Master Recycler/Composter Course Manual

Master Recycler/Composter course manual October 2018 Introduction PAGE 1 3 Chapter 1 | Solid Waste Management 9 Chapter 2 | The Recycling Process 23 Chapter 3 | Food and Organic Waste Chapter 4 | Residential Waste: 30 Consumption and the Three Rs Chapter 5 | Home Composting and 41 Preventing Food Waste Chapter 6 | Household Hazardous Waste 46 and Problem Materials Chapter 7 | Commercial Waste Reduction 53 and Recycling 62 Chapter 8 | Recycling at Events Chapter 9 | Engaging the Public and 71 Motivating Behavior Change Introduction Welcome to the Master Recycler/Composter (MRC) program. As an MRC, you will play an important role in preventing and reducing waste, increasing recycling and composting, and conserving resources in Hennepin County. Waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve energy and natural resources, create jobs and economic development opportunities, and protect our environment and quality of life. Although we have made some progress in diverting waste, many recoverable resources are still being sent to waste-to-energy facilities and landfills, and the recycling and organics recycling rate has only increased slightly over the past decade. Through the MRC program, participants learn about waste prevention, reuse, recycling, composting, community engagement, and behavior change. They then implement programs that prevent waste, increase recycling, and engage others in learning about these issues. This approach is critical to effectively changing behaviors and motivating environmental protection. Master Recycler/Composter Course Manual | 1 Bridging the awareness-action gap Payback activities may be individual projects created by you and/or fellow MRCs that are approved by the Most people know they should reduce, reuse, and recycle program coordinator. Activities may also be organized by to protect the environment, but what people think they the program coordinator and will involve working with should do is not always what they do. In fact, research other volunteers and local education and solid waste demonstrates that just giving people information has programs. You can be notified of payback opportunities little or no effect on their behavior. So if brochures by joining the Facebook group or getting on the email won’t change behavior, what will? Research reveals that list. Learn how at hennepin.us/payback. personal contact paired with specific information and resources that address barriers to reducing waste is a powerful way to inspire action. MRCs bridge the gap between awareness and action by motivating their friends, family, co-workers, and communities to reduce waste in their homes and workplaces. As a trained MRC volunteer, you will inspire people to change the way they think about and manage their consumer choices and their waste. Additionally, you will raise awareness of ways people can reduce the amount of waste they generate, recycle and compost at home and work, and find alternatives to hazardous products. However you choose to participate in the program, your contributions are an important part of a larger movement to protect our natural resources. Program basics The MRC program The program manual consists of two stages: This manual is provided to supplement class content, formal training and public reinforce key messages, and supply resources for outreach outreach. Participants and education. Each week, you should pre-read the attend about 15 hours of chapter or chapters that will be discussed in the next classroom instruction and class. then volunteer at least 30 hours implementing Once you’ve completed the course, your manual will be programs and doing your reference tool to help you develop outreach and outreach in their education projects. Whether you staff an information community. table, give a presentation, or work on a project, your manual provides key messages and facts, common The training program consists of classroom sessions and a vocabulary used in the field, and information on the field trip. Classroom activities include visual presentations resources available to you. and group discussions. During the field trip, participants tour recycling and composting facilities. Samples of Hennepin County factsheets, brochures and handouts are included as part of your training When you agree to become an MRC, you make a materials and can be ordered for free at hennepin.us/ commitment to “pay back” 30 hours through community environmentaleducation. outreach or waste reduction projects. Once you fulfill this commitment, you will become a certified MRC. This program is designed to empower you with the training and tools you need to educate your community Your payback involves implementing a system or program on waste reduction, recycling and composting. As an that eliminates or diverts materials from the waste stream MRC in training, you are encouraged to ask questions, and/or providing direct community outreach to educate share your experiences and provide feedback on the and inspire others to practice waste reduction. program. 2 | Master Recycler/Composter Course Manual Chapter 1 | Solid Waste Management A brief history of waste and landfills Included in this chapter When the majority of people lived in rural areas, their waste, which consisted almost entirely of organic materials derived from plants, humans, and animals, • Minnesota’s waste was burned for fuel, used as crop fertilizers, or fed to livestock. These types of management hierarchy waste management strategies are still practiced in some areas of the world. • What do we throw away? • Collection As civilization developed and populations concentrated in towns and cities, • Transfer throwing waste out the door to animals or into the garden posed public health • Disposal problems. • Solid waste planning and Some cities, notably in parts of Asia, solved their waste problem by hauling policy organic waste out to farms and composting it to revitalize crop lands. Another method was to take waste out to the countryside and dump it in piles. Around 500 B.C., Athens issued the first-known law against throwing waste in the streets, requiring it to be dumped no less than one mile outside the city walls. The open dump was born. Master Recycler/Composter Course Manual | 3 Minnesota’s waste management history composting, and resource recovery over land disposal. The act also created a landfill siting process and required Prior to the 1960s, most waste was disposed of in open or solid waste abatement planning for metropolitan burning dumps located throughout Minnesota. All types counties. of wastes were allowed at these sites. The Minnesota Department of Health, created in 1927, was given STATE OF MINNESOTA WASTE MANAGEMENT HIERARCHY legislative authority over dumps located in tourist camps, MOST PREFERRED PRACTICE summer hotels, and resorts. Regulatory control of all other Waste reduction and reuse sites was the responsibility of the city, village, or township in which the dump was located. Recycling Composting The composition of our waste was vastly different then, yard and food waste and the volume of household wastes was much smaller. Resource recovery waste-to-energy Containers were made of glass or tin, and food was or waste composting bought fresh or grown and processed at home. Junk Landfilling mail and plastic packaging didn’t exist. People were, in with methane recovery general, much more frugal. Two world wars and the Great Landfilling Depression made people more conscious about saving without methane and reusing items as much as they could. Many people recovery went to dumps to scavenge for reusable materials and goods. In northern Minnesota, dumps even served as a social gathering place for activities such as shooting rats LEAST PREFERRED and watching bears. The Minnesota Waste Management Act mandates a two- Land use concerns grew as urban areas started to expand. fold strategy: New dumps became harder to site because fewer people were willing to have dumps near their properties. In • Pursue the highest methods of solid waste 1965, the Federal Solid Waste Disposal Act was passed. abatement through source reduction, recycling, Two years later, the State of Minnesota created the organics recovery and resource recovery. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to monitor and regulate air, water, and land pollution. In 1969, the • Minimize the use of landfills and ensure landfills are Minnesota Solid Waste Act, which granted oversight of environmentally sound. solid waste management to the MPCA, was passed. The This strategy has helped us achieve a recycling rate of act prohibited open burning, established a solid waste approximately 45 percent, supported resource recovery permitting process, and emphasized upgrading dumps to facilities that use solid waste to generate energy, sanitary landfills. encouraged the implementation of organics recycling During the 1970s, concerns over pollution from landfill programs and the development of composting sites, sites led to the emergence of regulations for hazardous and introduced source reduction, toxicity reduction, and waste disposal and groundwater protection at landfill public awareness activities. sites. These regulations would evolve over the next As the next section on waste composition demonstrates, several decades. there is ample opportunity to shift more materials Counties, with oversight from the MPCA, were given to top of the state’s waste management hierarchy responsibility for local solid waste management and were by emphasizing

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