3p Contributor: Wes Muir
Recent Articles
America Recycles Day: A Look at Single-Stream Recycling
By Wes Muir, Director of Communications, Waste Management
Since November 15 is America Recycles Day, this is an appropriate time to take a step back and consider what we can be doing better for the planet. From a resource management perspective, the four Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle and recover – have long guided solutions for dealing with the abundance of waste produced on a daily basis.
Building on this principle, communities and neighborhoods around the U.S. have joined to support waste reduction by participating in curbside recycling programs that enable every person to have a positive impact on the environment. In turn, roughly 33 percent of paper and cardboard waste is recovered and processed in the United States, according to a 2007 report from the EPA.
You may be thinking, “Only 33 percent? Shouldn’t this rate be higher?” It should, and it can be.
Turning Waste into Renewable Energy Treasure
By Wes Muir, director of communications, Waste Management
With Energy Awareness Month in full swing, it’s important to recognize all the ingredients of America’s renewable energy recipe. The potential for securing a more sustainable energy future in this country is boundless, and includes many moving pieces. This puzzle is heavily dependent on the available and developing energy technologies, such as wind and solar power that have dominated recent discussions about renewables. But one resource that is markedly missing from these conversations can be found right in your home – your trash.
Trash is an ever-present source, especially in the U.S. On average, Americans throw away 4.7 pounds of garbage each day – which equates to about 254 million tons of waste each year. While recycling and composting have proven to divert some of this waste, landfills and waste to energy remain necessary for housing the remaining waste that can’t be recycled – and using it to produce energy.
Policy Solutions for Managing E-Waste
As electronic devices like cell phones, computer monitors and television sets become increasingly available – thus becoming one of the fastest growing components of the global waste stream – government and business leaders must find solutions for best managing these e-waste materials. This week, leading experts in the fields of electronics manufacturing, recycling and waste management from across the country met in Orlando, Florida for the annual E-Scrap Conference to discuss the major legislative and policy issues surrounding e-waste.
Most electronic items contain substances that are necessary for their proper operation, including lead, mercury, cadmium and brominated flame-retardants. As a result, disposal of such electronics must be carefully managed. Some manufacturers are already taking responsibility for the end-of-life maintenance of their products, and have developed e-waste recycling programs for businesses and consumers to safely manage and dispose of their electronic waste right here in the U.S. While the support of manufacturers certainly helps drive proper e-waste disposal, leading recyclers who handle this waste on a daily basis, and have a responsibility to maintain environmental standards, also have a large influence on policies surrounding this issue. Unfortunately, according to Government Accountability Office (GAO) some recyclers aren’t playing by the rules.
Integrating Management into the Waste Stream
Everyday, each one of us creates four and half pounds of garbage, which collectively translates into hundreds of millions of tons of waste, generated across the United States. Over the past few decades, governments, citizens and business have become increasingly concerned about the growing amount of waste being generated and the potential environmental impacts associated with this trend. This concern led to the development of the hierarchical “3R” approach to waste management, which classifies waste reduction strategies according to their desirability: reduce, reuse and recycle. These strategies first aim to generate the least amount of waste possible and then to extract potential benefits from unwanted materials.
Despite the widespread adoption of the 3R approach, landfilling remains the most common form of waste management and achieving diversion targets continues to pose a challenge, especially since there is no consistent universal method for calculating diversion rates across jurisdictions.
The Business of Compost: Recovering Organic Waste
By Wes Muir, Director, Communications, Waste Management
Americans love food. You can’t drive more than a few blocks in any town without passing by a restaurant, fast food joint or grocery store. And after each meal or snack, we also throw out much of our uneaten food. Those scraps that don’t end up in the mouth of a family pet are instead sent to the family trash can.
These food scraps, along with leaf, yard and wood wastes, which emit carbon when they decompose, are known as organic waste. Organic waste accounts for about two-thirds of the total solid waste stream in the U.S., yet it is also often forgotten when considering practices like reducing, reusing and recycling waste. If you take a look at your own trash can right now, more than likely you’ll find that much of it contains organic waste.
Food scraps, in particular, are the single largest part of the municipal solid waste stream by weight. In 2007, nearly 12.5 percent of the total waste generated in the U.S. included food leftovers. An even more sobering statistic shows that only about three percent of food waste was recovered. Fortunately, alleviating the amount of food waste we trash can be a simple process, both at home and with the help of local municipalities.
Pew Charitable Trust Sees Growth in Green Jobs
By Wes Muir, Director, Communications, Waste Management
When it comes to U.S. employment, these are unprecedented times for today’s working generation. With the economy in its current state of slump, finding jobs has become an ever-challenging endeavor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the unemployment rate across the nation just reached a staggering 9.4 percent in July 2009, making the job environment the bleakest since 1983.
But amid all of the downturn, there is one sector that continues to witness job growth: clean energy.
The global environment industry has been described by the Environmental Business Journal as growing steadily since 1970 when it was valued at approximately US$40 billion per year. The U.S. is considered the world’s largest market for environmental technologies, estimated at about US$300 billion per year. Recent growth projections in the U.S. markets has been greater then 5% annually, outpacing overall economic growth.
Squeezing New Life from Beverage Cartons
Image Credit
By Wes Muir, Director, Communications, Waste Management
Chew on this: nearly every breakfast table in the country holds a carton of orange juice or milk each morning. While we’re well aware that these beverages help us maintain a healthy and balanced diet, it’s easily overlooked that the milk and juice cartons we use can also help maintain a healthy and balanced environment. These cartons are largely made of paper that consumers can recycle, and giving these products a second life reduces the strain they put on the environment if they are merely put to waste.
Until very recently, milk and juice carton recycling received little attention, with only certain municipalities offering carton recycling services. Even information about recycling the more than 510,000,000 milk cartons used in the U.S. (a 2006 statistic from the National Recycling Coalition) was fairly unavailable. The EPA has general statistics about paper recycling, including the paperboard that makes up typical cartons. However, as one eco-conscious blogger noted in June 2008:
That got me thinking. How many milk cartons does my household go through over a short period of time, say a week? More importantly, why are milk cartons not recycled? They are made of paper aren’t they? Even more puzzling is the fact that on the side of some of the cartons I buy, it says “please recycle”. I want to, but my town will not take them. So I decided to do some research on how to recycle a milk carton, and why my town won’t do it. I thought the information would be readily available. I was wrong.
Waste Collection Goes High Tech
By Wes Muir, Director, Communications, Waste Management
The days are longer, kids are out of school and beach season is in full swing: these are clear indicators that summer is upon us and everyone is flocking outdoors. While you’re out and about, packing a picnic lunch or walking around your favorite city, you’re probably also generating trash.
How many times have you wandered down the street or along the beach, wondering where you can pitch that ice cream wrapper? Or maybe when you’ve desperately sought a garbage can for that cup of coffee you drank while walking into work? Unfortunately, most times you’ve probably been unsuccessful in locating said receptacle. Worse yet, as this blogger describes as a pet peeve, you do find a bin, but it’s overflowing and you can’t properly dispose of your piece of trash.
Your Television May Be this Month’s Land-Filler: The Analog Digital Conversion
By Wes Muir, Director, Communications, Waste Management
Just this week, TV land will witness a dramatic change in the way it operates. As of Friday, June 12, all television stations will make the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, leaving many outdated television sets in the dust. But trashing these old TVs doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll go to waste.
With all broadcast signals available in digital format only, there’s no longer use for your analog television. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) estimates that 95 percent of unused analog TVs will be sold, donated or recycled following the DTV transition. Many of these are expected to enter the typical waste stream, i.e. left on the curb for your garbage man to collect.
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