Waste Recycling
Public interest in recycling has increased dramatically over the last 15 years
throughout the industrialized world. This interest has been driven by a variety of
factors, including concerns about increasing waste generation and dwindling
landfill capacity, air pollution from incineration, and a general appreciation of the
need for environmental protection. In response, a wide array of policies,
regulations and programmes have been implemented.
In some countries, comprehensive extended producer responsibility (EPR)
frameworks have been introduced. EPR policies shift the responsibility for meeting
government-specified recycling targets to the industries that produce the
recyclables. Governments are also increasingly encouraging industries to adopt
environmental management systems (EMSs). These holistically address waste
generation through source reduction, reuse and recycling.
The US has taken a very different approach towards promoting recycling. While
Germany's EPR policies are highly centralized, the US federal government has
largely delegated the states to handle municipal waste management. Techniques
used to leverage EPR at the local level include:
- Networking with industry in a voluntary approach to promote EPR. Example:
The City of Seattle, King and Snohomish Counties in Washington, and Portland
Metro (a regional government agency in Oregon) formed the Northwest Product
Stewardship Council to di integrate product stewardship into the policy and
economic are structures of the Pacific Northwest.
- Passing local resolutions encouraging industry to take responsibility for their
products and packaging. Example: Los Angeles has passed resolutions calling on
the plastics industry to use more post-consumer recycled content in its products.
- Banning products that harm the environment and public health. Example: Duluth,
Minnesota, and the City and County of San Francisco have banned mercury
thermometers. Passing local deposit legislation for beverage containers. Example:
Columbia, Missouri has the nation's first and only local bottle bill.
- Taxing disposables. Example: City of Seattle established a tax on non-reusable
packaging and cutlery used at special evento restaurants, and institutions such as
hospitals.
- Developing purchasing protocols that encourage environmentally sound products
and restricting contracts to these products. Example: San Francisco passed a
resolution restricting future contracts with beverage companies/vendors to those
who provide containers with 10% recycled content by 2002.
- Addressing EPR as part of solid waste management plans and policy
development. Example: The August 1998 City of Seattle new solid waste plan, On
the Path to Sustainability, helped spur the creation of the Northwest Product
Stewardship Council. The plan adopts zero waste as a guiding principle, and
includes product stewardship as one of the programs for achieving future goals.
Support for product stewardship in the solid waste plan allowed city staff to justify
budget expenditures on work toward this goal.
In Germany, recycling has been driven by public support for sustainable
development and by concerns about diminishing landfill capacity. In response, the
German government was among the first to institute a comprehensive national
framework to promote recycling. This framework includes high national recycling
targets for municipal waste, EPR policies on used packaging, a deposit sys-tem for
beverage containers, and requirements for the commercial sector to source separate
recyclables. Perhaps the most notable component of German system is the EPR
scheme for used household packages which was first introduced in the 1991
German Packaging Ordinance.
In Germany's EPR system, the packaging industry is responsible for ensuring that
government-specified recycling rates for used household packaging are met.
Recycling targets are 60% for aluminium, plastics and composites, 70% for paper
and cardboard, 70% for steel, and 75% for glass. Retailers and packaging
companies are required to accept and recycle used packaging from consumers. As
an alternative, companies can contract with a third party to collect packaging from
households and ensure that government-specified recycling targets are met.
Most of the German packaging industry has adopted this alternative approach. The
resulting Green Dot system has become a model for subsequent EPR programmes
in Europe and elsewhere. Green Dot member companies pay per-package, material
specific fees to the Duales System Deutschland (DSD). The DSD uses proceeds
from the fees to fund household collection and sorting, as well as to contract with
end-users to accept and recycle specific quantities.
While the UK has adopted EPR, it has taken an unusual approach. The country's
packaging industry is responsible for demonstrating that recycling targets have
been met through the purchase of tradable packaging recovery notes (PRNs).
These notes, which are created when specific quantities of materials are recycled,
are purchased by brokers and are then sold to individual companies or to industry
compliance programmes. Since PRNs are not specific to a particular location,
reprocessors tend to recycle the materials that can be collected and reprocessed at
the lowest cost, leading to a system that theoretically is very cost-effective.
Japan, like the other Asian countries is densely populated and has limited landfill
capacity. As a result, the country has relied on incineration as its predominant
means of waste disposal: nearly 70% of Japan's MSW is incinerated. In the 1990s,
concerns arose about emissions from incineration. In response, the Japanese
government adopted a comprehensive policy framework to increase recycling.
Components of this framework include:
- a 50% reduction target in landfilling rates from 1996 to 2010
- material-specific recycling targets for packaging materials
- locally enforced source-separation mandates
- a requirement for municipalities to operate recycling programmes
- federal government subsidies to support recycling programmes
- EPR laws for packaging and electronics
- national green procurement regulations
- government financing of pilot programmes and research and development.
Many of these policies came into place after 2000. Their effects are just beginning
to appear in the recycling statistics available.
Given the differences from one country to another, it is not possible to specify a
blanket set of policies that are best for all. Instead what is best for any particular
country, region or locality depends on what is practical, affordable, as well as
politically and socially acceptable.
Questions 27-31
Match the following initials to statements made about them.
A. EPR
B. EMS
C. DSD
D. PRN
E. MSW
27. most waste is burnt MSW(E)
28 involves household collections DSD(C)
29. involves industry packaging EPR(A)
30. involves a holistic approach to waste reduction EMS(B)
31. very cost-effective PRN(D)
Questions 32-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage
3?
In boxes 32 - 40 on your answer sheet write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage.
32. Under EPR policies it is now the responsibility of the end user to recycle waste.
FALSE
33. In contrast to Germany, US federal states are responsible for waste
management. TRUE
34. Two American cities have banned the use of mercury thermometers. TRUE
35. Seattle requires its local restaurants to pay a tax on non-reusable knives and
forks. TRUE
36. One American city has stopped buying from drinks companies whose products
do not include recycled content. TRUE
37. It was public demand that led to Germany instituting national laws to govern
recycling. TRUE
38. German packaging has a Green Dot on all its recyclable packaging. NOT
GIVEN
39. Only British company can buy packaging recovery notes. FALSE
40. Japan's waste emissions have fallen since the year 2000. NOT GIVEN
