Recycling needs big boost to reach next level

Vermont Business Magazine, Jun 01, 2002 by Kelley, Kevin

By many measurements, recycling has proven to be a highly successful endeavor in Vermont. Fifteen years ago, when the state's comprehensive solid-waste management law (Act 78) came into effect, only about 12 percent of Vermont's trash was being diverted from landfills. Today, around one-third of potential waste is being recycled or composted.

Significant savings have been achieved as a result, environmentally as well as financially. Less money is being spent on tipping fees and landfill construction, while natural resources are being conserved due to the greater availability of recycled materials.

Public attitudes regarding wastefillness have changed as well. Many Vermont residents and businesses are far more willing today than a decade ago to make extra efforts to reduce the amount of trash they generate.

"Recycling has become an integral part of everyday life," observes Joe Fusco, vice president of Casella Waste Management in Rutland.

State officials are not satisfied with the current rate of waste reduction, however. And the economics of recycling remain at least as problematic now as in 1987, when Act 78 was passed. Rather than recycling becoming a financially, selfsustaining industry, as some advocates had predicted, collection and sorting costs continue to surpass the revenues realized from the sale of recyclable materials.

Vermont's new solid-waste plan, adopted in 2001, calls for reaching a recycling and composting rate of 50 percent by 2005, compared to the current figure of 33 percent.

"The state's goal is feasible but very difficult," says Fusco, whose company runs the largest recycling operation in Vermont.

Even to come close to the 50 percent target, the state will have to reverse a slow downward trend in the recycling rate in recent years. In Chittenden County, for instance, about 36 percent of waste now gets recycled, versus almost 40 percent a few years ago.

It's not that compliance with recycling rules has slackened, says Carolyn Grodinsky, waste-prevention coordinator for the Agency for Natural Resources. What's happened is that the total volume of solid waste in Vermont has been growing more rapidly than the steady amount of material that's put into recycling bins.

The trend toward more trash echoes the economic boom of recent years. Vermonters have been consuming more, and a significant share of that added waste - many types of packaging materials, for example - simply cannot be recycled, Grodinsky points out.

Several new or intensified initiatives will thus have to succeed if Vermont is to increase the share of solid waste it recycles or composts, from about 200,000 tons last year to the targeted level of more than 300,000 tons in just three years. The average Vermonter, in other words, will have to dispose of no more than 2.7 pounds of trash per day, as opposed to 3.3 pounds at present.

Additional public expenditure maybe the single-most important factor in making progress toward that goal. Waste-reduction programs have been essentially levelfunded the past few years, says Mark Roy, chief of the recycling division in the Agency for Natural Resources.

"It will be very hard to meet the goal without increased state support," Roy observes.

Fusco agrees. The biggest obstacle to a sharp rise in the recycling rate "isn't behavioral or technological, but financial," says the Casella executive. "The question is whether local governments are willing in times of tight budgets to invest in waste reduction."

With more money, Roy says, ANR could help solid waste districts around the state improve the infrastructure of their recycling facilities. Bailers and glass crushers are among the machines that could be purchased to make recovery operations more efficient. And if ANR were able to hire more staff, "we could focus more on encouraging recycling in the commercial sector," Roy notes.

Vermont businesses account for about half of the solid waste generated in the state, officials estimate, but recycling rates for the office, retail and industrial sectors are lower than for households. Money is the big issue here too, says Dean Wilson, manager of the Rutland County Solid Waste District. "It can cost business more to recycle than not," Wilson notes.

But most companies are eager to pitch in to the recycling bins, says Frank Cioffi, head of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation.

"In areas where good recycling resources are available," Cioffi finds, "business embraces them as fast as it can."

The state's second-largest solid waste district wants to help provide those resources. The Rutland County district will convene meetings this summer with local companies and other major waste-generators "to see what can be done to increase the recycling rate," says Wilson, the district's manager.

In Chittenden County, recycling officials are already running programs targeted specifically at business. The state's largest solid waste district has distributed some 1,500 desk-side recycling bins to office buildings and other places of business throughout the county in the past few months, says Wendy McArdle, marketing chief for the Chittenden district. It is also offering free drop-off at hazardous waste centers for up to 100 fluorescent bulbs, which contain mercury and should therefore not be put in landfills, McArdle says.