The EPR Trilogy

Together At Last: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Total Recycling

Total Recovery for Reuse, Recycling, and Composting: How to Make It So

Extended Producer Responsibility in British Columbia – A Work at Risk

These articles were written individually for publication elsewhere and are collected here pre-publication for distribution to attendees at the Northern California Recycling Association’s Recycling Update XVII, March 27, 2012. They are presented in the order written.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the appropriate copyright owner.

2 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 Together At Last: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Total Recycling

Daniel Knapp, Ph.D. years ago developed a rhetoric that The CPSC Webinar focused on just assumed recycling was in the way one commodity type: batteries. The and had to be set aside for EPR to speakers were actually part of the EPR versus Total Recycling. work. This rhetoric often resorted to battery reclamation supply chain in Sometime in the cold wet spring sloganeering: recycling was “so last various parts of California. My big of 2011, NCRA President Arthur century,” recycling “enables wasting.” takeaway from a day of listening: Boone set up what he hoped would They said EPR, pursued correctly, as EPR ideas are being tested and be a stirring and member-pleasing made recycling outmoded and refined in actual practice, reality is debate between opponents on the unnecessary, because products would forcing EPR and total recycling back EPR issue. He allotted one hour simply go back to their makers. together. They are complementary, of NCRA’s agenda to thrashing out not opposed. Both are necessary. the differences. He invited me to to But as we came closer to the May 19 represent the Total Recycling side. meeting date, the issues morphed or No one could be found to represent evaporated. the “purist” EPR position at our I started by reviewing my files and meeting. catching up on the sometimes One event brought matters to a head sizzling online debate over EPR. for me: I attended an all-day Webinar With no opponent to debate and The audience online was the more sponsored by the California Product the deadline approaching, I decided than 1,000 participants in a listserve Stewardship Council (CPSC). Heidi to lay out the experiential basis for operated by the GrassRoots Recycling Sanborn was the very able master reconciliation and agreement on next Network, or GRRN. The listserve is of ceremonies for the nine or so steps. GreenYes.com. Although I support speakers that gave us a grounded and and believe strongly in producer factual picture of how EPR is actually I came up with six arguments to responsibility, I’ve argued strenuously working. support the happy conclusion that for Total Recycling in a lot of these Total Recycling and EPR are essential arguments, which can go on for days. And how it is working is not like the and complimentary approaches to EPR Framework says it should be attaining Zero Waste to landfill and I’m for EPR, always have been. But working. It needs recycling facilities to incineration. Here they are, somewhat the people who grabbed the EPR succeed at all. revised in the ensuing months: brand and ran with it about ten

1. FORMER OPPONENTS ARE Daniel Knapp is President of Urban Ore, Inc. This report was originally prepared for presentation to the Northern California Recycling Association GETTING TOGETHER. meeting May 19, 2011, by Daniel Knapp, Ph.D. and CEO, Urban Ore, Inc. This version was published in NCRA News, the organization’s online newsletter. It Helen Spiegelman of the Product was revised slightly a few days later and distributed to an invitation-only EPR/ Policy Institute and I have debated Total Recycling Planning Group meeting, which took place June 4 and 5, 2011, both sides of the EPR issue for years at Avrom Systems’ conference center just outside Springfield, Illinois on the GreenYes listserve. Others Illustrations by Nancy Gorrell. This version of the article ©2012 Daniel Knapp. often joined in. These discussions The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 3 erupted spontaneously, usually stimulated by some event or other that we could use as a launching point. They could be contentious, but more recently, Helen and I have been emailing back and forth in tones of reconciliation and mutual respect. Helen seems as dismayed as I am about some of the ways EPR is being implemented. Besides writing some very kind words about Urban Ore as a reuse business, in one of her responses Helen praised the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) and Urban Ore for defending EPR from ©2012 Nancy Gorrell©2012 the “Giants of Garbage” who want to “highjack” EPR commodities to feed new publicly-owned transfer facility. This finding also validates the landfills and incinerators. A faxed spreadsheet from Tedd design approach used by Gary Liss shows the top three contributors to and Associates, Rick Anthony and 2. EPR NEEDS A NEW this sudden jump in collection. The Associates, the Institute for Local Self- GENERATION OF TOTAL transfer station accounts for 3,065 Reliance, Urban Ore Development RECYCLING FACILITIES WITH pounds in 2009, more than nine Associates, and county staff when PURPOSE-BUILT SPACES FOR times the contribution of the next together we created the Del Norte HANDLING EPR-COLLECTED two collectors, large stores that sell conceptual site plan for the engineers COMMODITIES. the batteries. The Product Policy and builders to follow. Urban Ore’s Institute’s Framework for EPR would design practice for more than a Batteries are one commodity whose lead one to expect the reverse, as in decade has been to provide for final disposal just about all EPR reverse logistics, which it champions. a substantial area and at least programs are designed to control. But that is not what is happening. one purpose-built building on the transfer station site dedicated to A very important speaker was Tedd Incidentally, the in-store takeback handling any and all regulated Ward, who with Kevin Hendrick (VP program was funded by a grant materials. of CPSC) manages the regional from CalRecycles, the new agency recycling and waste transfer station that in 2009 replaced the California 3. THE LIST OF MATERIALS in Del Norte County, California. This Integrated Waste Management Board. HANDLED BY A VERY is a rural county six hours by road Since the county population is small, COMPREHENSIVE EPR PROGRAM from San Francisco, so it is distant the retailer takeback program has IN CANADA IS ABOUT THE SAME from export markets. Nevertheless, achieved very high participation by AS THE LIST OF MATERIALS the county has has great success in businesses selling batteries, so it is HANDLED BY ZERO-WASTE waste reduction, having exceeded the a good case study of the emerging TRANSFER STATIONS IN statewide 50% “diversion” mandate a industry. CALIFORNIA DESIGNED WITH A couple of years ago. SUBSTANTIAL PURPOSE-BUILT This finding verifies that a new REGULATED-MATERIALS AREA . Tedd Stated that the Del Norte generation of transfer stations is Transfer Station is the largest needed even with full EPR at the On May 16, 2011, Bill Sheehan of source of EPR-collected batteries retailer level. The reason a new Product Policy Institute forwarded a in Del Norte County, California, generation of transfer stations is summary written by Monica Kozmak despite the fact that most if not all needed is that the old ones built in of the regulated materials covered retailers in the county now have the 1980s to replace closing landfills by Vancouver, British Columbia’s take-back systems. He presented a are wearing out and were usually not actual EPR program, with commodity- graphic that shows battery reclamation designed to fit today’s best practices specific links. This list is a fairly at very low levels until 2008, when in reuse, recycling, and composting. complete snapshot of the universe they jumped tenfold. The increase Many lack a designated area where of EPR commodities circa 2011. Mr. roughly coincided with the opening of regulated materials may be collected, Sheehan endorsed British Columbia’s the “regulated materials area” at the sorted, and shipped to producers or program as “the most comprehensive, end-users. industry-supported Extended 4 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 Producer Responsibility approach in I believe that all of the above REQUIREMENTS, AND Canada”. Here is Ms. Kozmak’s list: commodities are currently SORTATION FUNDING ARE handled by and within the Del CRITICAL PROBLEMS THAT ARE “British Columbia also has takeback Norte Transfer Station regulated CURRENTLY HOLDING BACK programs for materials area. Some are dropped EPR’S FURTHER DEVELOPMENT. electronics http://www.env.gov. off at or near the purpose-built bc.ca/epd/recycling/electronics/ “household hazardous materials” Controlling the collection of targeted index.htm (like computers, TVs, building on the site, some are materials with mandates is just the first audio-visual equipment, cell phones, salvaged from the wasting area tip step. Next comes processing. In the batteries), floor and brought there for processing. EPR webinar I heard again and again paint, http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/ Customers pay a disposal service fee from different speakers representing epd/recycling/paint/index.htm , to enter the facility, and may also pay all levels of the battery supply chain pesticides, solvents, gasoline http:// additional commodity-specific fees that the space and funding to www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/recycling/ in order to drop off certain regulated do the labor- and skill-intensive liquid/index.htm, items. Other collections may be partly work of EPR processing is a big used oil and empty oil containers. or fully supported by manufacturers or problem that must be solved. Rob http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/ payments from the state. In contrast Darcey, Program Manager for the recycling/oil/index.htm, to what the Product Policy Institute’s Santa Clara Hazardous Waste oil filters http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/ Framework requires, the county Management Program, said “you have epd/recycling/oil/index.htm, Solid Waste Authority rather than the to be careful for what you wish for.” tires http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/ manufacturers is currently bearing the He was referring to being inundated epd/recycling/tires/index.htm, full cost of sortation, packaging, and by regulated toxic and hazardous lead acid batteries http://www.env. shipping. So governments looking to materials soon after the startup of gov.bc.ca/epd/recycling/batt/index. save money by implementing EPR takeback programs. He said that htm, may find their costs increasing rather currently “the takeback concept is compact fluorescent bulbs, than decreasing. burying local governments.” He thermostats and unused medications gets some of his funding for state- http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/ My guess is that just about any mandated universal waste handling recycling/pharm/index.htm. transfer station or landfill these days from PG&E (regional electric utility), Programs for antifreeze and that is open to the public will have a and has been thinking of asking them empty antifreeze containers http:// place or places where most of these to earmark 60% of any funding for www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/recycling/oil/ commodity types can be handled. lighting takebacks to be spent on index.htm, “infrastructure” – space and labor as well as small appliances will 4. MANY EPR BATTERY to handle the fluorescent fixtures, be introduced this year. In 2012, all PROFESSIONALS THINK tubes, and compact fluorescent lights electronics will be covered.” SORTATION SPACE, LABOR (CFLs). He said his agency’s ability to pay for processing costs for these and other materials is almost nil So, he said, his impression is that “household hazardous waste programs are among the best- kept secrets of local governments.”

Sortation requirements can be labor-intensive and costly. What kind of work must be done? Just in the case of batteries, which collectively are less than ©2012 Nancy Gorrell The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 5 1% of the discard supply, they must different ways to handle the materials. stations like Del Norte to replace the be sorted quite carefully. Leaving He asked participants to “be patient landfills and incinerators, and over aside the question of auto and other with us” as the industry figures out time to replace the dirty mrfs too? large batteries, there are at least what to do. five major types of smallish batteries By forwarding the article by Ms. from gadgets and appliances such as 5. THE UODA-STYLE 12 Kozmak about Vancouver’s EPR TVs, computers, and phones. These CATEGORY ZERO WASTE programs, Bill Sheehan seems are: alkaline rechargable, alkaline TRANSFER STATION CREATES to be endorsing their seven-point non-rechargable, lithium ion, nickel- THE WORKING SPACES NEEDED strategy for achieving Zero Waste, cadmium (NiCad), and nickel-metal TO HANDLE REGULATED which in part recommends reducing hydride (NiMH). Some battery types COMMODITIES SO THEY CAN BE and reusing, capturing the organics, are dangerous and can explode if SHIPPED. keeping recyclables out of landfills mishandled. NiCad and batteries and incinerators, and providing larger than 9 volt have to be taped That space can be used by one for construction, renovation, and and bagged. Sortation and prepping operator, or many. The fee gate will demolition recycling, as well as for shipment offsite is a major cost for be a very important source of day-to- “fostering a local closed-loop collectors, and too often it is unpaid. day funding. The authority running the economy. All these worthy goals At the Del Norte Transfer station, facility can probably charge rent to the are best served by comprehensive for example, sorting and packaging specialized materials processors and twelve-market-category Zero Waste batteries for transport now takes about operators. Financing from industry transfer stations, in addition to three person-days per month. At the support can come to the processors other strategies such as retailer much bigger and more automated whether they are in-store or in-transfer take-back. Recology transfer station south station. of San Francisco, sortation takes I still have trouble with parts of The 10 hours of hand labor every day. The model for this portal of discard Framework document promoted Another speaker said at his facility, management is the airport. Nearly by PPI and CPSI, and would love one person stands at a table all day all airports are owned and operated to see it revised or dropped. It is every day doing nothing but sorting by an authority of some kind that too narrowly conceived to account for batteries. He said the work was “like builds and maintains the infrastructure the actual way EPR has developed shuckin’ oysters.” while collecting rents and user fees to and is developing. A review of EPR finance itself. statements from the Sierra Club, Other commodities covered by EPR ILSR, Clean Production Action, and mandates have similar processing 6. SO EPR ZEALOTS CAN GRRN shows that all are prepared to requirements. All this takes lots of RECONCILE EPR AND RECYCLING be somewhat flexible in determining human energy, and space. So EPR JUST BY RECOGNIZING AND when something is “true EPR” and done right creates lots of jobs. The HELPING RECYCLERS TO when it is not. ILSR, for example, webinar was full of real-world BUILD OUT THE NETWORK OF says “EPR initiatives include product examples that confirm that lots of CENTRALIZED TWELVE-MARKET- take-back programs, deposit refund careful human handling is needed to CATEGORY ZERO-WASTE systems, product fees and taxes, make EPR work. EPR done well is TRANSFER STATIONS THAT WE and minimum recycled-content laws.” labor and skill-intensive, just like reuse HAVE LONG PROMOTED AS A KEY EPA says “There is no ‘one size fits done well. GOAL OF EPR AND ZERO WASTE all’ EPR solution appropriate for all POLICY. THAT’S LESS OF A JUMP, product systems.” Although the space needs of EPR NOW THAT WE SEE WHAT EPR IS are large, EPR policy does not ACTUALLY DOING. Urban Ore has never been against provide much in the way of specific EPR itself, just what we see as overly guidance on what kinds of spaces Do that, and we’re on the march. rigid interpretations and a tendency are best. One representative from to label recyclers as “enablers” of Energizer batteries laid out a vision Then we can take our ideas and wasting. That now seems to be for an industry-sponsored rollout designs to a federal government behind us. of EPR battery takeback, and said still trying to find projects that they any program they back will have to can finance that will soak up some Together we can do great things. be multibrand, involve “all levels of of the excess labor now sloshing the supply chain,” be implemented around in the US economy. How DAN KNAPP in phases, and based on “trials” of about a rollout of Zero Waste transfer

6 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 ©2012 Nancy Gorrell Total Recovery for Reuse, Recycling and Composting: How to Make It So Midwest Recycling Leaders’ Heartland Meeting Merges Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Total Recycling Agendas; Benefits for Zero Waste Planning Worldwide; Group Charts New Zero Waste Business Model for Sustainable Resource Development, Calls Supporters Zeronauts

Responsibility with Total Recovery century-old Maldaner’s Restaurant, Wynne Coplea for all discards. The meeting was Food Fantasies grocery store, and held in a large private residence on a Trout Lily Cafe. As we toured the solar Although this is getting on toward wooded hilltop that is equipped with heated and cooled house, we learned being “olds” rather than “news,” I think a conference center having all the that our host Harv Koplo chairs Earth BioCycle readers will take some useful bells and whistles you might expect Springfield, a collection of about concepts and maybe some inspiration in a five-star hotel. Harvey Koplo 20 environmental advocacy groups from my report out of a place near and Annette Chinuge of Sustainable networking “to provide communication the geographic center of the North Springfield and Avrom Systems and support and working for local and American continent. hosted the Spaulding House meeting regional betterment”. at no charge to the participants. Local A select group of 25 materials businesses contributed delicious and The meeting was convened over the recovery business leaders and locally-grown food and drink, including weekend of June 4-5, 2011. It was planners, invited mostly from Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa, got together After 20 years managing recycling and waste for the City of Springfield, Illinois, on two verdant spring days outside Wynne Coplea has now joined Heartland Community College as Director of Springfield, Illinois, to discuss how College Partnerships within the Ilinois Green Economy Network. She will now work at a statewide level on large issues of sustainability. This article is ©2011 to integrate Extended Producer Wynne Coplea. Illustrations by Nancy Gorrell. The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 7 MaryEllen Etienne like myself thought this vision was of Reuse Alliance, just fine, and put considerable time, based in North energy, and money bringing the right Carolina; Debra mix of people home to Springfield. Kendrick-Hopgood, owner of Kendrick Grant support was generously Paper Stock in provided by Urban Ore, Inc., and ©2012 Nancy Gorrell©2012 southern Illinois; the Institute for Local Self Reliance Paul Jaquet, a helped offset travel costs for several Director of Eagle attendees. But the overall cost was Enterprises very low. Recycling in northern Illinois, Dr. Daniel Knapp of Urban Ore and IRA President; provided all participants with a thought and Walter Willis, piece prior to the meeting. “EPR and staff member at the Total Recycling: Together at Last” is Solid Waste Agency an essay originally published in NCRA of Lake County. News, the newsletter of the Northern timed to end one day before the three- All were distinguished, informed, California Recycling Association. day annual meeting of the Illinois accomplished, and good at problem Using California’s regulations for Recycling Association (IRA), also in solving. About half the participants batteries as a case study of how Springfield, on June 6-8. Organizers hailed from Illinois. Coastal folks were EPR recycling is actually being done, assumed that the Heartland recycling a minority, less that one-fourth. Dr. Knapp marshalled evidence that industry leaders’ meeting would EPR battery reclamation efforts in generate some conclusions that this We agreed at the outset to explore California are most effective when group could report out to the broader and map the linkages between they use both retail take-back and IRA membership for peer review. A Extended Producer Responsibility multimaterial purpose-built resource special track was created to receive and Total Recycling policies, as these recovery parks. our report on the afternoon of the terms are currently defined in the annual meeting’s first day. We the industry and as we encounter them These multimaterial Resource participants would decide who was to in our work. Issues arising from Recovery Parks (RRPs) exist in present to the IRA member meeting. clashes between advocates for EPR varying stages of development. No So the two events were linked. No versus Total Recycling had been one model can do justice to the variety one knew beforehand what would hotly debated over several years that is out there. But these facilities make it into the report, but we were by participants in the Grassroots are pushing diversion numbers ever optimistic that it would be good. Recycling Network’s GreenYes blog. higher, past 75% in some cases, Organizers from both coasts felt it was with vigorous competition between The people who came represented time for an extended discussion in a communities like Berkeley and San for-profit and nonprofit material more neutral place with people having Francisco to see who can get closest recovery businesses, city and county no particular ideological axe to grind, soonest to Zero Waste to landfill. governments, advocacy groups, bearing in mind always the theme of All RRPs are essentially and colleges and universities. reconciliation. Heartland organizers concentrations of disposal service The group included Mike Mitchell, Executive Director of Illinois Recycling Association; Teresa Kurtz, Executive Director of the Iowa Recycling Association; John Bradford, Chief Innovations Officer, Interface Inc., (world’s largest carpet tile manufacturer and major takeback corporate pioneer); Dr. Neil Seldman from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington, DC; Buddy Boyd of Gibsons Recycling, near Vancouver, British Columbia; ©2012 Nancy Gorrell 8 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 enterprises handling virtually require them to be incinerated all commodities that can be rather than digested . separated from the entire discard supply prior to wasting. Some told of inequities and Some are monopolies; others disincentives in actual practice. feature diverse ownership One delegate complained models, including some run that even though he collects by governments for a profit. and prepares EPR-covered RRPs are showing daily that materials, the only processor all commodity types (and who gets paid for the work there are hundreds) can be his business does is the one readily sorted, upgraded, and that takes the materials off sold back into commerce. his hands for free. He cannot Materials subject to regulatory legally dump the materials, so mandates are a special part he has to give them away. So of RRPs, often with their he loses money every time own dedicated buildings, he handles fluourescent light equipment, and staff. Since bulbs. battery reclamation is a subspecialty of most EPR Despite these glitches, the programs, the emerging group agreed that this was business model for reclaimed not a debate about opposing batteries is similar to that for philosophies, but rather a other commodities such as The Heartland working group selected this compact Zero working out of details of when flourescent fixtures, paints, Waste Resource Recovery Park design as an example and how EPR policy should be electronics, and anything else of what is needed. This RRP combines reuse, recycling, applied. regulated materials handling, and composting in one EPR advocates want to manage. purpose-built facility. Over time, such facilities can completely replace landfills and incinerators by reducing The group agreed that extended Dr. Knapp’s paper argued that unrecyclable residues to near zero levels. Design by Mark producer responsibility is Total Recycling is not only Gorrell, Architect, for Urban Ore Development Associates actually just one tool in the completely compatible with EPR, (UODA), for Del Norte County Solid Waste Management resource management policy but the two actually require Authority. toolbox. EPR is best used one another to succeed in the Coordinator, and I know almost cautiously and incrementally competition against wasting. In other all these people very well. I came to control those materials and items words, the game we should be playing prepared to be the moderator, but that are hazardous or toxic, are made is win-win, not zero-sum. the group’s overall can-do attitude of multiple materials or are difficult to and respectful demeanor made my recover for recycling. Still, there was a history of discord job easy. Discussion at all times over these points. And with the array remained courteous and inviting to It was generally agreed that EPR of organizations and geographic anyone who wanted to be heard. in the form of take-back laws and locations represented, retreat And what a conversation it was! We regulations should not focus solely on organizers weren’t sure that the group shared current, working examples of manufacturing and retail communities, could arrive at agreement. They Extended Producer Responsibility but should also involve some level of decided not to allow audio or video (EPR) in action, and noted what works government participation, financing, recorders in order to give people more well and what doesn’t. At breaks, we oversight, and even ownership in the freedom to speak their truest thoughts. got to know one another better while case of resource recovery parks that It turned out there was nothing to fear. strolling outside in Ms. Chinuge’s handle multiple resource streams. After many hours of discussion and magnificent garden. friendly debate, the Heartland working What is needed is a new infrastructure group reached not only general We listened sympathetically while for discard management, a new agreement but consensus, which is delegates told how well-intended hardscape focused on resource hard to do with 25 people who have EPR policy has sometimes reduced conservation, not elimination. never been together before. opportunities for conservation, in one example by setting up channels for Also needed are many new I serve as Springfield’s Recycling EPR-collected pharmaceuticals that entrepreneurs and niche enterprises

The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 9 focusing on quality of service and product and handling one or more of twelve master market categories.

The group agreed jointly to pursue a goal of sustainable resource management in all of their territories and localities. The idea is to reduce wasting (of any sort) incrementally by increasing recovery for ©2012 Nancy Gorrell composting, recycling, and reuse. reasonably be expected to undertake. classified as wastes, a major error. On the second day, using John Why is a new hierarchy needed? Waste reduction and recycling were Bradford’s computer and with John It is because the Solid Waste placed at the top point of the chart, himself as Scribe, the group projected Management Hierarchy of about which is flattering. But thanks to the its thinking onto the conference twenty-five years ago is badly out of triangle shape of the model, the space center’s large screen so that all could date, and a new one just promulgated that could be occupied by source see. Then for a few hours the 25 is clunky. The decades-old one reduction (including EPR) and reuse delegates focused collaboratively featured a triangle-shaped chart and recycling was tiny. So solid waste on building up a coherent chart of showing most-preferred to least- managers didn’t expect much of waste actions and program choices that any preferred methods of “disposing of reduction and recycling back in the unit of government or business may waste materials.” All discards were day, and they built facilities based

The group created this Sustainable Resource Management Hierarchy believing that it can serve as a general basis for improving recycling laws and materials management policies. Municipalities, businesses, and other units of government will start by enacting policies and programs that acknowledge Zero Waste as the ultimate goal of a new approach to discard management. Governments’ most important role is to identify, provide, and regulate preferred and superior methods for handling and final disposition of all discards without wasting anything. 10 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 on that assumption. Meanwhile, made no such assumption when they Proven underutilized handling Incineration for energy recovery and built their chart. The new model that methods such as reuse recovery sometimes only for volume reduction they invented on the spot has no do not require any new high-tech occupied the center of the pyramid, waste as part of the cycle of materials solutions; quite the opposite. Reuse a space much bigger than recycling. through our economy. So the word industry practice has shown that Landfill disposal with no energy “waste” was intentionally omitted approximately 5% of the discard recovery was shown as the last in this new approach to the discard stream can be recovered for reuse choice (some called it “The Baseline stream, formerly known as the waste as is, with no repair or refurbishment Alternative”) at the bottom, which was stream. required. Reuse enterprises are unfortunate placement because as typically self-supporting, and some the bottom of the pyramid it was the And here we were, a bunch of such as Urban Ore have developed biggest part. This was obviously not supposedly stodgy, conservative substantial niche recycling enterprises about Zero Waste at all. Landfilling Midwesterners! Pardon us if we for materials as diverse as ceramics, was the only destiny for almost all felt we were making a conceptual textiles, and nonferrous metal scrap, discards not destroyed by burning. breakthrough of coastal proportions. to ensure that most nonreusable items can be recycled. This chart was widely disseminated Taken together, the strategy for many years among waste embedded in this chart challenges The reuse industry has continued professionals growing in the as a graphic past two to three representation years of our of typical public slowed economy. policy at state Newly established and local levels secondhand, of government pawn and across the nation. consignment shops are proliferating But perceptions everywhere. change. Very Our culture has recently, the greatly expanded triangle chart opportunities on the USEPA’s for purchasing website was gently-used goods. turned upside Cable TV shows down. This such as American shift brought the ©2012 Nancy Gorrell Pickers and Pawn hierarchy closer to what is actually the status quo in the field of discard Stars tap into this enthusiasm for old happening, because it showed vastly management. It’s about time! The stuff. Antiques Roadshow and Do It greater amounts of material in the current state of affairs in this industry Yourself (DIY) programming do the reduce, reuse, and recycle category. has helped bring us economic same for PBS stations. Online retailer Landfilling, which has been declining insecurity, unnnecessary division, eBay does a booming business in since about 2004, is placed at the joblessness as a chronic condition, used items. Online reuse matching bottom of the chart, now the small and economic stagnation. services such as Freecycle.org are end. This probably means the EPA In this economy, who can afford to be expanding. Reusing and repurposing expects to see less reliance on waste-ful? is something of an obsession with landfilling and less material in this many Americans right now, and category. Incineration is still there, The working group assumed feeding this growing demand brings though, still in the middle. that government policy toward with it a bounty for governments in infrastructure renewal and redesign the form of sales taxes, payroll taxes, The problem with this chart is that it should encourage, incentivize or income taxes, property taxes, and assumes there will be materials to even require composting, reuse, and licensing fees. dispose of that have no beneficial use. recycling as first and best choices for Therefore they must be landfilled or materials handling. These beneficial In addition to reuse and to recycling incinerated, with or without capture of uses should gradually replace current paper, bottles and cans, some energy. The Heartland working group wasteful disposal practices. materials formerly considered difficult

The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 11 to recycle are We must compost enjoying greater everything we can recycling success because we need to these days. Food shut off the flow of scrap recycling carbon into landfills, is expanding which are are the rapidly, adding number one human- putrescibles to caused source of plant debris and methane, a potent food paper as greenhouse gas. major compost It is expensive feedstocks. A ©2012 Nancy Gorrell and inefficient to broader range of polymer types productive and less risky than their capture methane from landfills to are being accepted for recycling. below-ground counterparts. With generate electricity, and it destroys Scrap prices for all kinds of recycled the model provided by Goteborg, we materials that otherwise have high commodities are nearing the last also know they can be destinations, potential value. Methane in landfills historic highs achieved just before the with restaurants and entertainment is produced by organics rotting with last bubble burst in 2007 and 2008. operating alongside the familiar little or no oxygen. The explosive gas disposal services and serving the hydrogen sulfide is also produced in Meanwhile, disturbing news stories hungry hardworking people who this environment. These are the same on mining and oil well disasters frequent this type of marketplace. materials that are so beneficial to soil have sharpened our focus on the when properly composted. Discarded importance of conserving the refined Composting is prominent in the food comprises approximately resources we already have. Recycling sustainable resource management 14% of all that we currently landfill, processing centers, and especially business hierarchy. Processing according to USEPA estimates. When publicly owned resource recovery organics into compost for use as soil combined with other compostable parks such as the one in Goteborg, amendments and natural fertilizers materials, nearly half of our current Sweden, are newly respectable. is a low-impact, job-creating, highly discard stream could be recovered The public increasingly sees them effective method for developing the for beneficial use through aerobic as above-ground mines, more value inherent in these materials. composting. Sustainable Resource Planning

Producer Retailer Consumer Government Responsibility Responsibility Responsibility Responsibility Sustainable Design Source Locally Reduce Lead by Example Transparency Take Back Shop Smart Oversight Triple Bottom Line Sell in Bulk Refuse Regulation Environmental Product Green Procurement Reuse Infrastructure Declaration Reduce Packaging Separate Zoning Extended Producer Reusable Packaging Precycle Incentivize Responsibility Reuse Choose Market Development Reduce Packaging Recycle Sustainable Resource Technical Assistance Compost Management Education Educate Consumer Civic Engagement Green Procurement Develop Metrics Support Existing Enterprise All Stakeholder Engagement 12 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 Anaerobic digestion has a role to play as well, but not for mixed-MSW feedstocks. AD is best used to dispose of manures and fats by converting them to methane and converting the methane to electric current. Small- scale 3-5MW powerplants based on this feedstock are being built ©2012 Nancy Gorrell and operated successfully in many priced much higher, and closer to their conservation. Some green jobs are locations around the Heartland states. actual cost, reflecting public will and very labor intensive, knowledge- policy to redirect these materials to intensive, and low tech, and produce The barriers to total recovery for other, more beneficial end uses. benefits that go well beyond the composting, reuse or recycling perceived convenience of one time include a vast lack of sufficient After creating the first chart, the use followed by compulsory wasting. infrastructure spread across each Heartland working group also created state. This missing or poorly designed a second chart listing responsibilities At the end of the retreat, attendees discard handling infrastructure is a for government, business, asked “what next? What should be significant barrier to total recovery manufacturers, and recyclers as they our priorities for action? What shall for composting, reuse, and recycling. reach for total recovery. we call ourselves, and should we meet There simply are not enough compost Note that education figures again? sites, reuse operations and recycling prominently in this chart and tops the processors to handle the flow of list for government responsibility for Members said their goodbyes and potentially recoverable material that sustainable planning. New disposal went back to their home organizations poor handling is currently wasting. systems will work much better when and began to write policy, educate But this lack of infrastructure is a the people who use them understand others, and talk with public leaders huge opportunity for government and the how and the why. Developing about the need to enact improved business entities that are are looking enterprises and teaching customers plans and laws that incorporate for proven, reliable new sources how to use new material recovery sustainable resource management. of revenue. There is much more infrastructures will help effective They will advocate for much higher revenue to be gained from conserving sustainable resource management recovery and quality goals for resources than from destroying them, systems succeed wherever and recycling, reuse and composting. even with energy recovery. whenever they are built. They will work together advancing actions that educate and encourage In the next ten to fifteen years, Wasting is machine- and capital- policies for total recovery for recycling, the best and most efficient reuse, intensive, and the overall trend in the revising local government plans and recycling and composting practices wasting industries is to shed jobs, state laws as needed. should be provided with affordable not create them. Meanwhile sorting, land and work spaces sufficient to cleaning, densifying, classifying, Participants agreed we could be called satisfy consumer demand for low- and otherwise preparing materials “Zeronauts” – a name representing cost, conserving disposal. Landfill for reuse, recycling, or composting both the people and the Zero Waste disposal and incineration should is far more job-intensive for the philosophy of the group, soon to be be de-subsidized, which will cause same unit of disposal. That means online at www.zeronaut.org. destructive disposal methods to be a greater number of jobs in resource

The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 13 ©2012 Nancy Gorrell We agreed that we will meet Recycling Association’s Statewide total materials recovery was very again, probably near the one year Conference, June 6-8, 2011, and well received. People sensed all the anniversary of our June 2011 meeting, beyond. The working group chose hard work, and supported the working if not sooner. We Zeronauts hope that four people to present the charts to group’s output with strong applause, with this new Sustainable Resource the special IRA track. Ironically, they suggesting to me a profound change Management Hierarchy as a guide, were all coastal people! But it didn’t from our current, general perceptions business entities and local and matter, because the findings and and practices nationwide might be state governments anywhere and charts were everyone’s. Mary Lou coming to the discard management everywhere will move to implement Van Deventer, Neil Seldman, Rick field. specific, increased goals of total Anthony, and MaryEllen Etienne did recovery for recycling, reuse and the honors. During the presentation, Our society is moving quickly to composting, and pledge to support the large audience responded at embrace a more environmentally stated goals of near-zero disposal by first with a quiet hush and then with friendly and sustainable culture, landfill and incineration. an excited conversational buzz. It with new habits and new language seemed to this observer that the Zero affirming the axiom that “waste isn’t Then we reported out to the Illinois Waste approach blending EPR with waste until it’s wasted!” Cultural change is moving ahead of industry and government – with Zeronauts leading the way! It is time for industry and government to respond by replacing the outdated hierarchy that assumes waste with something more like the one we created in two intense days of collective effort, thus setting ourselves on course to achieve total materials recovery for a truly sustainable future.

Nadine Souto and journal The Tyee claimed “...BC Today is BC really far ahead? Has it Recycles Better than U.S.”2 generated a free and fair marketplace Dr. Neil Seldman, with for resource trading? Are the edits and footnotes by Citing “different philosophies about differences profound? And how are Dr. Daniel Knapp trash”, author Alan Thein During, those pioneering EPR programs Executive Director of Northwest working out, now that seven years Environment Watch, stated that “the have passed? Product Stewardship programs based Canadians have left the Americans In 2011, the Institute for Local Self- on Extended Producer Responsibility in the dustbin, so to speak.” The reason? “Surprise!” he said, “Our Reliance launched an inquiry about have been in place since 2004. The 3 1 BC’s experience : Product Policy Institute has long approach is more market driven than the Americans.’” 3 ILSR wrote about BC developments championed this Canadian province in 2000. See, Kelley Lease, Product as a model for communities seeking to 2 The Tyee: A Feisty One: Online News Stewardship in British Columbia, FactsTo boost resource recovery and minimize and Views For B.C., “Why B.C. Recycles Act On, #39, October 2000; And, Brenda environmental damage both in Better than U.S.”, by Alan Thein Durning. Platt, Local Initiatives Leverage Extended Canada and the US. In fact, PPI has http://thetyee.ca. Producer Responsibility, Facts to Act On, had a great deal to do with setting up the particular EPR system that British Columbia adopted and is now using. BC’s EPR regulations borrow their guiding principles directly from PPI’s “Framework,” for example.

This BC boosterism could be strident at first. Soon after passing the EPR legislation, an article in British Columbia’s online environmental 1 www.productpolicy.org ©2012 Nancy Gorrell Neil Seldman is co-founder and Nadine Souto is a senior at Vassar Edits and most footnotes are by Dr. President of ILSR, and a public College in Poughkeepsie, NY. She is Daniel Knapp, a public sociologist who social scientist helping strengthen a Zero-Waste organizer for Vassar is founder and CEO of Urban Ore, communities and businesses around College, which has reached 85% Inc., a reuse and recycling business the globe. Recycling and Zero Waste diversion, including an on-campus in Berkeley, California, since 1980. are central to his work. ILSR also food discard composting program. Ms. Thanks to Helen Spiegelman for her focuses on community self-reliance Suoto was an ILSR intern during the constructive criticism of an early draft in food, energy, and independent summer of 2011. of this article. This article is ©2012 by business networks. the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 15 As a co-sponsor of the 2011 Heartland meeting4 called to integrate EPR with Total Recycling held in Springfield, Illinois June 29 and 30, ILSR wanted to find out more. With intern Nadine Souto as lead researcher during summer and fall, we reviewed the enabling legislation, tried to sort out some of the “different philosophies” that we found, and talked with some Canadians well placed to evaluate how well the system is working. The result, we found, is a nuanced picture, a cause for some joy, but much more worry and heartache and even fear.

Like EPR in British Columbia, this ILSR report is also a work in progress. That is because EPR is a complicated mix of new and sometimes untried policies. Implementing new rules and procedures is always difficult, but rolling out EPR in all its fullness has been especially so. After our initial an equal footing with resource the incinerator vendors are seeking review, we see a bumper harvest of conservation. It explicitly endorses the public’s blessing to add new probably unintended consequences “waste” incineration, placing it number sources of pollution to the air sheds that threatens to give EPR a bad three on a list of four alternatives for and watersheds of this very beautiful name. discard management. In fact, burning and still fairly pristine part of the world. resources shares 3rd place with But EPR is a rapidly moving target, ”recover material...from the product”, The regulations governing BC’s and revisions are being debated and just above the 4th and last resort, EPR are posted to BC’s Ministry of issued. There is a lot of room for landfilling.5 Sensing a big opening, Environment’s website. In it, the improvement. We hope to illuminate incinerator vendors have flocked to the Ministry commits to “industry-led some of the emerging questions about province and are now forcing existing Product Stewardship programs [that] EPR in practice that people are being recyclers, EPR advocates, and require producers of designated forced to answer right now. Hopefully downwind communities to mobilize products to take Extended Producer others will jump in and help with this against what they see as subsidized Responsibility for the life cycle research by contributing articles of competition for the resource flows. your own. be weakened. They claimed the refill Well financed and working through the or recycle requirement “is inconsistent new EPR administrative structures6, with the recycling regulation (Section Our tentative conclusions: 5 “Reuse the product; recycle the product; C) , specifically the pollution prevention recover material or energy from the heirarchy whereby ‘recovery material 1. Incompatible product, otherwise dispose of the waste or energy from the product’ is accepted Objectives. from the product in compliance with the in other approved stewardship plans Act”. Environmental Management Act and continues to be accepted in Recycling Regulation, under the heading new stewardship plans.” See “Multi- British Columbia’s EPR enabling “management of collected products”. Stakeholder Review of Prescriptive law puts resource destruction on 6 In a just-published report on potential Measures in the Beverage Container #40, November 2000. Also, see, Kelley revisions to BC’s Beverage Container Legislation,” Interim Report, January 2012. Lease, Asian Countries Jump on the Regulation, Neil Hastie and Bill Prepared for the British Columbia Ministry EPR Bandwagon, Facts To Act On, #41, Chan of Encorp, the BC’s designated of the Environment by CM Consulting. January 2002. “Product Steward,” lobbied for relaxing Encorp is the provincewide designated 4 Wynne Coplea, Springfield’s Recycling the Province’s requirement that all Steward, or agent, for producers of EPR- and Waste Program Manager summarized deposit containers be either refilled or regulated products. What they want to do, this meeting, in a companion article. See recycled after collection and processing. obviously, is to burn aseptic containers and “Total Recovery for Reuse, Recycling, Specifically, they cited “Section 7 and some plastic packaging and get equivalent and Composting: How to Make it So,” by 8’s provision whereby containers must recycling credits for doing so. Wynne Coplea, September 2011. be recycled or refilled” as needing to 16 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 management of their products.”7 compliance” probably means “landfill the producer”. Collection facilities The regulations specify funding the wasted residuals”. But, contrary occupied by recyclers and reusers mechanisms for post-consumer to practice elsewhere (such as in before the regulation was promulgated collection, reuse, recycling and California), in BC burning is equal to are ignored, and regulations do not wasting by incineration or burial. recycling, not inferior, and landfilling is say how or whether they could ever still there at the bottom for the wasted be part of the EPR system. Given “Producers” are primarily responsible residual coming from any of the first that they may have to produce annual for product takeback. They can three approved processes. reports in great detail about all of their be manufacturers, wholesalers, “products”, they may not want to be retailers, or “agencies” chosen by In section 5-3 of the same website, part of the system anyway. This is a actual producers to represent them an expanded seven-part hierarchy problem that is generating complaints, for purposes of compliance with the is laid out for “Producers” to follow, about which more will be said. Act. These “producers” are required with three additional options placed to pick and choose among the above at the top of the list, ahead of reuse Over time, several other product disposal alternatives while at the same and recycling. Paraphrased, these categories have been phased in. Most time minimizing the environmental are: eliminate toxic components recently, these include electronics impacts of their products by adhering from products; increase energy and (2007) and packaging and printed to a Pollution Prevention Hierarchy. resource efficiency in manufacturing; paper under an amended regulation and redesign products to “improve passed May 2011. As new products More specifically, in Section 13 of reusability and recyclability”. (From are incorporated into EPR legislation, the regulations, “collected products” Recycling Regulation Guide, Part B-9, “producers” are required to develop are to be managed in four ways: “... p. 12). and implement Product Stewardship Plans as blueprints for compliance.

In some products subject to EPR regulation, such as pharmaceuticals, not only is burning the preferred disposal method, but we found little interest in and no consideration of low- temperature disposal alternatives.

The BC Medications Return Program collects unused medications at community pharmacies for “safe disposal” through incineration. We interviewed Ginette Vanasse of the Post-Consumer Pharmaceutical Stewardship Association (PCPSA). She stated flatly to us that incineration is the surest way to destroy all active ingredients contained in the discarded pharmaceuticals. Regarding reuse the product; recycle the product; The recycling industry’s term low-temperature composting of recover material or energy from the “collection facility” is narrowly defined these organic chemicals, she said product; otherwise dispose of the by the EPR legislation in product- “Composting would require “prior waste from the product in compliance specific terms, calling out each of denaturalization of active ingredients”. with the Act.” In the solid waste about a dozen product categories Even then, she said, “there is no management field, “waste” means all targeted by EPR for control. It is clear guarantee the substances would not discards, including those recycled, that a parallel and separate structure contaminate the environment.”8 reused, or composted; “recover from the existing recovery system is energy” usually means some form of to be built. It redefines “collection But incineration of mixed and incineration. “Dispose of the waste...in facility” as either a “return collection unknown feedstocks is a notorious 7 BC Ministry of Environment website, facility as defined in the Hazardous cause of environmental contamination. Product Stewardship. Available at http:// Waste Regulation, BC Reg 63-38”, In this case, pharma, the supposed www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/recycling/. Ac- or “a collection facility established by 8 Interview with Ginette Vanasse, by cessed on July 7, 2011 Nadine Souto, July 6, 2011. The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 17 feedstock, is incredibly diverse is not enforced. In an incineration abdicate an important chemically. The list of known program run by several jurisdictions in responsibility to protect the public chemical toxins produced when Alameda County in California, users interest. Governments, and BC’s similar feedstocks are burned is are told that any fluids should be kept government in particular, should be an exceedingly long one. Putting in their original containers, and pills testing and figuring out how to permit “environmental controls” on the must be put into ziplock plastic bags low-temperature disposal alternatives incinerator collects some of these and the original containers discarded such as destruction by bacteria chemicals and substances, many not elsewhere. This container entrainment and fungi in aerobic or anaerobic present in the feedstock but literally makes the burner’s feedstoclk far environments. Making source manufactured by burning. These more complex. separation compulsory would add to processes generate high tonnages the recycling rate for paper and for of furnace bottom ash and baghouse Given the known hazards of plastic containers. solids that have to be handled as incineration, it seems that BC hazardous waste and landfilled should be taking the lead in insisting Then, resource recovery rather somewhere. What is not collected that low temperature alternatives, than resource destruction could be as dust and ash is emitted to the including bioremediation, be trialed for added to the program’s claim of safe atmosphere, which disperses such destruction of surplus and outdated pharmaceuticals disposal. molecules over a wide area depending pharmaceuticals, especially pills on the prevailing winds. and liquids. These low-temperature On financing, PPI’s “Framework” systems’ costs and results could states that these additional costs of Fortunately for the people of British then be rationally compared with separation should not be borne by Columbia, their EPR collected incineration for cost and likely pharmacies. Rather, that they should pharmaceuticals are sent East to environmental damage or remediation. be added to the total stewardship an incinerator in sparsely populated But this is not happening, thanks to program costs and funded by Alberta and/or Saskatchewan. the profound tilt toward incineration manufacturers.9 Is this actually Knowing what we know about built into the structure of BC’s happening? Are drug and container collection inefficiencies, we think “Stewardship Council” approach. makers paying the true costs of it important to know how much In such a system, it should be destroying them? Are price signals recyclable paper and how many possible to recycle all or nearly all of built in to reward effective preparation at the source? Are collectors formally outside the Stewardship structure paid for their collection and sorting efforts? To what extent and for what materials?

For some EPR-regulated commodities, the preference for single-stream collection over source- separation means that there are large flows of “residuals”, resources made

9 In a position paper on different kinds of fees, PPI’s Bill Sheehan states “EPR requires that the Producer cover the finan- cial costs of end-of-life management of their products....” Mr. Sheehan acknowl- edges that there are many other kinds of fees extant (he names Extended Retailer Responsibility Fees, Extended Consumer Responsibility Fees, Extended Govern- plastic medication containers and the containers currently approved for ment Responsibility Fees, and three or four bags are entrained along with the incineration in the BC system. more including the widely used “fee for ser- pharmaceuticals and then sent to vice.” Notwithstanding all these other kinds the burn plant. While the PCPSA We suggest that for government of fees already out there and working, he says, “If the producer is not covering these encourages participating pharmacists to follow phalanxes of well- costs, it is not producer responsibility.” to recycle their containers and financed waste lobbyists down the Product Policy Institute Discussion Docu- packaging through their municipal technological risky and unnecessarily ment “To Fee or Not to Fee?... And the recycling programs, compliance expensive path of incineration is to answer is...Don’t fee! www.productpolicy. org, May, 2009. P. 1 18 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 recyclers has become full of hurdles, blockages, and obstacles. Again quoting Buddy Boyd, Executive Director of Gibsons Recycling Depot: “...the wasting staff and the public relations firms and politicians are trying to force us to close by making sure we have few contracts to bid on. And those we can bid on are for services we must provide at cost or below in order to retain market our existing market share. Subsequently their wasting contractor gets richer, then takes the government money and comes into the market place where we do our disposal business, and predatory prices (their services) almost free...to drive us out of business in some cases.”10 Since the Stewardship Councils can reject or rescind a permit to operate, putting a source separation business out of unrecyclable due to excessive mixing, This new structure has been business, such small depot operators breakage, and contamination. Dual- superimposed on an older existing are now living in fear of government stream and multistream approaches to recycling infrastructure largely without interference in the markets that they collection seem to be preferred. The explicit planning for integration. In built patiently and persistently over older infrastructure based on small August 2004 Buddy Boyd of Gibsons decades. collection depots has been bypassed. Recycling Depot sent out an email It appears that unknown but significant showing pictures of a new, mostly Some insiders say the same portions and mixtures of these unmanned drop-off facility that the thing. Dennis Kinsey, outgoing designed -in manufactured “residuals” SCRD (Sunshine Coast Regional RCBC (Recycling Council of British will be burned, adding exponentially District) placed near his facility. Columbia) Director, told us “In to the molecular complexity and British Columbia, EPR tends to be 11 therefore danger. “Two recycling depots 2 blocks apart monopolistic.” As a Director, Mr. (in a town of 4,500). Ever wonder Kinsey opposed “one-size-fits-all” 2. Level Playing Field – how and why recycling is (being solutions, but found himself out of Not! disrupted up here)? Look no farther step with the other directors because then Gibsons BC (which) enables of his insistence that “there shouldn’t be just curbside collection”, but also The bureaucratic elements of the EPR this... practice to occur by allowing existing “return-it centres for beverage takeback system that are supposed one layer of government (regional containers and electronics, return-to- to “level the playing field” have district) to (enjoy) an unfair competitive retail centres, centralized resource instead created profound difficulties advantage over an existing (self- recovery depots, etc.” He noted at for some enterprises already on the financed) private business practicing the outset of our conversation that scene and working when EPR was resource recovery and quality source he was “restricted about what he can promulgated. Soliciting, reading, and separated recycling. Just up the road say” because at the time we talked monitoring all the “plans” that are in the District of Sechelt, computers, he still had two weeks left to serve as required for each of the EPR product power tools and small appliances are Director. He told us that he “could be reclamation facilities has generated a allowed to be put into their (single more open” after he was out of the management structure that relies more stream) recycling totes there and decision-making structure. or less exclusively on large regional commingled...with recyclables.” management contractors (agents, Why all the secrecy and restricted really, but defined as producers in the Contrary to the Tyee’s claim that regulations), who understandably tend BC EPR would be “market driven”, 10 Email to Daniel Knapp, Urban Ore, to internalize whatever cash there interviewees familiar with the program September 5, 2010. said that the playing field for existing 11 Telephone interview with Dennis Kin- is to support their own operations. sey, by Nadine Souto; June 22, 2011. The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 19 communication? What do these repair and repurpose and restore. people have to hide? The results can be grotesque to Coincidentally, and again thanks to people used to source separation the deeply flawed hierarchy, allowing The precise extent of market recycling. In at least one community and encouraging this downcycling interference is unknown, but we think near Victoria, the certified “waste to occur will produce steady flows it could be extensive. We fear that this handler” for EPR has put out a of unrecyclable residue, just what treatment will be applied selectively graphic that exhorts its customers the incinerator vendors and landfill to businesses the Stewardship to “Go ahead! Throw it all in!” The operators want. Council does not like, such as illustration features pictures of many those complaining about the new consumer “products” like toasters Single stream collection has been bureaucratic structures and how they and hand tools being dumped into studied and found to have important operate.12 collection carts with spoiled food downsides. One Canadian expert and food paper and polymers and all we interviewed, Ontario’s Clarissa 3. No to Source sorts of other items that should be Morawski, wrote of single stream Separation, Too kept separate and uncontaminated14. curbside collection in the USA and This is a prescription for destroying, Canada alike that it A strong preference for waste-friendly not saving, the feedstocks that might single-stream collection (where all otherwise nurture a growing reuse • blends materials that should be kept kinds of recyclables are collected industry with its sturdy branches of separate in a single container that is dumped into a single bin, crushed, and later separated mechanically) has emerged among the solid waste professionals and businesses that dominate the provincial program. In the face of what even PPI has recently called “threats”13 to EPR’s environmental success, BC’s legislation is at best irrelevant, and at worst complicit in this cultural shift away from quality service and production. It is complicit because of its endorsement of incineration as the third of four options in BC’s solid waste management hierarchy, which perversely helps the single-stream technophiles by providing an approved final destination for their large flows of unrecylable “residue,” formerly called garbage.

12 There is some evidence that the BC’s EPR brain trust is recognizing that they have a problem. In a 2011 email Bill Shee- han of PPI quotes from a document called “Actions for Vancouver BC’s Zero Waste/ Takeback Strategy” that says Vancouver 14 Graphic from Buddy Boyd. See http:// • downgrades commodities like paper, should “Use the City’s zoning authority www.district.sechelt.bc.ca/Portals/0/Pub- plastics, glass, and even aluminum and development approval processes to lic%20Document%20Library/General%20 expand the collection network for existing Information/Curbside%20Recycling%20 • disrupts markets by driving up costs takeback programs, including privately- Program.pdf. The same source specifi- for remanufacturers who seek quality operated recycling depots and in-store cally includes “small appliances and power feedstocks return locations”. Email forwarded from Bill tools” but excludes “glass (any kind), sy- • depresses prices paid by resource Sheehan by Monica Kosmak, GreenYes ringes, food, styrofoam, waxed cardboard, brokers and traders for “upgraded” Listserve, May 16, 2011. kleenex, six products made of plastic recyclables coming out of single 13 Bill Sheehan, “Extended Producer Re- (tarps, etc.), fabric, paint and aerosol con- sponsibility & Next Generation Solid Waste tainers, batteries, and wood items.” Also, stream MRFs because of much higher Policy”, PowerPoint delivered to 2010 despite the assurance that no sorting is re- unrecyclable “residuals” State Colloquium, Sierra Club, December quired, customers are instructed to rinse or • leads either to the incineration of 9, 2010, slide 42, EPR THREATS. flatten certain included discard categories. 20 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 high tonnages of EPR materials or to range of options being tried, some 15 4. Existing Recyclers landfilling them as usual . with less destructive effects than Are Bypassed. others. The best systems feature Again quoting Buddy Boyd, this load-checking at the front or collection The replacement of already-operating time from an email, “It is odd that end; rejection of some loads that are source-separation collection systems so many who have had recycling too contaminated; and aggressive with single-stream curbside collection depots in BC...for many years have education and demonstration of EPR means that opportunities for to sit by and wait while a bunch of campaigns. But even those systems repair and reuse at the local level are suits decides their (our) fate. Many may be inferior to more labor-intensive bypassed, as items are at least meant of the committees these suits sit on ones. Already in 2004 in the USA, to be shipped straight to steward- are stacked in favour of the wasting market-driven reuse, recycling, and operated depots or other agents most model re-branded into looking like composting enterprises were found often focusing on end-of-life recycling. ZW. And these well funded committee to number 51,000 and to employ members are paid to attend over 1 million people is suggestive of This obviously threatens local the conferences and workshops, the size and breadth of the existing entrepreneurial activity, but it also (where) the grass roots folks are few..., infrastructure which BC’s EPR seems goes against the spirit of zero-waste, since these folks must...find ways to to want to replace. These locally which is to recover materials and pay for participating. The result is very owned small businesses are directed products at their highest and best use imbalanced with most input coming at producing jobs from resources that value. A truly sustainable approach to managing discards requires that resources be intercepted “at the source” and put toward economic development and job creation at the local level, not shipped to faraway processing centers.18

Reading the initial enabling legislation, one is struck by how little is said about the province’s preexisting recycling infrastructure19. It is as if the current recyclers do not exist. This is because the focus of the BC EPR laws at the outset was to enable a new and supposedly superior from suits who have never handled people sorely and surely need right materials processing infrastructure discards in their lives. now. They are far less automated to be built. Regulations are part of than the wasting competition. This this infrastructure, as is enforcement. The game is rigged here in BC. situation cries out for investigation and Preserving, using, incentivizing, or Please...get the message out that further research. growing the existing material recovery designing any ZW SWMPs and EPR system was not mentioned. Part programs must not just come from of the reason for this neglect is the top down “experts”, who have sold out ideological preference for feeding British Columbians by taking us down communication and education directed at the collected materials back up the 16 the road to incineration. residents about what goes in same supply chain that got them to and doesn’t go into recycling. BC in the first place, directly to the On the other hand, some single • “...looking at the blue bin contents before dumping them into the truck is “single- manufacturer. streamers have put up spirited stream best practice number two... (but it 17 defenses, and there are a broad is) a fatal flaw in many programs”. 15 Clarissa Morawski, “Single-Stream Un- • At the MRF, “monitor material quality 18 Sunshine Coast Environmental Sus- covered” in Resource Recycling, February regularly (as often as hourly), and if mate- tainability Society, Market-Based Zero- 2010, pages 21-25. rial streams have unsatisfactory amounts Waste Strategic Plan (2010), p. 3 16 Buddy Boyd email, January 2012. of cross-material contamination, slow down 19 ”Environmental Management Act, Re- 17 One single stream company, Emterra, the picking line”. cycling Regulation,” B.C. Reg. 449/2004, has put out a set of 12 principles it follows And so on to a full twelve principles; a O.C. 995/2004. Available at http://www. to keep single-stream products as clean as complicated program but more effective bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws new/docu- possible. Here are three: than no program. ment/ID/freeside/449_2004. Accessed on • “Best practice number one is continuous February 28, 2012. The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 21 According to Bill Sheehan of PPI, “The not to be, apparently. Three leading 5. Garbage In, rationale for placing responsibility on EPR non-governmental organizations Garbage Out. Producers is that they make design -- the California Product Stewardship and marketing decisions and therefore Council, Product Policy Institute, and How reverse logistics squares with have the greatest ability to reduce the Product Stewardship Institute-- single stream’s “return to chaos” in the environmental impact of their met recently and hammered out a collection is not clear. Degraded 20 products.” Thus, the Producer must new version of “The Framework”, materials will either be fed back the pay or it’s not EPR. The goods must which they posted to the internet. supply chain to the producer or agent, move to the producer or its agent, or Unfortunately, the new version still or burned, or landfilled. It is difficult 21 it’s not EPR. No other fee is as good states that “end of life fees are not to see this as a sustainable business as when the Producer pays. allowed”. This policy direction, if it model, since it destroys far more value were fully enforced, would cause than it conserves. The consequences The “Framework Principles for Product closure of all clean compost facilities of not thinking this through, of relying Stewardship Policy” by the Product that charge disposal service fees. It on a delusional free market system, Policy Institute states “All stewardship would force small collectors of EPR can be profound for quality recycling, programs must finance the collection, materials to give them to the approved and for the environment. transportation, and responsible reuse, EPR conduits without compensation recycling or disposition of covered for the work involved in collecting In the case of beverage containers, it 22 products”. A appears that container little further on, takeback under the the “Framework Stewardship Council Principles” is now dominated slams the door by the companies closed on the that produced the widespread products. These industrial powerful multinational practice of corporations charging fees are opposed to for resource incentivizing refillables conservation and with, say, very high recycling: “End deposits such as those of life fees are employed by Prince not allowed”, it Edward Island, another says. Canadian province. Refillables are the One might hope most efficient way to deliver liquids that this ideology might be adjusted them. (This is in fact one of the to consumers both economically and 23 in response to criticism , but it is charges we have heard from one environmentally, but advocates for 20 Bill Sheehan, To Fee or Not to Fee? local operator). In general, this simple refillables and for high deposits to That is the Question. And the Answer is... prohibition seeks to position the EPR Don’t Fee!, PPI Document, May, 2009. P. motivate container takeback will have bureaucracy to shut down any and all 1. an uphill climb. 21 One observer in 2006 was moved to pre-existing recyclers who built their rename BC’s EPR as “Extremely Prescrip- businesses by charging end-of-life Producer companies are “actively tive Regulation”, “Explicit Property Rights” fees or any other customer fees-for- trying to get rid of the existing deposit (because of the transfer of end-of-life service. ownership responsibility from the generator system”, according to outgoing or the recycler to the “Producer”), and even Stewardship Council Director “Extremely Pedantic Rhetoric”. Usman Producer Responsibility Conference in Dennis Kinsey.24 These attacks Valiante Blog, Solid Waste and Recycling Calgary, Alberta...could be paraphrased are occurring despite the elegance, Magazine, March, 2006. Mr. Valiante is a as, “Extended Producer Responsibility is a cost-effectiveness, and adaptability senior policy analyst with Corporate Policy good theory but impractical..., (and) if one of using deposits to incentivize Group LLP and contributing editor to Solid of the goals of EPR is to promote design Waste and Recycling Magazine. for the environment it isn’t working..., and effective recycling behavior. Unbiased 22 “Framework Principles for Product there are no true EPR programs in Canada research shows that deposit-return Stewardship Policy”, Product Policy Insti- because in practice the requirements are systems are far superior to curbside tute, www.productpolicy.org. too complicated and onerous”. Usman 23 Usman Valiente says the “overriding Valiente Blog at Solid Waste and Recycling 24 Dennis Kinsey interview, June 22 by messages from the 4th annual Extended Magazine, March 2006. Nadine Souto. 22 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 collection systems across the board. model is Encorp Pacific. Encorp for reuse and undermines even BC’s According to Canadian scientist is a “producer” in the sense that it flawed pollution prevention hierarchy. Clarissa Morawski for the Container represents the interests of the actual Recycling Institute, in the USA, supply chain producers so they don’t We hypothesize that the case of have to do anything but provide beverage containers is can be • “deposit-return systems create 11 operating funds. We interviewed generalized to many other commodity to 38 times more jobs than a curbside Clarissa Morawski about this.26 types as well. We fear that EPR recycling system relative to beverage Ms. Morawski says Encorp “has a seems to be replacing, not supporting, containers...”. monopoly on the EPR program and repair and resale businesses. This squeezes out small depots”. She feeds into corporate behavior that is • “CDR systems, in which containers suggests that BC’s program followed against durability rather than for it, are handled more or less individually, too closely Germany’s EPR program, which is virtually opposite the behavior employ an average of 7.34 FTEs (full which initially set up a monopoly that that is predicted by EPR theories. time equivalents) per 1,000 tons of was undone by the courts and split containers, while curbside systems into 9 EPR councils emphasizing One prominent reuse executive in require an average of 1.66 FTEs in an disposal service competition. She California says she was told by a automated system and 4.46 FTEs in a says in Ontario Canada there is a representative of the cell phone manual system. “mass consolidation of materials industry that “We love cradle to recovery facilities (MRFs) due to cradle, because it allows us to turn the • “ Container deposit-return (CDR) the changeover to single-stream generations faster,”27 which shortens systems generate dramatically higher collection”. She knows of at least the time it takes to cycle cell phones volumes of beverage containers Table 1: EPR product categories in BC from new to obsolete. than curbside systems, an average of 76 percent recovery Product categories 6. Same stuff, too. in CDR states compared to just Anti-freeze, used lubricating oil, filters and containers Beverage containers 24 percent recovery in non-CDR The Regulated Materials Profile Electronics and electrical products, batteries and light states”. bulbs in BC is nearly the same as Lead-Acid batteries in California, and probably • Glass bottles manufactured Paints lots of other places. The list in a CDR state have six times Pharmaceuticals of items covered so far by more recycled content than Solvents and flammable liquids, gasoline and pesticides BC’s integrated EPR laws are Tires bottles made in a state without Packaging and printed paper (amendment passed May not very different from those a container deposit (72 percent 2011) developed in many California vs. 12 percent).25 cities, and probably most cities in the USA for that matter. Here In other words, if you want more one paper manufacturer in Ontario is the British Columbia 2011 list of jobs, choose deposits; if you want that shut down because the quality of commodity types covered: more resources, choose deposits; if feedstock deteriorated so profoundly you want to close the loop to prevent after their sources switched to single- By comparison, the list of regulated mining, choose deposits. stream. Now the paper resources materials at a typical transfer station formerly feeding local industries are or landfill in the USA will usually But BC’s EPR system, as it is shipped to low-wage economies in include all of BC’s categories minus being implemented, seems to Asia instead, she says. and printed paper, but additionally be encouraging rollbacks in real covering products such as environmental progress made over the Encorp specializes in beverage refrigerants; hazardous substances last four decades as recycling, at least container and electronics (California’s oddly named “universal in the USA, has grown to at least five management. It is part of the wastes”); switches; light bulbs; times the size of wasting. Recycling Council of British Columbia ballasts; all types of batteries including (RCBC), where it and other stewards lead-acid ones; pesticides; herbicides; One major corporation that profits like it are now powerful rivals to and even treated wood. from the BC’s Product Stewardship small-business entrepreneurs. The stewards’ overemphasis on end-of-life 25 Container Recycling Institute: PRESS So it does not appear that a top-down RELEASE: Increased Recycling of Bever- recycling also weakens opportunities EPR program such as that deployed age Containers Creates Jobs. December 26 Telephone interview with Clarissa 27 Personal anecdote, Mary Lou Van 15, 2011 5:30:43 AM PST. Reply to: Murawski, by Neil Seldman and Nadine Deventer, Past President, Northern [email protected] Souto, July 26, 2011. California Recycling Association. The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012 23 currently in British Columbia is subsidized by taxes necessary to get broad coverage of rather than product- problematic materials already being disposal-related collected by recyclers and scrappers charges, which is and scavengers. Elsewhere, and at one reason wasteful countless progressive/conservative systems are resistant nodes throughout the USA, existing to reform. reusers, recyclers, discard collectors, and resource processors have While EPR regulation adapted to regulations well enough does not mandate that they can take care of all or most precisely how of these discard streams. Some of stewardship plans the highest materials recovery rates for each covered in the United States are in California, commodity are to be where jurisdictions are reporting 70% funded, the Ministry and greater rates. Most recovery of Environment’s • Continue extending regulatory businesses are growing and looking principle is that no costs be borne coverage to other categories and for more feedstocks. by local government and the general subcategories of material. taxpayer. Where this actually works, This does not support the idea that the costs of collection and recycling • Move mixed-feedstock incineration one state-run system (producer- end up being built in to the retail from the hierarchy entirely; ban it. funded EPR) should take over the price of the product, which is paid by businesses created by the existing consumers at the time of purchase.28 • Encourage anaerobic digestion to regulated market approach. BC’s EPR The exception to this rule is the BC produce fuel and fertilizer, but only for regulations should be refocused on Medication Return Program discussed clean feedstocks such as manures, using EPR as one of many funding above, the operating costs of which fats, and some food residues. strategies aiming to grow a diverse are shared by pharmaceutical and ecology of recovery enterprises rather consumer health products industries.29 • Use clean-feedstock composting as than a state-run juggernaut. a last resort, not wasting by landfilling. In theory, EPR shifts responsibility for 7. Not Consumer- discard management onto producers • Ban composting mixed municipal Friendly, Either. and consumers, away from the solid waste. general public. But most BC Product The end-of-life EPR financing is Stewardship programs are consumer- • Restore and enhance source supposed to be funded by producers, funded, and therefore inconsistent separation by allowing all sorts of but even in “pure” EPR systems it with one of the basic principles of fees-for-service to pay operating is consumers who eventually pay EPR: making producers pay. costs plus profit for niche recovery because the upstream makers and enterprises that find higher and better suppliers all have to raise their prices 8. It Can Probably uses for all discard categories. to pay for product disposal whether by Be Fixed. recycling or wasting. The collection • Find and fill service voids first; build and recycling of all products mandated Here is a list of reforms we would like on what you’ve already got. by the EPR system are costs to be to see: funded by consumers through “eco • Build new centralized Zero Waste fees” either added to product retail • Rewrite the EPR regulations to transfer depots laid out like airports; prices or collected at some other require strengthening the existing make them into places where point in the supply chain. Therefore, recycling networks and nodes by responsibility and ownership of all it appears that the consumer will arranging to pay them fair market discarded materials can change hands pay more, not less. All recovery prices for their disposal services. legally, pleasantly, and profitably. systems cost money to operate; but programs aimed at producing low- • Adopt policies favoring specialist 28 SCRD Solid Waste Management Plan quality resources forgo major income Working Group, SCRD Zero Waste Man- enterprises within these structures, opportunities because their products agement Plan (2011), p. 4 and allowing for growth and are undesirable and troublesome. 29 Post-Consumer Pharmaceutical differentiation of the industry, including Such inefficient systems are often Stewardship Association, PCSA 2012 Draft making and manufacturing. Program Plan, p. 9 24 The EPR Trilogy, Urban Ore, for NCRA’s Recycling Update March 27, 2012