Wall Street Journal: At Our Disposal
Filed under: Earth 911 - March 24, 2008
By Suzanne Barlyn
Michaela Cavallaro, a mother in South Portland, Maine, would like to responsibly dispose of some things in her house that she knows should not go in the trash. There’s a leftover can of oven cleaner that’s been under the family’s kitchen sink for seven years, and three old computers collecting dust in her basement.
Such products, with their poisonous contents, pose a danger to the environment if they end up in a landfill. She just has no idea where to take them, or whom to call to have them removed.
“It bugs me,” she says. “I like to get rid of things. But I have a 2-year-old, and there’s never enough time in the day to figure out what to do with it.”
How to safely dispose of products that are potentially harmful to the environment is a growing concern. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that Americans produce 1.6 million tons of household hazardous waste a year—from turpentine and cleaning supplies to surplus pool chemicals. Products that contain lead, mercury and arsenic are also a threat to the environment. Batteries, fluorescent lightbulbs, commonly used electronics and televisions all contain substances that can contaminate soil and groundwater if they wind up in landfills.
Yet only 10 states, including Minnesota, Washington and New Jersey, along with New York City, require computer and TV manufacturers to pay for recycling of monitors and televisions that they sell in those states. In most states, it’s up to local communities to establish recycling programs to deal with hazardous household waste.
Many communities, though, lack the expertise to plan for an effective collection system, says Kate Krebs, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C. There are municipalities that collect hazardous waste once or twice a year, but many places still allow electronics in the regular trash due to a lack of infrastructure, she says.
Pitching In
- The Situation: Many people know not to include potentially harmful materials such as batteries, mercury-laced light bulbs and electronic devices in their trash, but they don’t know what else to do with them.
- The Danger: Such materials often either pile up in homes, where they pose a nuisance, or end up in the trash anyway, causing serious contamination of landfills and groundwater.
- The Solution: Some communities have created separate recycling facilities for these materials, and are doing more to educate the public about safe recycling practices.
A look at some successful programs around the country finds common threads: a strong emphasis on educating residents about the services available; convenient locations and procedures; and a secure funding stream from garbage-collection and recycling fees.
Measures for evaluation and comparison are still hard to come by, Ms. Krebs says, largely because disposal and recycling are still handled in so many different ways and with a patchwork of funding options. But what follows is a look at a few efforts that may offer guidance to communities that are trying to set up more-effective programs.
Making It Easy
San Francisco has had a drop-off facility open three days a week for household-hazardous waste since 1972. There is also a network of collection points throughout the city at numerous local retailers. An online database directs residents to the nearest participants in their neighborhood.
SF Recycling & Disposal Inc., a private company that oversees the operation of the city’s household-hazardous waste facility, says it recycles 87% of the hazardous materials it receives. Of the remaining 13%, some is incinerated in a facility with special permits. The rest consists of nonhazardous remnants that are disposed of in a regular landfill.
The facility recycles latex paint, which is water-based and technically nontoxic, and makes it available free, in three colors, to residents. Norcal Waste Systems Inc., the locally based parent company of SF Recycling & Disposal, also ships recycled paint to developing countries, such as Zambia, for construction projects, says Robert Reed, director of Sunset Scavenger Co., the unit of Norcal responsible for most of San Francisco’s residential garbage service. In addition, Sunset picks up computers, TV sets and other items from residents, who can schedule the service up to twice a year at no cost. “We’re trying to keep it simple for people,” Mr. Reed says.
In California, it’s illegal to dispose of electronics, such as computer monitors and certain televisions, in landfills, a situation that has given rise to an industry of private collectors, sorters and disposers. For instance, ease e-waste Inc., in Santa Ana, Calif., teams up with local nonprofits to organize collections. For each device it receives, ease e-waste pays the nonprofit as much as $5; the company then is reimbursed by recyclers, whom the state pays from a fund generated by surcharges of typically $6 to $10 on certain electronics purchases. Ease e-waste also resells hard-to-find components, says Chief Executive Devon Diaz.
Greenest City?
The key to all of the best programs is offering a wide range of services and convenience, says Kolin Anglin, president of the North American Hazardous Materials Management Association, a Denver-based group. “As hot new topics come up, such as disposing of pharmaceuticals . . . and fluorescent bulbs, they find ways to incorporate services in programs to address these issues,” he says.
The Portland, Ore., region is widely recognized for its broad and creative approaches to the problem. Portland, many nearby cities and three counties share responsibility for recycling with a regional government known as Metro. Each city handles its own paper, can and glass recycling. Metro is responsible for collecting the area’s household hazardous waste. Two collection facilities are open Monday through Saturday year-round and don’t charge for residential hazardous waste.
Metro also visits neighborhoods throughout the year on runs meant to serve just 250 residents each, to avoid big crowds and long lines, says Karen Kane, a Metro spokeswoman.
Ellen Galvin, a Portland resident who completed a 40-hour program that trained her to teach others about recycling, says, “Basically, unless you are a hermit, it’s hard to be uninformed about recycling in this town.”
Anne Reichman, president of Earth 911, an online recycling-information clearinghouse based in Scottsdale, Ariz., credits Metro with thinking outside the box. Another reason for the success of recycling in the Portland region and along the West Coast, she says, is the presence of many activist-oriented residents who tend to embrace more options for handling hazardous materials. The residents expect these kinds of programs, she says, and that leads to their development.
Concerned in Seattle
Similar efforts in Seattle and surrounding King County include an “EnviroStars” certification for landscapers who help residents reduce their use of pesticides and adopt more nontoxic lawn-care techniques. Three fixed sites in King County also accept hazardous household waste year-round.
“The more ways you can make it a one-stop shop, and keep it free and convenient, then people will use it,” says Mr. Anglin of the hazardous-materials organization in Denver.
‘A Good Mix’
Minnesota is another place where recycling strategies have succeeded statewide thanks to strong local support and an emphasis on convenience. “It’s important that we offer residents a good mix and make [recycling] as easy as possible,” says Anne Morse, sustainability coordinator for Winona County, Minn.
The state generates revenue for recycling through a tax on garbage collection and disposal, and through surcharges on disposal of commercial, industrial and medical wastes. Such revenue helped the state distribute more than $14 million in 2007 to counties for recycling and disposal of household hazardous waste, says Cathy Berg Moeger, a program director for Minnesota Pollution Control. Counties supplement the funding through a separate surcharge on trash collection.
A Local Struggle
For local governments elsewhere, efforts to establish household-hazardous-waste recycling have suffered from limited funds. Maine handed out more than $1.3 million in grants to communities from 2001 to 2003 to help build or modify their infrastructure for handling a wide variety of hazardous waste, including propane tanks, batteries and fluorescent bulbs, which contain mercury.
But a Portland, Maine, facility ran through its $150,000 budget for the program only seven months after opening last summer. Residents can still drop off nonhazardous items at the site, but the city can’t resume household-hazardous-waste collection until its new funding becomes available in July, according to Troy Moon, the city’s solid-waste manager.
Portland didn’t heavily promote its ability to accept household hazardous waste and other environmentally unfriendly items during its first year of operation, says Mr. Moon. But it intends to network more formally with regional administrators when the service resumes this summer. The facility has a Web page and will send direct mail to Portland residents. Mr. Moon says he also will speak to officials in neighboring communities, as he has in the past, who are then expected to spread the word to their residents.
One of those communities is South Portland, home of Ms. Cavallaro’s family. She says she didn’t learn about the site until being interviewed by a reporter. Now she has every intention of taking her oven cleaner and other hazardous wastes there as soon as collections resume. “I want this stuff out of my house,” she says.