=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #108
—December 19, 1988—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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RECYCLING BREAKTHROUGH REPORTED.
A breakthrough has occurred in the recycling of household wastes,
such that incineration projects will now be very much on the
defensive. New evidence shows recycling is far cheaper than
incineration, is cleaner, and can handle a larger percentage of
household wastes.
A recent pilot test of recycling in the town of East Hampton, New
York, reveals that 73% of the town’s regular garbage can be
recycled. Regular garbage excludes bulky waste (like old
refrigerators), yard waste, and household toxics. Actually, the
pilot test shows 84% of each household’s regular garbage can be
recycled, but only 90% of the households in the town would be
expected to participate in a recycling program, and 90% of 84% is
73%.
Still, 73% recycling demonstrates dramatically that recycling can
solve the town’s garbage problem much more cheaply than
incineration or landfilling, and with much less environmental
damage. The East Hampton pilot project demonstrated a technique
called the Intensive Recycling System. A 285-page report on the
pilot test, released last week, provides strong evidence that
cost-conscious decision makers will now need to evaluate
recycling seriously before adopting expensive and dirty
technologies such as incineration.
East Hampton is a town of 15,000 people on eastern Long Island,
where tourists flock in the summertime, swelling the town like a
stuffed potato. One hundred volunteer households of year-round
residents participated in the pilot study for 10 weeks during
1988. They separated their trash into four categories: (1) food
waste and soiled paper; (2) paper/cardboard; (3) metal cans and
glass bottles; (4) non-recyclables. In the case of the East
Hampton pilot test, residents brought their separated trash to a
recycling center, because they had always taken their own wastes
to the town dump, but curbside pickup would have been a feasible
alternative.
Category 1 wastes were composted and the compost sold; category 2
and 3 wastes were processed by a materials recovery facility
(MRF) into marketable products: several grades of paper and
cardboard; aluminum cans; tin cans; scrap metal; and color-sorted
crushed glass, which is called cullet. Category 4 wastes, and
misclassified wastes rejected during processing, were landfilled.
(Plastics were included in category 4, the nonrecyclables.
However, it is well known that certain plastics can be recycled,
so refinement of the Intensive Recycling system should be able
to achieve recycling of over 84% of household wastes.)
The food waste, together with yard waste and sludge from
residential cesspools, produced marketable compost. The compost
was tested for toxic metals; metals were “far below” recommended
state and federal levels, according Tom Webster, a researcher on
the pilot project.
Bottles and cans, and two thirds of the paper and cardboard, were
shipped to a materials recovery facility (MRF) operated by Peter
Carter (Resource Recovery Systems, Inc.), in Groton, CT. The
composting operation and the MRF rejected only 2.4% of the trash
sent to them, thus converting 97.6% into marketable goods.
The remaining 1/3 of the papercardboard wastes were landfilled
because there was inadequate dumpster space available to the
pilot project to allow shipment to the MRF, according to Jim
Quigley, another project researcher. In a full-scale program,
this 1/3 would also be recycled, further boosting the total
fraction of materials recycled.
“In sum,” says Dr. Barry Commoner, who led the study team, “the
test showed that the participants efficiently classified the
trash and that the composting operation and the materials
recovery facility could effectively convert nearly all the
separated trash into marketable products.”
As part of the pilot study, Dr. Commoner’s team looked at the
feasibility and costs of a full-scale recycling program for the
town, and for other towns. They concluded that the Intensive
Recycling System would work in all communities (towns and
sections of large cities) where the housing is largely one-to
four-family buildings and where residents are accustomed to
either a drop-off system (such as in East Hampton), or where
curbside collection is practiced. About 65% of New York state’s
population lives in such communities. Even in New York City, the
Intensive Recycling System would be suitable for large sections
of Brooklyn and Queens, and all of Staten Island.
Where large multi-family residences (apartment houses and
projects) are the dominant types of buildings, the Intensive
Recycling System would work as soon as procedures are developed
for collecting trash separated into the four categories. The
study team believes this is feasible but has not studied in
detail how to do it.
The Intensive Recycling System will work best when there are
100,000 people or so participating, which means that smaller
communities should be organized into regional systems of at least
that total size.
One key to success is high participation rates. In many locales,
where voluntary recycling programs have been set up, only 10% of
the population participates. Dr. Commoner’s team strongly
suggests that individuals, and trash haulers, be required to
participate by local ordinance. They believe that, with an
ordinance, participation of 90% could be routinely achieved.
A full-scale, year-round Intensive Recycling System for East
Hampton is estimated to cost $127 per ton. Incineration costs for
the same town would be $195 to $209 per ton, depending on the
type of landfill required for the resulting ash. If the ash has
to go to a hazardous waste landfill, the higher incineration
costs would apply. Shipping the waste off Long Island for burial
elsewhere would cost $179 per ton. Thus it is apparent that the
Intensive Recycling System is about 35% cheaper than incineration
and 30% cheaper than carrying the stuff off Long Island for
burial elsewhere.
Environmental emissions from the composting operations and from
the materials recovery facility were monitored. From these
limited emissions data, and from other studies reported in the
literature, the team made a preliminary comparison of
environmental impacts incurred by the Intensive Recycling System
vs. the environmental impacts avoided by substituting recycled
materials for virgin raw materials. The net effect of recycling
is a reduced environmental impact, the team concludes, though
they add, “However, in many instances, especially with respect
to toxic chemicals, the available data do not permit such
comparisons, so the analysis is thus far incomplete.”
Tom Webster told us he believes the recycling system has a clear
advantage over incineration with regard to emissions of metals
and particles. He said organic chemical emissions need to be
studied properly for comparison purposes. The report, DEVELOPMENT
AND PILOT TEST OF AN INTENSIVE MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE RECYCLING
SYSTEM FOR THE TOWN OF EAST HAMPTON was written by Barry
Commoner, Michael Frisch, Hanns-Andre Pitot, James Quigley, Alex
Stege, Deborah Wallace and Thomas Webster. It is available for
$20.00 to non-profits; $30 to commercial organizations and
government agencies; order from the Center for the Biology of
Natural Systems (CBNS), Queens College, Flushing, NY 11367; phone
(718) 670-4180.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: barry commoner; intensive recycling; east
hampton, li; ny; studies; cbns;