Hello,
I am seeking information about the effectiveness of recycling requirements and disposal bans.
1. Do they really increase recycling and diversion rates?
2. Is there any data/information comparing the costs associated with enforcing bans and requirements to performing education/outreach and community-based social marketing?
3. Is there a typical rate structure associated with requirements and bans? (i.e. all services embedded under one rate)
Any research, studies or reports would be greatly appreciated. Or any leads for that matter.
Thank you.
Ron Jones
Sr. Program Specialist
City of Olympia
United States
www.olympiawa.gov
Recycling Requirements & Disposal Bans
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I work with the Cowichan Valley Regional District on Vancouver Island (www.cvrd.bc.ca). Although we do not have a local landfill (we export our waste to an out-of-region landfill), we do have several disposal bans in place. For example, any materials for which a strong recycling infrastructure exists are banned (refundable beverage containers, some organics materials, drywall/gypsum, asphalt shingles, paper, cardboard, etc.). We have found these bans to be highly effective in terms of diverting materials from the waste stream. But two key factors here are effective enforcement; and convenient, viable, and low-cost diversion options (since we export waste, our disposal costs are actually quite high compared to recycling costs).
We don't have any hard data re. costs of enforcing the bans, but have found that it is quite manageable for existing staff to do periodic disposal inspections. The Regional District of Nanaimo to the north of us has also been very successful in banning organic waste from landfill (www.rdn.bc.ca). Feel free to contact me to discuss further.
Harmony Huffman
Cowichan Valley Regional District
Canada
A good model to study would be the state of Massachusetts which has banned multiple products from landfill disposal and is considering others. Among them Drywall which can be recycled.
Terry Weaver
president
USA Gypsum
United States
An interesting case of a successful landfill ban is a corrugated cardboard ban put in place by the Cedar Rapids / Linn County Solid Waste Agency (CRLCSWA) in Iowa. (At the time they were called Bluestem Solid Waste Agency.) The quasi-government agency operates the local landfills and one of the larger compost sites in North America. The ban was implemented roughly around 1999 by my memory, and there was some grace period before enforcement started. The enforcement was that any loads containing at least [some defined amount] of recyclable corrugated cardboard were subject to a double landfill tipping fee on the whole load as penalty. $35 per ton became $70/T on such loads. From pre and post waste sorts, I recall that OCC went from somewhere around 10% of landfilled material to less than 1%. Attached is a one-page summary on the ban's history. There were definitly some problems, which I won't go into here, but by and large it was successful in increasing recovery of cardboard. The penalty was the key. Well, that and the fact that nearly all the landfills in Iowa are publicly owned and operated, so it is easier for them to do things like this that are in the public's interest.
Rick Meyers
Milwaukee, WI
Rick Meyers
Recycling Specialist
City of Milwaukee
United States
...
NC recently enacted a plastic bottle landfill disposal ban. We don't have a funding component associated with the bans so the implementation costs were minimal and there is no rate structure associated with it. More info can be found here - http://p2pays.org/BannedMaterials/index.asp. We have seen some results though. A few anecdotal stories can be found here - http://p2pays.org/BannedMaterials/Success.asp. And some infrastructure improvements by local governments are summarized here - http://re3org.blogspot.com/2010/03/survey-results-local-governments-speak.html. Feel free to contact me for more info.
Kelley Dennings
United States