A FRAMEWORK FOR 21ST CENTURY RECYCLING AND SUSTAINABILITY
The greatest challenge facing the country is not war, ecological decline, or economic recession. It is the cynical divisiveness and hate-mongering that ideologues on the left and right use to keep their true believers in separate corners of the ring, engaging for only a few minutes at a time to trade verbal punches before retreating to their safe havens.
Take a simple issue that shouldn’t be very heated: recycling. What a nice, friendly, happy solution recycling should be – it reduces climate, water, energy, and litter impacts. Yet, since Oregon passed the nation’s first “bottle bill” over three decades ago, adversaries have been locked in battle, each side holding firmly to positions they first embraced when Lyndon Johnson was President.
Now, however, this ideological Berlin Wall is beginning to come down. After more than a generation of innovative recycling approaches in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, people on all sides are opening their minds to new, 21st Century ways of recycling.
That’s especially important right now. More than 40% of the total carbon footprint of the U.S. economy is attributed to our products and packages, according to Bill Sheehan of the Product Policy Institute. With the failure of Copenhagen to produce a global climate treaty, and comprehensive climate legislation caught up in politics at the federal level, state product stewardship and recycling initiatives could be a critically important first step to reduce our carbon footprint.
With that in mind, here is a potential Framework for 21st Century Recycling and Sustainability that can drive down carbon, water, energy, and pollution impacts across the product and packaging chain.
Core Principle: Take Responsibility
Internalize the costs of pollution
When pollution and waste is free, we get more of it. People and companies externalize the costs to society as a whole. That’s not sustainable.
That is why the core principle underlying this framework is Responsibility. If we each take responsibility for the pollution we generate – as companies and individuals – then costs are internalized, and we all have incentives to reduce it.
The Policy Pyramid
Internalize Costs at the Point of Impact
Where in the economy should the costs be internalized – at the point of extraction, production, or consumption? Generally, when feasible, the earlier the better. It is easier, cheaper, and better for the environment and the economy.
That aligns the policy pyramid with the familiar “three R’s” pyramid that is supposed to – but seldom does – drive our waste management systems: first Reduce, then Reuse, then Recycle.
At the top of the policy pyramid would be a Price on Carbon – which would have the greatest reduction impact because it drives down carbon pollution, which also drives down energy, water, and materials use overall. For example, consider how much easier it is to put a price on carbon in fuels, compared to establishing separate “carbon footprint” fees for thousands of products. By establishing one fee at the beginning of the supply chain – on the energy used – we avoid the need for millions of (often contrived) “life cycle assessments” that some propose be the basis for fees and incentives at the product level.
Second on the pyramid is Producer Responsibility. By shifting waste disposal costs from households to manufacturers, we can embed disposal costs in the prices of materials. Manufacturers that minimize packaging and product mass cut their costs, and gain an advantage over more wasteful producers. Consumers save money and the environment by choosing the cheapest and greenest products on store shelves.
Third on the pyramid – less cost effective per ton than the above approaches but especially effective at driving very high recycling rates – is to establish deposits or refund values on selected products and packages. But rather than the old “bottle bill” approach that is high cost and mandates retailer take back, these programs should be fair to all included products and packages, and should utilize a comprehensive e array of recycling programs – including curbside – to cut costs and improve convenience.
Something like this Framework – with adjustments to account for the legitimate concerns of many stakeholders from the business and activist communities – could finally put behind us the bitter and comical bottle battles and waste wars that have given the U.S. some of the most anemic recycling rates in the world.
Tags: bottle bills, pollution, product policy institute, product stewardship, recycle, Recycling, reduce, reuse, sustainability, waste
