Little Left to Waste

Brian Taylor

When SWANA (the Solid Waste Association of North America) brought together several current and former board members and other panelists to discuss the topic of "Game Changers" at its 2011 Wastecon event, foremost among the topics were waste-to-energy and recycling initiatives and the potential for an increasingly smaller percentage of discarded materials to head to landfills.

Republic Services, Phoenix, operates more than 200 landfills, but the company's senior vice president of communications, Will Flower, says customers increasingly communicate that they'd like to avoid sending discarded materials there.

Looking back to the early days of SWANA in the 1960s, a ton of waste picked up by haulers was likely to result in a ton of material taken to a landfill, Flower says. That equation has changed significantly. "More and more material is recycled or composted," Flower says. "Customers have changed—both waste districts and commercial customers."

At several Wastecon sessions, C&D materials were identified as a fraction of the waste stream that is increasingly being targeted for diversion from landfills.

In a session on Zero Waste goals and policies, co-presenters Wilma Bureau of the County of Simcoe, Ontario, Canada, and Janine Ralph of Stantec Consulting, Burlington, Ontario, portrayed how the county has reached a 57 percent municipal solid waste (MSW) diversion rate.

The county of 350,000 people has a blue box household recyclables collection program, a green bin program for organics (food waste) and a one-bag limit on household garbage collection. A drop-off center accepts tires, wood, backyard brush, shingles and other recyclable materials.

The most recent study conducted by Stantec for the county found that C&D materials "could be managed better" for increased recycling as one of the ways to go beyond its 57 percent rate.

A session updating attendees on developments in the waste-to-energy (WTE) sector focused on MSW, but also touched on C&D materials end markets. An overview of existing and under construction WTE projects from Tom Reardon of Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB), Fairfax, Va., pointed to several where scrap wood will be a feedstock.

And the Wastecon session that focused on C&D materials looked at methods that have been successful in increasing the diversion or recycling rate, including ordinances in Southern California and efforts in the Pacific Northwest to offer technical support and solidify end markets.

Although SWANA has the word "waste" in its name, "Game Changers" session moderator Tom Parker of consulting company CDM, Cambridge, Mass., asked panelists whether the word could appropriately be replaced by the word "resources."

Patrick Carroll of the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, Fla., replied, "We're using even non-recyclables to generate power; absolutely it's a resource."

Such thinking is probably why in one of the drearier construction climates in recent memory C&D recycling activity has been a relative bright spot in a dismal setting.