January/February 1989
How
Industry and Government Representatives Feel About Municipal Recycling
Efforts
Our
convenience society with its craving for all things disposable may have
created a garbage crisis, prompting municipalities to seek speedy ways to
make their pieces of America beautiful again. As more and more governments
adopt voluntary and mandatory programs aimed at increasing recycling
(seemingly the solution) and the solid waste industry steps up its
involvement, private recyclers consider the impact on their businesses.
By Gerry Romano
Gerry
Romano is editor of Scrap
Processing and Recycling.
Their
intended end is to reduce solid waste; their means, the ultimate guilt
trip.
"If
you're not recycling, you're throwing it all away," proclaim the
Environmental Defense Fund and the Advertising Council in a nationwide
multimedia campaign launched last fall with the public blessing of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Various print and broadcast ads
depict a trash-threatened Earth, announce staggering trash stats, and
insist, "You and your community can recycle." A brochure mailed
to individuals interested in more information lists the Institute of Scrap
Recycling Industries as one of many resources.
The
reach is less widespread and the package not as polished, but the message
is the same in a video released by the St. Paul Neighborhood Energy
Consortium. In this 12-minute production, "Recycling Within
Reach," distributed in the St. Paul area for use by schools and
various community groups, YOU (the viewer, the good citizen) created
Minnesota's waste woes.
"You, with that Styrofoam container you
threw away after yesterday's takeout lunch." And your partner in
crime is "that sweet baby down the block, with the 42 disposable
diapers she contributed to the garbage problem just last week."
But
by following the example of "some of your neighbors"--the
disposers-turned-recyclers, "the Durbins," whose admirable
environment-conscious habits are featured in the how-to program--you can
do your part, "you can make recycling a reality in your home."
The "simple" steps to take: selecting carefully the products you
buy; composting kitchen scraps; separating your recyclables from "the
rest of your garbage"; and recycling through curbside pickup or area
drop-off centers.
You,
You, You, You ...
...
You can make the difference. (And who wouldn't want to?) The cry to
John and Mary Doe is heard cross-country, and it's called out by municipal
officials. They hope that, through promoting recycling to the public, they
will stop mounting trash in its tracks.
The
importance of appealing to The People as a necessary--though not a
sufficient--step in making municipal efforts work was emphasized at a fall
conference sponsored by the National Solid Wastes Management Association,
At "Municipal Waste Alternatives '88," held in Boston, solid
waste managers from both coasts described their residential collection
programs and the integral part educating and motivating the public played.
In
her discussion on designing a mandatory statewide program, Marion Gold,
recycling program coordinator for Rhode Island Solid Waste Management
Corporation, a Providence-based firm working for the state, said that
public education about the program and recycling in general was extensive,
implemented through direct mail and community meetings.
Diana
Gale, who serves as director for the Seattle Solid Waste Utility,
described her city's curbside collection efforts. Television ads, bus
placards, billboards, and media events (programs planned to draw news
coverage) were key in enlisting residents' participation, she said.
According to Gale, promotion has paid off, so it will continue to be a
significant cost center in the curbside program budget. "The program
has been enormously popular," she said. "It has allowed citizens
to do what they know they should."
You'll
Get Yours
Every
month, more and more people around the country get their chance to do what
Diana Gale says they know they should do. State source separation and
collection legislation is spreading; California, Florida, Illinois,
Maryland, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were just some of the
states to consider or sign in 1988 what are typically referred to as
"recycling" laws. Last year's state legislative activity,
reported in detail during 1988 in the "State" column of Scrap Processing and Recycling by ISRI
Director of Government Programs Janice Walls, was accompanied by
policy-making by several prominent national groups, Walls says. The
National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Governors'
Association, and the National League of Cities recently adopted solid
waste policies addressing recycling. City and county governments, too,
have piped in with various forms of voluntary collection programs.
How
are private-sector recyclers responding to all this government interest in
their industry? Reactions range from mild enthusiasm to extreme wariness.
Some industry members spot opportunities to expand; others foresee
permanent disruption of recycling markets thanks to governmental
intervention. Some are simply unsure; but whether or not they are located
in a state with recycling-related legislation, they're watching business
trends carefully these days. Many appear to want--or were glad they
had--the chance to provide input during legislation development.
Business
Sparks versus Snags
Scott
Horne, vice president and general counsel of Prince Georges Scrap, Inc., a
ferrous and nonferrous processing firm in College Park, Maryland, says his
ISRI chapter (Seaboard) felt fortunate to be invited to assist in
Maryland's drafting of a recycling bill, although the final product did
not reflect all aspects of the chapter's position.
The
law, signed last year, creates an Office of Recycling within the
Department of the Environment to assist counties in developing recycling
plans. Each county must submit a plan by July I of this year that includes
the feasibility of source separation; the cost-effective use of recycling
centers and the strategy for collecting, processing, and marketing
recyclable materials; and the financing methods for recycling efforts.
Horne hopes to convince his county executive that a recycling center is
unnecessary, that the processing portion of the county plan can be handled
by the existing local capacity.
Considering
the potential opportunity for his company, Horne says, "I don't want
to be involved in the collection process.
I don't feel like going out
and buying 30 or 40 trucks and hiring 80 or 100 people to pick up the
material. But I'd love to process the material." He thinks, however,
that winning the argument against a recycling center will be tough.
"Governments just love to spend money," Horne comments.
"They think spending 8 to 10 million for a new facility would be the
greatest thing in the world."
A
multimillion-dollar municipal recycling facility is planned for
Bridgeport, Connecticut, near Steven Zamkov's firm, The Marcus Paper Co.,
in West Haven. According to Zamkov, the plans ignore the original intent
of the state's recycling law, which was to let existing industry have the
first shot at processing source-separated recyclables.
The
state has been going full steam ahead with facility development, he says,
although the local industry made known its interest in handling the
materials. The Connecticut Association of Paper Processors, created two
years ago to represent paper recyclers' interests in connection with
legislation, and headed by Zamkov, sent a position paper to all 169
municipalities in the state regarding recycling facilities. "We
listed the names and addresses of virtually every waste paper dealer in
Connecticut, saying precisely what we're capable of doing and what we're
willing to do," Zamkov says, but the group got no response.
"We're just waving our hands in the wind."
Processors
in other states, too, must grapple with municipal plans for recycling
facilities. Toledo-based environment and legislation consultant Calvin
Lieberman points out in "Reader Forum" in this issue of the
magazine that some state-run processing centers in the country have
equipment duplicating that at nearby scrap processing facilities. Most of
this, he adds, is paid for or subsidized with public funds. Lieberman
suggests that private industry accept the reality of municipal recycling
and "get into the act or get trampled." Processors who have
avoided collection or processing of glass, plastics, and other materials
because of economic decisions, he says, must reevaluate the cost of
failing to do so before others start encroaching on their operations.
Richard
J. Allan, secretary-treasurer of Allan Industries in Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania, will get into the act, as provided for in his state's
recently adopted mandatory" recycling bill. He says each municipality
must publish an announcement regarding the materials it intends to
collect; it is then the responsibility of the local scrap industry to
indicate what items it is willing to handle. "If anyone in the
industry provides the service," Allan says, "the municipality
will not get grant money to buy duplicate equipment."
Allan,
who was glad he had the opportunity to help develop the Pennsylvania
legislation "though we had to force our input down their
throats," is pleased with the final bill and intends to bid on the
three major materials he expects to be collected: aluminum, paper, and
glass. He currently handles all three and is planning to increase his
handling of paper. Asked about concerns regarding a potential glut in the
market once collected materials--especially paper--increase, Allan says
it's too early to tell what the result will be.
Supply
and Supply and (Oh, Yeah,) Demand
Pennsylvania
processor Richard E. Abrams, president of both B. Abrams & Sons Inc.
in Harrisburg and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, agrees with
Allan: It is too early to tell. But he believes that legislators are
proposing "massive programs ... without making an effort to find out
what's going to happen when two or three adjacent states with a large
population in a concentrated geographic area start to generate massive
volumes of material."
Shim
Silverstein shares this concern. A principal of United Paper Stock Co.,
Pawtucket, Rhode Island, he says he's testified a lot over the last three
years on municipal recycling legislation, trying to explain "that
there's no big hole in the ground in which you can keep shoving
things." He says legislators hear "supply and demand" and
get confused. "They think the more supply, the more demand.
They
don't understand that just because you have more supply, it doesn't mean
you're going to create more demand automatically."
More
Municipal Misconceptions
ReMA's
Southeastern Chapter---which includes processors in Florida, Georgia,
Alabama, and Tennessee--sends its legislative affairs director, Steven L.
Levetan, out to fight government officials' misconceptions that can pose
problems for the recycling industry.
A
typical misconception, aside from automatic increased demand, revolves
around mandatory goals for reducing solid waste through recycling. The
goals, a common feature of solid waste legislation, generally are set
without acknowledgement of the amount of materials already being recycled
by private industry, according to Levetan. "We had to argue for 10
months in Florida to show [legislators] that what we did should
count," he says.
A
popular though improper thought he also tries to set straight is that
recycling means separation and collection--period. Levetan continually
points out that processing and reuse must follow collection for recycling
to occur.
At
least one official has been convinced. Bill Hinkley, administrator of the
Solid Waste Section of Florida's Department of Environmental Regulation,
says, "Industry really drove home the message that just picking up a
pile of cans at the curb is not recycling
and I really take that
message to heart. We can dream up all kinds of schemes for collecting
recyclables, but if they're not remarketed in some useful way, then we
didn't do the job."
Hinkley notes DER's caution about "running over the industry" and points out a provision in the Florida law that requires local recycling programs to attempt to use all existing private-sector capacity for processing before acquiring new equipment. The principal reason for this, he says, is to get as much mileage as possible out of the grant program. "If your [recycling] program isn't orchestrated to work with the private sector, "Hinkley says, "it's doomed to failure right from the start."