Choose 75% Recycling or Watch 100% go up in Smoke

The stage is set to achieve 75% recycling of municipal solid waste (MSW) or have 100% go up in smoke using it as a fuel—it is up to us to decide by making our choice known to the Department of Environmental Protection. FS 403.7032 enacted in 2008 requires that DEP recommend to the legislature by January 2010 how to reduce the amount of recyclable solid waste disposed in waste management facilities, landfills, or incinerators by 75%. Fantastic, except for the huge fly in the ointment specifying that solid waste used for the production of energy counts as recycling.

Yes, legislation calling for 75% recycling also specifies that waste used as a fuel will count toward the recycling goal. Data indicate that for every material in municipal solid waste, recycling saves more than twice the energy that can be generated by using it as fuel.

An obvious criterion for counting waste used as a fuel as recycling should be that a net energy is obtained from the fuel. Burning MSW is like making ethanol from corn—it takes more energy to produce than is obtained by burning it. The EPA has calculated the energy to produce a ton of each constituent of MSW from both virgin and recycled materials. The energy saved by recycling is three to five times that produced using waste as a fuel. Energy saved by recycling is the greenest available.

Economic benefits of recycling make a compelling case for choosing it over use as a fuel. EPA data on jobs through recycling at 75% indicate that waste-based industries could support over 100,000 additional jobs in Florida with an annual payroll of up to $6 billion. Materials recovered in recycling programs in Florida would have a value of $600 million for recycling at 75%. Increasing recycling would provide many of the jobs needed to reduce unemployment now at 12%.

Producing new products from virgin raw material requires processes such as mining, use of fossil petroleum for plastics and fuel, and cutting or growing trees, all of which damage the environment, and are not sustainable. Recycling paper and plastics, which are not renewable fuels, would save energy, mean fewer trees cut from the world’s few remaining virgin forests and less of Appalachia destroyed in ripping coal from mountain tops.

Recycling 75% will require collection of food and other organic waste for biological decomposition such as in San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto and numerous other cities. Just as we now separate yard waste to keep it out of landfills, organic waste needs to be collected separated from recyclables. The technology for collection of source-separated waste is well developed.

What you can do: Make it known that you choose 75% recycling and that MSW is not a renewable fuel. Post comments on the DEP web site: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/recyclinggoal75/default.htm.

Or write to: Florida DEP, Bureau of Solid & Hazardous Waste, Division of Waste Management, 2600 Blair Stone Road, Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400

Write to your newspaper and state legislators. For more information visit: www.gatorsierra.org, and http://www.toronto.ca/garbage/index.htm.

To read more on the details, download a position paper here.

For an update on the current situation, download the latest doc here.

Waste Minimization Campaign and Coordinating Team: Dwight Adams, Debbie Matthews, Craig Diamond, Linda Demler, Drew Martin, Deb Swim, Cecilia Height, Mary Jo Castells. For Information send an email to Linda Demler, (linda.demler@sierraclub.org)