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Waste and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

Ron Vance U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Waste and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction. MSW Management in the U.S. Recovery 33.8%. Land Disposal 54.3%. Combustion 11.9%. Municipal Solid Waste Generation in 2009 243 Million Tons. Food Scraps 14.1%. Yard Trimmings 13.7 %.

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Waste and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

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  1. Ron Vance U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Waste and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

  2. MSW Management in the U.S. Recovery 33.8% Land Disposal 54.3% Combustion 11.9%

  3. Municipal Solid Waste Generation in 2009 243 Million Tons Food Scraps 14.1% Yard Trimmings 13.7 % Other 3.5% Wood 6.5% Rubber, leather, and textiles 8.3% Paper & Paperboard 28.2% Plastics 12.3% Metals 8.6% Glass 4.8%

  4. Products Generated in MSW, 2009 Containers & Packaging 29.5% Food Scraps 14.1% Yard Trimmings 13.7% Nondurable Goods 22.0% Other Wastes 1.5% Durable Goods 19.2% 243 million tons before recycling

  5. Commodity Recycling Trends Neg. = less than 5,000 tons or 0.05 percent.

  6. Unsustainable Trajectory The current rate at which we are using resources is unsustainable. In 2000, U.S. consumed 57% more materials than in 1975 U.S. has < 5% of world’s population but is responsible for about 1/3 of world’s total materials consumption

  7. Evolution of Approach Solid Waste Management Recycling Integrated Solid Waste Management Sustainable Materials Management

  8. Sustainable Materials Management Waste is really a stream of valuable materials, with environmental investments and impacts at all stages of the lifecycle. Need to capture investments and reduce those impacts Considers the human health and environmental impacts associated with the full life cycle of materials Cradle-to-cradle vs cradle to grave

  9. Recycling Climate Impacts

  10. Calculating Climate Impacts WAste Reduction Model (WARM) Determining the GHG impacts of waste management practices - landfilling, recycling, incineration, composting, and source reduction. Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator Expresses quantities of GHGs in terms of metrics such as number of cars, gallons of gasoline, acres of forest, etc Recycled Content (ReCon) Tool Estimates the life-cycle GHG and energy impacts of purchasing or manufacturing certain materials with recycled content Durable Goods Calculator (DGC) Presents GHG and energy impact of disposing or recycling of durable household goods

  11. Calculating Climate Impacts Tools can be found at http://epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/tools.html Emission factors are not intended to assign ownership for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

  12. WasteWise WasteWise is a free, voluntary EPA partnership program. WasteWise helps organizations eliminate costly waste through waste reduction practices —benefiting the organization’s bottom line and the environment. WasteWise is flexible. More than 2,500 members

  13. What Does WasteWise Offer? Submit baseline data within 60 days of registering Report on waste management activities annually Commit to: Prevent waste (i.e. source reduction) Recycle Purchase or manufacture recycled content products

  14. What Does WasteWise Offer? Free Technical Assistance Individual attention Helpline Resources and Publications Online Waste Tracking Software EPA Recognition Awards Case studies, articles, and Web site success story features Sector Benchmarking Climate Profile

  15. Individualized Climate Profile • Calculates greenhouse gas emissions reductions resulting from waste prevention and recycling activities. • Translates these into real-life equivalents. • Valuable tool for communicating environmental benefits to management, employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

  16. ABC Company example to be created/inserted

  17. WasteWise Re-TRAC • Track activities and input data all year long • Interactive tool—not just for end-of-year reporting

  18. WasteWise Re-TRAC • Manage data for multiple locations • Ex: ACME Paper can report activities in their VA, MD, and DC offices • Need to have at least one location • Reports can aggregate the data for all locations

  19. WasteWise Re-TRAC • List of materials matches • Synchronized with WARM • Ability to add “Other” when material is not in the list

  20. WasteWise Re-TRAC • Access to Re-TRAC reports with real-time data • Re-TRAC offers several valuable reports • Climate Profile available immediately after EPA reviews annual data • Access to historical data for comparisons • Previous reporting data will be loaded into Re-TRAC

  21. More info on WasteWise www.epa.gov/wastewise (800) EPA-WISE (372-9473) oswwastewise@epa.gov

  22. Questions? Ron Vance U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (703)347-8951 vance.ronald@epa.gov

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