materials - especially hazardous materials - and energy use throughout product (and building) life-
cycles. While broader source reduction efforts consider the entire life-cycle, design-for-environment
policies place a specific emphasis on the "use phase" of products and structures. Particularly for
long-lasting products and investments such as buildings and infrastructure, communities often have
a significant interest in ensuring that their investments are efficient both in terms of cost and
environmental impacts. Communities often contribute to green design initiatives through
purchasing policies that favor products and construction meeting green design standards. Figure 11
illustrates the benefits of green design in the context of material flows and its interaction with the
economy, environment, and society.
3.3.13 Green Remediation
Remediation of contaminated land is a critical challenge for communities, and sits at the
intersection of land use and materials management. While SMM policies typically focus "upstream,"
on materials associated with development and use of products, remediation has a significant
materials component, both in the energy, tools, and materials needed for remediation itself, and in
the challenge of extracting and disposing contaminants.
"Green remediation" refers to a suite of approaches that aim to reduce environmental impacts
during cleanup actions. Green remediation approaches are often consistent with SMM principles.
For instance, green remediation practices include recovering resources from demolition to be
reused for later construction activities, recirculating water during clean up to reduce the use of fresh
water, and using fuel-efficient devices or renewable forms of energy during clean-up to reduce
demand of fossil fuel resources.
69 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "EPA Design for the Environment." June 24,2014. Available here:
http://www.epa.gov/sustainabilitv/analvtics/epa-design.htm
70 HP. "Leading the Way Through a Leading Materials Strategy." October 2013. Available here:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA4-8396ENW
71 HP. "Leading the Way Through a Leading Materials Strategy." October 2013. Available here:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA4-8396ENW
34
-------
Figure 11. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of green design in the triple value
framework
Economy
(Financial & Built Capital)
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
Allows f or i: rodu cts & pa c k ag ing
to be distributed to customers
Society
(Human & Social Capital)
Reduces
solid waste disposal
51
i
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
\
4
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for industrial
facilities and
feedstocks
Reduces resource
scarcity and raw
material costs
2
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
Reduces
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
health care
costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings,
recreation, and
other amenities
A
—
r Environment
¦ (Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
Under green design, the feedstocks used as materials, in particular, those made out of hazardous substances,
are decreased; this is represented by the green (category 4) arrow. Product demand stays constant while
extraction of land and material resources decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple (category 1) arrows.
Materials discarded during extraction, manufacture, use, and at the end of product life decrease and the impacts
of land and water contamination and pollution emissions are reduced. This is captured by light and dark gray
arrows (category 2). The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that result from
green design, such as reduced resource scarcity, raw material costs, and human health-related costs. Stocks
affected are in blue. While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows
across diagrams, the effects on flows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted
from: J. Fiksel, R, Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach
to Sustainable Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-
702.)
3.3.14 Green Remediation in the Triple Value Framework
Green remediation intersects with other systems reflected in the triple value model by directly
restoring degraded land to use, while simultaneously minimizing the use of other materials and
energy. Like other SMM practices, indirect impacts of improved remediation include reduced
impacts associated with the extraction and processing of materials and energy. Figure 12 illustrates
the benefits of green remediation in the context of material flows and its interaction with the
economy, environment, and society.
35
-------
Figure 12. The economic, social, and environmental impacts of green remediation in the triple
value framework
Economy
(Financials Built Capital)
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
J*
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings
Reduces resource
scarcity and raw
materia I costs
2
Allows for products^ packaging
to be distributed to customers
Society
(Human & Social Capita])
Reduces
s o I i d wa ste d i sposal
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
0*
Diverts
materials from
waste stream
foruseas
feedstocks
Reduces
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and waterand
pollution emissions
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
Decreases
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings
bnvironment
(Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
Under green remediation, materials are diverted from the waste stream to be used as feedstocks; this is
represented by the green (category 4) arrow. Product demand stays constant while extraction of land and
material resources decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple (category 1) arrows. Materials discarded
during extraction, manufacture', use; and at the end of product life decrease and the impacts of land and water
contamination and pollution emissions are reduced. This is captured by light and dark gray arrows (category 2).
The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect impacts that result from green remediation, such
as reduced resource scarcity, raw material costs, and human health-related costs. Stocks affected are in blue.
While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size" of arrows across diagrams, the
effects onflows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured. (Adapted from: J. Fiksel, R, Bruins,
A. Gatchett, A. Gill Hand, and M. ten Brink. 'The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach to Sustainable
Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-702.)
3.4 Summary of Impacts of SMM Practices
SMM practices, when carefully defined and adopted, can produce broad impacts across all the
economic, social, and environmental stocks and systems in a community. SMM practices can affect
economic stocks and structures by reducing demand for materials and resources (and therefore
resource scarcity), and can increase jobs and local employment through extended post-consumer
recovery and management of materials (a local "raw material extraction" from secondary sources).
36
-------
Reduced demand for materials (and land) in one sector can also increase materials (and land)
available for alternative uses.
Socially, SMM practices can reduce health care and remediation costs without compromising
products and packaging for use. Environmentally, SMM practices can reduce the need for landfills,
resource consumption, and ecosystem degradation; decrease overall contamination to land and
water; and reduce GHG and other emissions. In addition to these general, high-level impacts, other
environmental, economic, and social impacts may arise from the implementation of different SMM
practices and impacts may vary depending on the community. Figure 13 illustrates the combined
impacts of a comprehensive SMM approach to materials flow.
Figure 13. The combined environmental, economic, and social impacts of SMM approaches in
the triple value framework
Economy
(Financial & Built Capital)^
DIVERTS ii ateriate from waste
streamfor use as feedstock
Energy Production,
Product/Service
Supply Chain
tmA
SP|
.IT.
Allows for products & packaging
to be distributed to customers
Society
l(Hum.in & Social Capital)
4
REDUCES
solid waste disposal
Energy Use, Service
Use, Product Use
—
Reduces resource
scarcity and raw
material costs
DIVERTS
materials from
waste stream
for use as
feedstocks
*1
DECREASES
land & virgin
material
resources used
for industrial
facilities,
buildings, and
feedstocks
2
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
-I-
Reduces
health care and
remediation costs
Reduces
contamination of
land and water and
pollution emissions
DECREASES
land & virgin
material
resources used
for buildings,
recreation, and
other amenities
^ Environment
1 (Natural Capital)
Renewable & Non-Renewable Resource Stocks, Finite Media, Energy
Sources
In SMM, materials are diverted from the waste stream to be used as feedstocks and land and material resources
used as feedstocks are reduced; this is represented by the green (category 4) arrows. Product demand stays
constant while extraction of land and material resources decreases, as reflected in light and dark purple
(category 1) arrows. Materials discarded during extraction, manufacture, use, and at the end of product life
decrease and the impacts of land and water contamination and pollution emissions are reduced. This is captured
by light and dark gray arrows (category 2). The light and dark orange (category 3) arrows identify indirect
impacts that result from SMM, such as reduced resource scarcity, raw material costs, and human health-related
costs. Stocks affected are in blue. While the impacts of this SMM practice is indicated by changes in the "size"
of arrows across diagrams, the effects on flows are not to scale; changes in stocks are likewise not pictured.
Material-related impacts from SMM practices are highlighted in yellow textboxes. (Adapted from: J. Fiksel, R,
Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gill Hand, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems Approach to Sustainable
Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue 4 (2014), pp. 691-702.)
37
-------
Table 4 provides an overview of impacts of these seven major SMM practices taken together. In
reality, some of these practices in some cases are mutually exclusive, or do not combine to change
the system in a way that best addresses the needs of the community implementing the SMM
program.
While national governments and corporate actors tend to consider the broad impacts of SMM
across the global supply chain, SMM practices can produce locally-specific impacts that reflect the
conditions of the community. Table 4 provides a summary of the most common of these local
economic, societal, and environmental impacts. It is these impacts that are most visible at the
community level, and are most likely to inform the decision process about how to alter traditional
materials and waste management practices.
Table 4. Summary of seven common SMM practices and example benefits in sustainability sectors
SMM Practice
Local Economic Impact
Local Societal Impact
Local Environmental Impact
Material
Recovery and
Recycling
- Direct: can create jobs
from recycling collection
and processing
- Direct: can generate
local revenue from sale
of recovered materials
- Direct: can increase
traffic congestion from
collection*
- Direct: can improve
health of residents near
local landfill
- Direct: can reduce
contamination of land, water,
and GHG and other emissions
from landfilling
- Indirect: can reduce
degradation of land, water,
and ecosystem services from
decreasing demand for virgin
materials
Energy Recovery
- Direct: can create jobs
at energy recovery plant
- Direct: can directly
reduce energy costs for
community by providing
a local source of energy*
- Direct: can increase
traffic congestion from
collection*
- Direct: can improve
health of residents near
local landfill
- Direct: can reduce
contamination of land, water,
and GHG and other emissions
from landfilling
- Indirect: can reduce land use
demand for transmission lines,
other energy sources*
Landfill Mining
- Direct: can create
landfill mining jobs
- Direct: can generate
local revenue from sale
of recovered materials
- Direct: can reduce
human health issues from
exposure to toxics or
pollution from landfill
- Direct: can reduce
contamination of land, water,
and GHG and other emissions
from landfilling
- Indirect: can reduce
degradation of land, water,
and ecosystem services from
decreasing demand for virgin
materials
Product Take-
Back
- Direct: can generate
local revenue if
companies pay for
materials returned (e.g.,
bottle deposits)
- Indirect: can improve
health of residents near
local landfill by reducing
materials sent to landfill
- Indirect: can improve
street aesthetics by
decreasing littering
- Direct: can reduce
contamination of land, water,
and GHG and other emissions
from landfilling
- Indirect: can reduce
degradation of land, water,
and ecosystem services from
decreasing demand for virgin
materials
38
-------
SMM Practice
Local Economic Impact
Local Societal Impact
Local Environmental Impact
Source
Reduction
- Direct: can reduce
volume of discarded
materials and costs
- Indirect: can contribute
to lower cost products
from decreased
materials intensity
- Direct: can reduce traffic
if materials volume is
lower
- Indirect: can improve
health of residents near
local landfill by reducing
materials sent to landfill
- Direct: can reduce
contamination of land, water,
and GHG and other emissions
from landfilling
- Indirect: can reduce
degradation of land, water,
and ecosystem services from
decreasing demand for virgin
materials
Green Design
- Direct: can produce
cost savings to user (e.g.
if products are designed
to use less energy)*
- Indirect: can improve
health of residents near
local landfill by reducing
materials sent to landfill
- Direct: can improve
health of residents and
manufacturers through
the product use phase
(e.g., if products are
designed with less
hazardous materials)
Direct: can reduce
contamination of land, water,
and GHG and other emissions
from landfilling
- Indirect: can reduce
degradation of land, water,
and ecosystem services from
decreasing demand for virgin
materials
Green
Remediation
- Direct: can increase
land value*
- Direct: can improve
health of residents near
local contaminated lands
- Direct: can reduce
contamination of local land
and water
*denotes intersections with either infrastructure, transportation, and/or land use
Critical to identifying successful SMM strategies is identifying and understanding the endpoints that
most affect the communities that lead implementation while also ensuring that broader material
flows, including national and global impacts, are considered. Because most SMM efforts integrate a
number of different practices addressing different parts of the material flow system, a key step in
designing an approach is to identify the most significant interactions among practices, with a focus
on:
• Practices that share endpoints
• Practices that are mutually exclusive
• Practices that must be done sequentially
• Practices that are/are not "local" in their impacts
Practices are also differentiated by the stakeholders (including different levels of government and
public/private sector stakeholders) who have the authority to select, implement, and, in some cases,
finance SMM practices, and also by the costs that accrue to communities and the relative timing of
costs and benefits.
Because the purpose of SMM is to bring about system-level changes that benefit the environmental,
social, and economic systems in a community, the issues that draw these different systems together
represent areas for careful focus. While the specific contours of a community and its material
practices will affect the selection of specific SMM strategies, a number of areas of intersection
across and among economic, environmental, and social systems are likely to demand specific
stakeholder and analytic attention:
39
-------
• The economic structure of the existing materials management system. The contracts,
practices, infrastructure, and economic relationships that connect the private organizations,
public entities, and residents of a community can be a source of funding and momentum for
SMM, and also a source of opposition or barriers. To be successful, SMM efforts must
account for current systems, and the costs to the various participants associated with
making structural changes in materials management, and the links between the social and
economic capital represented by solid waste and other materials management.
• The extent and nature of local environmental impacts. While SMM strategies can affect
local communities, materials and products are also globally traded, with impacts that often
occur across the world. To evaluate SMM options, it is important to clarify the local
environmental impacts associated with a strategy, because these are most directly
comparable to local costs in considering economic and social impacts of a policy.
• The role of broader impacts in SMM. Separately, communities should consider the more
remote benefits associated with SMM; these can be significant and compelling reasons to
pursue SMM even when local impacts are modest.
• The link between materials and social capital. In examining SMM options, the social
impacts of current materials use may represent a critical intersection. Materials, products,
and processes can be designed to improve human health and social (e.g., frequent trash
removal to improve quality-of-life); implementation of SMM must ensure that the services
of importance in communities are maintained or upgraded with new processes.
In all of these matters, communities and others with interest in SMM need analytic support. EPA
and SHCRP can assist stakeholders in recognizing and assessing the significant intersections across
these practices, and across the actors who implement them, in order to ensure successful SMM
program design. Section 4 of this paper explores these relationships in more detail, and notes
several potential areas in which EPA may provide important insights.
40
-------
Section 4: Strategies for Support of Sustainable Materials Management
SCHRP and EPA's focus is to assist communities and other stakeholders to design SMM strategies
that improve economic, environmental, and social conditions at the community level. In theory,
SMM represents a beneficial change to material flows in all contexts, and reduces the total cost
of materials management for communities either directly, by reducing material volume and
associated management costs, or in other important ways, such as reduced energy use, emissions to
air, water, and land, and the impacts on health and the economy that are associated with these
emissions and with inefficient materials use.
In practice, as noted in Section 2.3, SMM implementation is slowed by a number of structural
barriers associated with the cost of some projects, and their difference in structure and timing from
established practices and materials management contracts, combined with limited authority and
coordination among key stakeholders, and in some cases limited or delayed direct and measurable
cost savings to communities. To address these barriers, stakeholders need reliable, readily available
information and tools that can help them effectively assess SMM options and communicate the
results of their investigations to each other. By definition, SMM involves complex interactions that
cross many areas of environmental policy. Re-aligning policies and practices with SMM principles
can be a powerful way to improve the sustainability of communities, but analysis to assess the
trade-offs and benefits associated with SMM options is needed.
Analysis of SMM options takes place within the systems that it seeks to change; the effective
evaluation of SMM options requires:
• Environmental information about the natural resources and environmental effects of
current materials management processes, including local effects visible in the community
considering SMM and broader effects such as global materials extraction.
• Economic information about the structure of financial arrangements for managing
materials, the costs and economic benefits of SMM options, and the timing and magnitude
of potential changes to the economy related to materials.
• Social and human impact information about the community or communities considering
SMM, including materials-related impacts on quality of life, priorities for improvements at
the community level, and the structure of authority for implementing change (including
SMM policies) at key levels of government.
SHCRP's role in furthering adoption of SMM includes making available tools for analysis and, of
equal importance, assisting in the design and use of a process that systemically involves
stakeholders to clarify priorities, select options, and address economic and other implementation
barriers. This section outlines an approach to evaluating SMM strategies that highlights options and
priorities for model development, analysis, and implementation that may guide SHCRP in its efforts
to support SMM.
4,1 Approach to Designing and Implementing SMM
The design and evaluation process for SMM strategies follows four basic steps that capture a
system-level approach reflective of the triple value model. These steps are generally consistent with
many other policymaking efforts, except that they emphasize the human (stakeholder) systems that
41
-------
drive and restrict adoption of SMM strategies. In addition, the process as a whole is designed to be
iterative:
• Step 1: Identify key stakeholders and stakeholder goals for the community related to
materials and to other systems with which they overlap (e.g., transportation).
• Step 2: Develop data and options for achieving SMM and other sustainability goals, with a
focus on endpoints in all parts of the triple value framework (economic, social, and
environmental impacts) associated with options. Ensure that materials strategies under
consideration are consistent with SMM principles and reflect the priorities of stakeholders.
• Step 3: Assess the practical feasibility of SMM options in the specific context defined by the
stakeholder process. Use data collected about the community structures and systems to
screen SMM options and address obstacles to implementing those options determined to
be practical.
• Step 4: Prioritize and conduct analyses to assess the key costs, benefits, and interactions
among feasible SMM options. This includes identifying community-level and higher-level
costs, benefits, and obstacles for each option, and considering the timing and geographic
scope of impacts.
This process is iterative, and can take place at many scales, from local to regional to national, even
global, involving multiple governments and global corporations. Important at each stage, however,
is an understanding of the tools and options that can support the process. The following sections
will further explore each of the four steps required to design and evaluate SMM strategies.
4,2 Step 1: Identify Key Stakeholders and Stakeholder Goals
A critical and often unpredictable element of SMM efforts is identifying key stakeholders who
represent different parts of the materials system and can, together, ensure implementation of an
SMM strategy. While this paper focuses on a community level, SMM challenges communities to
think beyond traditional structures, boundaries and policies, and to identify and involve
stakeholders throughout the materials system who would be affected by an SMM effort. This can
involve adjacent communities, regional or state authorities, federal entities, and corporations of all
sizes. Engagement of stakeholders throughout the decision process ensures that parties supporting
and providing critical perspectives understand the trade-offs and benefits of SMM, and that all
factors of importance to the community are considered in deliberations.
In bringing together the primary stakeholders to support SMM, a community should emphasize the
following:
• Specific environmental priorities and goals (e.g., increasing open space, reducing emissions)
• Significant economic and social challenges and priorities (e.g., reducing the cost of disposal)
• Economic or social priorities that cannot be compromised, and may be difficult to reconcile
with SMM principles (e.g. ensuring consistent supply of products and goods to communities)
SMM goals should both guide and emerge from the stakeholder process, reflect the unique
conditions of the community and stakeholders involved, and to the extent practicable, focus on
measurable results and outcomes. In many cases, materials issues are interconnected with land use,
transportation, and other decisions, and may involve broader regional input. In considering
42
-------
materials-related challenges, however, communities often converge around one or more of the
common SMM objectives noted in Section 2:72
• Decrease urban demand for material consumption
• Decrease resource intensity of products & services
• Use substitute materials with lower life-cycle impact
• Encourage local sourcing of materials & products
• Increase recycling rates for commodity materials
• Recover and reuse wasted or underutilized resources
• Assure proper disposal for unwanted solid wastes
These objectives focus on activities, and often impacts, of community-level materials management
decisions, and can be combined with each other or with other objectives to expand the reach of an
SMM effort. A critical feature, however, is the focus of SMM on integrated economic,
environmental, and social impacts, and its adherence to the participatory philosophy outlined in the
OECD principles.73
The Role of Identifying Key Stakeholders and Stakeholder Goals in SMM
Identifying key stakeholders and stakeholder goals early on in the SMM process can help to define
environmental, social, and economic goals of communities and identify a feasible portfolio of SMM practices
to help achieve those goals. Metro Vancouver used a targeted stakeholder approach to support efforts to find
a wastewater treatment plant solution that integrated economic, environmental, and social values in
implementing resource recovery from both liquid and solid waste streams. Metro Vancouver held community
events and public meetings to:74
• engage potentially impacted stakeholders in the design and funding of the new treatment plant;
• encourage stakeholders to share identified issues of liquid and solid waste; and
• promote awareness of the need for a solution to manage liquid and solid waste sustainably.
Using results from the stakeholder process, Metro Vancouver was able to build and design a wastewater
treatment plant with nutrient recovery and effluent reuse that was designed to:75
• protect and enhance natural ecosystems;
• increase biofuel use;
• reduce water consumption; and
• divert 70% of solid waste from landfills by 2015.
72 These objectives are derived from the principles and framework presented in Fiksel, J. 2006a. A framework for
sustainable materials management. Journal ofthe Minerals Metals & Materials Society 58 (8]:15-22.
http://www.eco-nomics.com/images/Framework for SMM.pdf
73 Principles for SMM recommended by OECD presented in:
OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%20svnthesis%20-%20policv%20brief final%20GG.pdf
74 Metro Vancouver. "Services and Solutions for a Livable Region." Available at:
http://www.cwwa.ca/pdf files/2014Award MetroVancouver.pdf
75 Fidelis Resource Group. "Integrated Resource Recovery Study - Metro Vancouver and the North Shore
Communities (Executive Summary]." March 29,2011.
43
-------
At this stage of the design, data describing systems and issues may be important, but analytic tools
are less central. A more central need that many communities have at this stage is the expertise to
manage a complex stakeholder process that can involve multiple governments, citizens'
organizations, and private sector entities. EPA's experience in designing and guiding similar
processes could provide needed leverage and ensure that the process is efficient and well-focused.
43 Step 2: Array SMM Practices to Develop Options for Achieving Goals in the
Content of the Stakeholder Process
When the key stakeholders in a community context have converged on the goals and objectives
around which an SMM strategy should be designed, the next step is to research and identify the
specific activities and practices that might comprise an effective SMM strategy. Some activities align
or combine more readily to support different SMM goals. Table 5 below illustrates a matrix that
shows the intersection between the SMM goals and the common practices that have been outlined
in this paper.
The challenge for each community is to construct the right portfolio of SMM practices for a
community. The triple value framework provides a strong conceptual starting point for developing a
set of SMM options. The conceptual maps can help identify options that affect specific, targeted
material flows and support specific SMM goals, and array the specific impacts that result from
specific SMM practices.
Information that supports this stage of the SMM process includes:
• Up-to-date descriptions of potential SMM approaches and technologies;
• Documented examples of the impacts of specific SMM strategies and technologies;
• Resources for investigating the economic and governance structure of existing materials
management services, (e.g., to understand systems and help identify key decision-makers);
and
• Summary-level information characterizing critical system components and intersections.
At this stage, it is important to identify and characterize the system intersections that might drive or
prevent the success of a strategy. The specific relationships will vary among communities, but
represent areas where the different elements in the triple value framework are most
interconnected. Common areas of system intersection occur between economic and social
structures, and tend to include established social and physical structures that create barriers to
change. One example might be a local landfill, run at a low cost by local firms; the facility provides
jobs while reducing tax burdens on residents, but its long-term impacts might include land use
constraints, environmental degradation and social human-health issues. These critical points of
interaction that govern the movement and management of materials may extend beyond materials
policy and beyond the political boundaries of a single community, but they will form the core of the
analyses of different options for achieving system-wide improvements.
44
-------
Table 5. Matrix detailing the intersections between SMM practices and goals
SMM Goals
Recycling
Energy
Recovery
Landfill
Mining
Product
Take-
Back
Source
Reduction
Green
Design
Green
Remediation
Decrease urban
demand for material
consumption
X
X
X
X
V
V
X
Decrease resource
intensity of products
and services
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
Use substitute
materials with lower
life-cycle impact
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
Encourage local
sourcing of materials
and products76
V
V
V
V
X
V
V
Increase recycling
rates for commodity
materials
V
X
V
V
X
V
V
Recover and reuse
wasted or
underutilized
resources
V
V
V
V
X
V
V
Assure proper
disposal for
unwanted solid
wastes
V
V
X
V
X
X
V
Create economic
incentives for
material efficiency
X
X
X
X
V
V
V
SMM practices can be employed in tandem to create a portfolio of strategies to optimize the positive impacts of SMM. The
exhibit indicates which practices do and do not support specific SMM goals, and provides some indication of practices that are
complementary (in that they support separate goals) and practices that might compete or be redundant
4.4 Step 3: Assess the Practical Feasibility of SMM Options Developed in the
Stakeholder Process
When a community or group of stakeholders has reviewed potential SMM options that are
consistent with agreed SMM goals, another factor in selecting the best set of options is the
regulatory and economic feasibility of different practices in the specific context.
Regulatory (policy) feasibility considers the constraints imposed by local, state, and federal laws,
and by existing contracts for management of materials and related infrastructure. Communities can
implement the SMM practices discussed above through a number of local policies, but these actions
often require cooperation with and approval from other stakeholders, or compliance with the terms
of existing contracts and state and federal regulations. Particularly when SMM policies affect site
remediation or management of landfills, federal and state statutes governing site use and financing
76 All SMM practices, with the exception of source reduction, can encourage local sourcing of materials and products
if facilities for recycling/recovery/landfill mining/manufacture/remediation are located near the community in
question.
45
-------
can constrain options for SMM activities. Other SMM practices typically require coordination with
regional and state authorities, particularly in places where regional markets for waste already exist.
Table 6 identifies common community program and policy options associated with SMM strategies,
and notes the other authorities that may be required for implementation.
Table 6. Community-level programs and policy options and other important authorities to involve to
implement SMM Practices.
SMM Practice
Community Program/Policy Options
Other Important Authorities
Recycling/
Materials Recovery
• Curbside recycling programs
• Pay-As-You-Throw programs
• Single stream vs. dual stream
• Private waste haulers; municipal
and regional contracts
• Regional waste disposal facilities
• State recycling requirements
Energy Recovery
• New facilities; capital projects
o Anaerobic digesters
o MSW energy recovery facilities
• Landfill gas recovery systems
• Regional waste management and
generation
• Utilities and distribution
companies
• State and Federal regulations for
energy recovery facilities
• Private landfill operators
Landfill Mining
• Incentive policies (e.g., secured
secondary market for recovered
materials)
• Permits to private sector recovery
interests
• State and Federal regulations
regarding management of closed
or active landfills
• Private landfill miners, operators
Product Take-Back
• Local ordinances/landfill bans
• Permitting requirements for local
businesses
• State regulations
• Federal, industry voluntary
programs
Source Reduction
• Government procurement and
purchasing requirements
• Packaging requirements and guidelines
• Labeling guidelines
• Material/packaging bans (e.g., plastic
bags)
• State and Industry-specified
requirements for content, labeling
Green Design
• Building standards such as LEED
• Design requirements, e.g., low-impact
materials, energy efficiency, recyclability
• State, Federal standards for
building, infrastructure, product
specifications
• Industry product specifications
(e.g., ASTM, etc.)
Green Remediation
• Land reuse ordinances
• Remediation requirements for hauling
waste
• State, Federal remediation
standards, use restrictions,
financing restrictions
Often the involvement of other levels of government and private sector stakeholders can be a
catalyst and resource for a successful SMM program rather than a barrier. For all SMM-related
policy options, however, communities should identify existing regulatory requirements and regional
authorities governing materials management, and regional patterns and markets for materials. For
each option, an assessment of the regulatory and market context can help prioritize SMM practices.
46
-------
Economic and market feasibility assessments consider, at a screening level, the costs, cost savings,
and market impacts associated with SMM practices, given the size and nature of material flows, the
regional and local structure of the existing materials recovery and management industry, and
community-specific characteristics such as population density and the existing facilities, contracts,
ordinances, and financing operations governing materials management. In some cases, well-
established thresholds for waste quantities exist below levels in which a facility is not economically
viable (e.g., energy recovery technologies).
A useful resource for communities considering the feasibility of SMM alternatives would be a
centralized tool/data repository that could provide information about regional and state regulations,
statutes, and markets governing different standard SMM-related practices. A screening tool could
identify potential partners, markets, and barriers to different practices, and assist communities in
developing viable options without conducting extensive research. Currently, there are efforts to
develop such a tool throughout the various projects at SHCRP. SCHRP could continue to connect and
integrate relevant SCHRP projects and project activities to secure such a screening tool.
In tandem with tools for understanding the policy landscape, resources that enable a community to
rapidly assess its use of materials and energy, and conduct screening-level assessments of feasibility
for particular SMM technologies or practices, would be useful.
One option could be a reduced-form tool based on "urban metabolism" principles. Urban
metabolism is an approach that maps and quantifies energy, water, food, and other material inputs
as well as waste outputs for a community.77 By mapping energy and material quantities and flows,
analysts can assess a community's energy efficiency, materials recycling, and waste management
system to better inform which SMM practices are feasible for implementation.
77 Zhang, Y. "Urban Metabolism: A Review of Research MethodologiesEnvironmental Pollution. 2013.178: 463-473
47
-------
Urban Metabolism
Urban metabolism is a framework used to describe and analyze the flows of materials and energy and
study the interactions of natural and human systems within cities. In the context of SMIVI, urban
metabolism provides an effective way to gain information on energy efficiency, materials recycling, waste
management, and the infrastructure of an urban system.78 The diagram below outlines the steps typically
taken to understand the flows of energy and materials within the urban metabolism framework.
Figure 14. The urban metabolism framework
Urban metabolism
Process
analysis
> Providing a Theoretical
basis
- Linear processes
- Cyclical processes
- Network processes
Diagnosis of bottlenecks
Control parameters
Accounting
and
assessment
First-hand data
Model vabda
• Accounting Tor and
assessing flows and
storks
- Material-flow accounting
- Energy-flow accounting
- Metabolic efficiency
- Metabolic intensity
Dynamic simulation
Implementation scheme
Simulation
model
Modeling structure and
function
Optimization
and regulation
Practical applications
- Regulating nodes
- Regulating paths
- Regulating flows
- Models of ecological dynamics
- Models of influence mechanisms
- Models of ecological networks
- Models of input-output analysis
Figure from: Zhang, Y. "Urban Metabolism: A Review of Research Methodologies." Environmental Pollution. 2013.
178: 463-473
The following table summarizes different accounting methods to determine the inputs and outputs
of a community's material and energy flows.
78 Zhang, Y. "Urban Metabolism: A Review of Research Methodologies." Environmental Pollution. 2013.178: 463-473
48
-------
Table 7. Methods to map and quantify community flows of materials and energy79
Method
Description
Material flow
analysis (MFA)
MFA is a method for quantifying flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-
defined system, such as a community. Quantifying flows and stocks of materials
allows analysts such as communities to determine the material composition and
quantity of wastes. These data help frame and prioritize different policies for
materials management.
Energy flow
analysis
Energy flow analysis is a method for quantifying flows and consumption of energy in a
well-defined system, such as a community. Quantifying flows and consumption of
energy allows analysts to determine where and when energy is lost to better frame
and prioritize policies to improve energy efficiency.
Ecological
footprint analysis
Ecological footprint analysis is an accounting tool that measures the amount of
natural resources, (e.g., land, water, etc...) to support production and consumption of
products. Quantifying how natural resources are used for material production helps
frame and prioritize different policies for sustainable materials management.
Essential to this stage of the SMM implementation process is the availability of feasibility
assessment options that do not require broad and expensive analyses. Models and tools that are
calibrated to compare SMM options with statutory, contractual, environmental, or economic
thresholds and limits (using limited, high-level information characterizing materials and energy use)
can help communities identify situations where:
• SMM options would require changes in policy or contracts for implementation;
• Technological or economic barriers exist at the current project scale;
• Options involve other systems (e.g., infrastructure); and/or
• Approaches under consideration may not have the desired scale of impacts.
In all of these cases, communities could respond by either scaling a project differently (e.g.,
involving a broader set of communities or considering policy changes) or selecting a different SMM
strategy. The outcome of this step, which may involve engaging new stakeholders and considering
new options (reiterating Steps 1 and 2), would be a "short list" of the SMM options that are deemed
feasible.
4.5 Step 4: Prioritize and Conduct Analyses to Assess Key Costs, Benefits, and
Interactions among Feasible SMM Options
SHCRP's central role in furthering SMM efforts is to provide communities with tools that enable
robust, streamlined assessments of SMM options. Specifically, to identify an SMM strategy that 1) is
consistent with SMM principles, 2) is economically and politically feasible, and 3) is preferable to
both the "business as usual" scenario and any other robust alternatives under consideration, it is
critical to identify and estimate the most important system-level benefits and costs of each
proposed SMM practice for each goal.
Ideally, it would be feasible to perform a system-level evaluation that considered all direct and
indirect costs, benefits, and interactions associated with SMM practices. However, the unique
features of every SMM project and community and the complexity of the global system of material
79 Zhang, Y. "Urban Metabolism: A Review of Research MethodologiesEnvironmental Pollution. 2013.178: 463-473
49
-------
flows prevents the development of a cost-effective, transferable, and comprehensive model with
which to conduct specific assessments. Instead, EPA and SHCRP may wish to prioritize the
development of tools, which assess:
• Cost (and cost savings): SMM practices represent an opportunity for cost savings for both
communities and businesses. The economic benefits can be an important motivation for
adoption of such practices. Resource-constrained communities will not typically adopt any
materials strategy that is more costly than the current system, and offers no other benefits
that might justify added costs. However, communities often limit cost analyses to
engineering and financing costs for capital projects, and do not identify or calculate cost
savings or revenue opportunities that might accrue to the local community based on SMM
practices (e.g., tax revenues from properties near a remediated site). Therefore, costs form
a central basis of comparison across options, and a cost assessment that captures changes
across the triple value framework can, even if not comprehensive, illustrate far-reaching
impacts of SMM.
• Social impacts: Due to the effectiveness of regulations in the U.S., local environmental
impacts associated with end-of-life management of materials are often limited; safely
maintained landfills and manufacturing facilities do not typically have emissions that cause
immediate health effects. However, social impacts associated with materials management,
including traffic and undesirable land uses (e.g., landfills and other facilities), are visible and
often important in developing policy options. Solutions that capture, even qualitatively,
direct and indirect impacts of SMM projects such as reduced traffic, improved open space
opportunities, or, in one example, a sludge digester that reduces odors in a neighborhood,
are likely to enjoy significant support based on these local and sometimes high-value
impacts.
• Economic impacts: Separate from cost, it is important to consider economic impacts on the
implementing community/communities, including temporary and permanent impacts on
employment, changes in tax revenues, and other highly visible effects of changes in
materials management. In particular, it is important to identify employment involved in
recovering secondary commodity materials or energy from waste not as "waste
management" but as "materials extraction/production" - for this work parallels virgin
production and provides the same raw materials to established markets.
• Links between SMM and Building/lnfrastructure/Transportation/Land Use: Similar to
social benefits, SMM approaches that have "reach" into highly visible (and costly)
community needs such as public buildings and infrastructure (e.g., a C&D recycling effort, or
green design requirements that affect building stock) are likely to receive more support
from key stakeholders; these intersections often highlight the long-term nature of SMM
benefits as well, which are often overlooked in the traditional idea of materials
management as "trash pickup."
• Environmental impacts associated with avoided extraction and production: Like costs,
avoided environmental impacts do not typically accrue directly to the community
implementing the SMM policy. However, the scale of these impacts can be significant, and
can demonstrate the far-reaching impact of even a limited local policy. In addition, the
ready availability of life-cycle inventories for a wide array of materials, including fossil fuels,
ores, forestry and agricultural products, and many manufactured products, provides a
relatively reliable basis for comparison of environmental impacts for many SMM-related
activities. Combined with a realistic assessment of costs, these often-significant global
50
-------
benefits (including avoided GHG, energy savings, and air and water emissions) can help
clarify the benefits of SMM.
Above all, the analysis of SMM options should consider the metrics valued in the community, as well
as the biggest economic and environmental impacts (which are often associated with avoided raw
materials extraction). For instance, if the community is interested in reducing the costs and GHGs
associated with materials management, then benefits and costs should examine dollars and tons of
C02 equivalent, respectively.
Because it is necessary to balance multiple interactions of materials in order to evaluate SMM
strategies, policymakers can turn to one or more of the analytical approaches and associated tools
that have been designed to address multiple endpoints related to the environmental, social, and
economic impacts of policies. These approaches fall into the general categories summarized in Table
8 below.
Table 8. Analytical approaches to support evaluation of SMM strategies80'81
Approach
Description
Cost-Benefit
Analysis (CBA)
CBA aims to assigns money values to all benefit and cost endpoints of a policy option
so that communities or other stakeholders can compare different aspects of a project
to determine whether the benefits are sufficient to outweigh or justify the costs of a
policy.
Economic
Input/Output
Analysis (EIO)
ElOs measure the monetary value of transactions across the economy (including local,
regional, or national economies). They calculate the direct and indirect impacts of
changes in economic activities, and measure how changes in one sector affect other
sectors (e.g., decreased demand for goods and services if employment drops). Some
models also allow an analyst to combine environmental data with EIO data to examine
changes in environmental impacts related to changes in economic activity.
Life-Cycle
Assessment (LCA)
LCA is an approach used to calculate the environmental impacts of a product, process,
or activity throughout its life-cycle; from the extraction of raw materials through
production, transport, use, and disposal. LCA typically quantifies a range of
environmental releases (releases of pollutants to water, air, land, etc...) and
environmental impacts (toxicity, smog, climate change, etc...) associated with both the
materials and energy needed to produce a product or service. LCAs provide users with
a basis for comparing the material intensity and impacts of products and services.
Total Cost
Assessment (TCA)
TCA is a problem-oriented methodology used primarily by businesses to capture and
compare total costs (including contingent liability costs, intangible internal costs, and
external costs borne by society) associated project options. TCA can be used to identify
preferable materials, process designs, product designs, or capital expenditures, and
can be incorporated into CBA.
All of the approaches outlined in Table 8 can be used in conjunction with, or incorporated into, the
triple value framework. All of them also can incorporate the materials and energy flow analyses and
other materials accounting information developed under Step 3. Rather than dictating a
80 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. "Greening Economics in the Eastern Neighbourhood."
October 8,2014. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplavdocumentpdf/?doclanguage=en&cote=env/epoc/
wgwpr%282007%295/final
81 Zhang, Y. "Urban Metabolism: A Review of Research MethodologiesEnvironmental Pollution. 2013.178: 463-473
51
-------
methodology, the use of the triple value framework ensures that policy assessments and decisions
account for the system interactions that can have a significant impact on environmental, social, and
economic conditions in a community.
The challenge in selecting the best SMM approach for a community is considering different portfolio
options of SMM practices, and comparing the benefits and costs of these SMM practices across the
systems and over time. While the elements of each SMM option will reflect community-specific
interests, a range of models support each of the analytic approaches outlined in Table 8, and in
many cases these can provide default data about particular systems that can support a comparative
approach. In addition, software visualization programs, such as Cmap, can assist with graphic
depiction of systems concepts, and triple value framework programs, such as Vensim, can assist with
quantitative systems modeling to help model the interactions of policies in the economic, social, and
environmental setting.82,83
Table 9 summarizes for each of the seven common SMM practices, the scope, data needs, and data
availability for analyzing economic, environmental, and social impacts; the table also notes key areas
of intersection with other sectors that SHCRP is examining. This exhibit aims to provide a starting
point for design of streamlined analytic tools that can help move communities toward effective
SMM implementation.
82 Cmap is a software tool that allows users to map and organize multiple interactions (e.g., environmental, economic,
and social interactions] in one uniform layout. More information on the software can be found at:
Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. "Cmap." Available at: http: //cmap.ihmc.us /
83 Vensim is a software tool that allows users to model environmental, economic, and social interactions through
mathematical relationships. More information on the software can be found at:
Ventana Systems, Inc. "Vensim Software." Available at: http://vensim.com/vensim-software/
52
-------
Table 9. Overview of SMM practices, associated decision scope, key interactions, and data requirements for evaluation, and current data availability
Common
SMM Practice
Scope of Decision/Flow
Key Interactions
with other Systems,
Practices
Critical Data Required For Analysis
Availability of Modeling Tools and
Data
Recycling
• Decision-making on
materials recovery is at
community level
o Waste management
costs, some job, traffic
impacts
• Regional
markets/facilities for
recovery may be
important
• Environmental impacts
• Transportation:
changes in traffic
• Infrastructure:
recovery
facilities
• Land use: landfill
demand,
planning
• Environmental: For target materials:
quantities, per-ton recycling impacts vs.
landfilling and energy recovery
• Economic: Costs for collection, material
recovery and reprocessing and revenues
from sale of recovered materials,
employment in collection and
processing
• Social: Traffic patterns (local),
environmental, and human health
impacts associated with externalities
from recycling vs. landfilling
• Life-cycle inventory data are well-
established for many materials
o MSW-DST, WARM, SimaPro, etc.
• Engineering costs, CBA methods
established; specific financing
options needed
• Local and indirect impacts from
recovery are sometimes difficult to
determine
Energy
Recovery
• Facilities (often regional
financing, design,
material flow)
• Utilities are key
stakeholders
• Federal regulations
affect design
• Energy benefits can
accrue to community
and operator
• Regional emissions
• Infrastructure
(land use for
facility and
power supply)
• Transportation
patterns will
change
• Environmental: For target materials:
quantities, per-ton recycling impacts vs.
landfilling and recycling
• Economic: Costs for collection, material
recovery and reprocessing, revenues
from sale of recovered materials and
energy, employment in collection and
energy facility
• Social: Traffic patterns, environmental
and human health impacts associated
with externalities from energy recovery
vs. landfilling
• Life-cycle inventory data well-
established for many materials
o MSW-DST, WARM, SimaPro, etc.
• Engineering costs, CBA methods
established; specific financing
options needed
• Energy analysis of regional grid
necessary
-------
Common
SMM Practice
Scope of Decision/Flow
Key Interactions
with other Systems,
Practices
Critical Data Required For Analysis
Availability of Modeling Tools and
Data
Landfill Mining
• Community-level mining
• Landfill operators are
key stakeholders
• Regional/remote
recovery facilities
possible
o Private companies,
investors may be
involved
• Infrastructure/
buildings if
recovery
activities are
local
• Land use related
to landfill
• Environmental: For target materials;
quantities anticipated, byproducts,
environmental footprint (energy,
emissions of process)
• Economic: Mining, processing costs and
revenues from recovered materials,
employment at facility
• Social: Traffic patterns, environmental,
and human health impacts associated
with changes in landfill
• Life-cycle inventory data well-
established for many materials
o LF-mining-specific impacts may be
elusive
• Engineering cost data needed
Product Take-
Back
• Most often
led/coordinated at
corporate, national
levels
• Communities can require
collection
o Purchasing ordinances
• Transportation
for programs
• Environmental: quantity, flow of
targeted products, per-ton recycling
impacts vs. virgin materials
• Economic: Transportation and collection
costs to households, businesses,
employment impacts
• Social: Changes in product availability
• Life-cycle inventory for recovered
materials
o Processing important
• Costs/collection practices for
project, behavioral changes
Source
Reduction
• Corporate interests
typically lead and are key
stakeholders
• Communities can
implement source
reduction policies, such
as landfill bans (e.g.,
plastic bags)
• Regional/state support
can be necessary
• Reduced
demand for land
use,
transportation
infrastructure
• Environmental: Environmental footprint
of process and material that is changing,
substitute materials, process emissions
avoided/incurred
• Economic: Cost savings from source
reduction, material substitution costs
• Social: For specific materials, avoided
production- and waste-related impacts
• Custom modeling required; data
and model availability depends on
process and product changes
• Affects material quantities for
recycling, energy recovery, etc.
-------
Common
SMM Practice
Scope of Decision/Flow
Key Interactions
with other Systems,
Practices
Critical Data Required For Analysis
Availability of Modeling Tools and
Data
Green Design
• Communities can require
green design for
buildings through codes
and ordinances
• Corporations and
national standards usual
drive product design
o Community
purchasing policy can
support this
• State, federal standards
may affect policies
o Transportation design
is state/federal
• Significant
interaction with
infrastructure/
buildings
• Transportation
and land use
may be focus of
projects
• Environmental: Environmental footprint
(GHG and other emissions) of green
design production/construction and
operation, compared with standard
approach
• Economic: Cost of
production/construction and operation
and disposal using green design
standards
o Identify changes in function, ease
of use
• Social: Changes in use patterns, quality-
of-life benefits (and costs) of design
changes
• Green design calculators may be
robust for specific practices
• Custom modeling necessary for
specific projects, products
Green
Remediation
• Communities reap
benefits, and some
costs, from remediation,
and govern zoning
options
• Federal and State
statutes govern
remediation standards
and financing options
• Developers, owners are
key stakeholders
• Land use
• Environmental: Quantified description
of changes in remediation practices,
emissions, risks under project
• Economic: Cost of clean-up using green
remediation vs. standard method,
anticipated changes in remediation
schedule, land use, tax implications,
employment
• Social: Changes in use patterns, quality-
of-life benefits (and costs) of
remediation
• Custom modeling necessary for
specific projects
• Some standard cost, benefit
information available for green
remediation, land use amenities
and benefits
o EPA CLU-IN (Contaminated Site
Clean-Up) resources
-------
Section 5: Conclusions and Applications
As both a community-level and global strategy, SMM represents a robust, long-range approach to
reducing the negative impacts of current material flows. SMM strategies aim to reduce virgin material
extraction, reduce waste entering the landfill, extend the life of landfills and reduce human and
environmental exposure to hazardous contaminants. These result in life-cycle reductions in energy use,
water use, and emissions and also create jobs, encourage local sourcing of materials, and promote
economic development. Moreover, particularly when coupled with infrastructure, building, and
transportation initiatives, SMM can improve the design of communities and the quality of life offered to
residents.
The current scope of material flows and current materials management in the U.S. could improve
considerably as a result of more widely adopted SMM policies. Landfills can represent an inefficient and
high-impact management of post-consumer materials. Corresponding extraction and use of virgin
materials can represent an energy-intensive, low-efficiency option for materials production, and one
with significant impacts on land use. Even the modest adoption of SMM-related practices to date has
contributed to a measurable and unprecedented decrease in the per-capita use and discard of materials
in the U.S. in recent years.84
SMM can be implemented at scales ranging from private property, industrial and institutional levels, to
the broader community level. Policies and incentives can facilitate collaboration with key private and
public players and awareness of cross-scale factors (e.g., regional opportunities or constraints). Specific
ideas that could help facilitate increased adoption of SMM include:
• Guidance for stakeholder outreach and interaction for key SMM decisions;
• Information about material quantities, composition, transport requirements, and pricing that
can be used to identify market-driven incentives
• Lessons learned regarding common SMM practices and associated outcomes such as:
o Direct and indirect effects that are captured in the triple value framework;
o Social, economic, and regulatory contexts where the practices have been most and least
successful;
o Key barriers to implementation and any solutions found for removing them;
• Key information or data gaps that were needed to plan or implement a SMM strategy such as:
o Costs, including engineering costs as well as social costs, revenues and cost savings, and
indirect costs;
o Key social and economic impacts, including traffic impacts, open space impacts, and
employment impacts;
o Life-cycle-based estimates of impacts on materials extraction that result from SMM
strategies. While these are often global in effect, they can be significant and meaningful in
community decision-making, and they are supported for many materials by readily available
data.
84 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States:
Facts and Figures for 2012." February 2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012 msw fs.pdf
56
-------
Bibliography
Cited in Document
Earth 911. "Back to the Future with New Recycling Technologies." Available
at: http://www.earth911.com/eco-tech/trash-heading-back-to-the-future-with-new-recvcling-
technologies/
Electronics Take Back Coalition. "Facts and Figures on E-waste and Recycling." June 25, 2014. Available
at: http://www.electronicstakeback.com/wpcontent/uploads/Facts and Figures on EWaste and
Recvcling.pdf
Fidelis Resource Group. "Integrated Resource Recovery Study - Metro Vancouver and the North Shore
Communities (Executive Summary)." March 29, 2011.
Fiksel, J. "A Framework for Sustainable Materials Management." Journal of the Minerals Metals &
Materials Society. 2006. 58 (8):15-22. Available at: http://www.eco-
nomics.com/images/Framework for SMM.pdf
HP. "Leading the Way Through a Leading Materials Strategy." October 2013. Available here:
http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA4-8396ENW
Humes, Edward. "Grappling with a Garbage Glut." Wall Street Journal. April 18, 2012. Available
at: http://www.wsi.com/articles/SB100014240527023044446045773377020245372Q4
J. Fiksel, R, Bruins, A. Gatchett, A. Gilliland, and M. ten Brink. "The Triple Value Model: A Systems
Approach to Sustainable Solutions." Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy: Volume 16, Issue
4 (2014), pp. 691-702.
King County. "Appendix B - Biosolids Use in the US and World." Biosolids Recycling. January 21, 2015.
Available at: http://www.kingcountv.gov/environment/wastewater/Biosolids/DocumentsLinks.aspx
Materialflows.net. "Global Material Flow Database." March 2014. Available
at: http://www.materialflows.net/data/datadownload/
Metro Vancouver. "Services and Solutions for a Livable Region." Available at:
http://www.cwwa.ca/pdf files/2014Award MetroVancouver.pdf
Nestle Waters North America Inc. "Nestle Waters North America Continues Plastic Reduction Efforts
with New, Lighter Bottle." December 15, 2009. Available here: http://www.nestle-
watersna.com/en/nestle-waternews/pressreleases/nestlewatersnorthamerica
continuesplasticreductioneffortswithnewlighterbottle
OECD. "Green Growth Policy Brief: Sustainable Materials Management." October 2012. Available
at: http://www.oecd.org/env/waste/SMM%20svnthesis%20-20policv%20brief final%20GG.pdf
57
-------
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. "Greening Economics in the Eastern
Neighbourhood." October 8, 2014. Available
at: http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplavdocumentpdf/?doclanguage=en&cote=env
/epoc/ wgwpr%282007%295/final
University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems. "U.S. Wastewater Treatment Factsheet." 2014.
Available here: http://css.snre.umich.edu/css doc/CSS04-14.pdf
U.S. Census Bureau. "Frequently Asked Questions - How many people reside in urban or rural areas for
the 2010 Census? What percentage of the U.S. population is urban or rural?" Available
at: https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqld=5971
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Conserving Water." April 24, 2014. Available
at: http://www.epa.gOv/greenhomes/ConserveWater.htm#wateruse
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "EPA Design for the Environment." June 24, 2014. Available
here: http://www.epa.gov/sustainabilitv/analvtics/epa-design.htm
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Federal Green Challenge - Current Participants." Available
at: http://www.epa.gov/fgc/participants.html
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Federal Green Challenge - Waste." July 21, 2015. Available
at: http://www.epa.gov/fgc/waste.html
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "FY 2014-2018 EPA Strategic Plan." April 10, 2014. Available
at: http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-9/documents/epa strategic plan fy!4-
18.pdf
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Landfill Methane Outreach Program - National and State Lists of
Landfills and Energy Projects." March 2015. Available here:
http://www.epa.gov/lmop/proiects-candidates/index.html
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in
the United States: Facts and Figures for 2012." February 2014. Available
at: http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2012 msw fs.pdf
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Sustainable Materials Management - Sustainable Consumption
and Production." Available at: http://www.epa.gov/oswer/international/factsheets/20081Q-
sustainable-consumption-and-production.htm#OC
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Sustainable Materials Management: The Road Ahead." June
2009. Available at: http://www.epa.gov/smm/pdf/vision2.pdf
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "What is Sustainable Materials Management?" April 13, 2012.
Available at: http://waste.supportportal.com/link/portal/23002/23023/Article/32995/What-is-
Sustainable-Materials-Management? ga=l. 118638025.196330328.1411689832
58
-------
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Materials Management:
State of the Practice 2012." September 2012.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Multimedia
Environmental Assessment of Existing Materials Management Approaches for Communities."
September 2014.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Research and Development. "Sustainable and Healthy
Communities: Strategic Research Action Plan 2012-2016." June 2012. Available at:
http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-06/documents/shc-strap.pdf
West, Larry. "Why Recycle Cell Phones?" About News. Available
at: http://environment.about.eom/od/mobilephones/a/why recycle cell phones.htm
Wolman, D. "High-Powered Plasma Turns Garbage into Gas." January 20, 2012. Available here:
http://www.wired.com/2012/01/ff trashblaster/
Zhang, Y. "Urban Metabolism: A Review of Research Methodologies." Environmental Pollution. 2013.
178: 463-473
Other Resources
Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. "Cmap." Available here: http://cmap.ihmc.us/
Materialflows.net. "Global Material Flow Database-Technical Report, Version 2014.1." March 2014.
Available
at: http://www.materialflows.net/fileadmin/docs/materialflows.net/SERI WU MFA technical repo
rt final 20140317.pdf
OECD. "Members and Partners." Available at: http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/list-
oecd-member-countries.htm
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Electronics Challenge." October 15, 2014. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/smm/electronics/index.htm
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Food Recovery Challenge." April 30, 2015. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/smm/foodrecovery/index.htm
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Wastes - Resource Conservation - Basic Information." July 24,
2012. Available at:
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/smm/foodrecoverv/index.htm
Ventana Systems, Inc. "Vensim Software." Available at: http://vensim.com/vensim-software/
59
------- |