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Dr. Jeffrey Morris Sound Resource Management, Seattle, Washington,USA

I. The Pollution Prevention Benefits of Curbside Recycling in Washington State *********** II. Policy Options for Correcting The “Free” Market’s Failure to Correctly Price Recycling vs. Garbage/Disposal. Dr. Jeffrey Morris Sound Resource Management, Seattle, Washington,USA

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Dr. Jeffrey Morris Sound Resource Management, Seattle, Washington,USA

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  1. I. The Pollution Prevention Benefits of Curbside Recyclingin Washington State***********II. Policy Options for Correcting The “Free” Market’s Failure to Correctly Price Recycling vs. Garbage/Disposal Dr. Jeffrey Morris Sound Resource Management, Seattle, Washington,USA jeff.morris@zerowaste.com; 360-738-0255

  2. I.A. Calculating Recycling’s Pollution Prevention (P2) Benefits • Quantify life-cycle energy & material inputs/outputs as well as pollutant outputs for each recycled material (Life Cycle Inventory or LCI) • Assess impacts of pollutants (Life Cycle Impacts Assessment) • Estimate economic costs of pollutant impacts, or rank impacts via some other numerical or qualitative measure (Impact Costs Evaluation)

  3. 1. LCI Results for Curbside Recycling:(a) Virgin-content products use more energy thanrecycled-content products

  4. Energy Used for Resource Extraction & Product Manufacturing

  5. 1. LCI Results for Curbside Recycling:(b) Avoidance of upstream (extraction/manufacturing) energy+Avoidance of energy for garbage collection/disposal> (is greater than)Energy used to collect, process and market recycled materials

  6. Recycling per Curbside Available Household in Four WA Regions

  7. Net Cost for Curbside Recycling in Four WA Regions

  8. WA Curbside Recycling vs. Disposal Energy Use Reductions

  9. 1. LCI Results for Curbside Recycling:(c) Prevention of upstream (extraction/manufacturing) pollution+Prevention of pollution from garbage collection/disposal> (is greater than)Pollution generated to collect, process and market recycled materials

  10. 2. Life Cycle Impacts Assessment Results for Pollution Prevention (P2) from Curbside Recycling:Instead of showing the LCI results for each pollutant, the following slides use the LCI data to show curbside recycling’s P2 benefits in reducing four types of impacts from pollution– global warming, acidification, eutrophication and human toxicity

  11. P2 Calculations for Each Stage of a Product’s Life Cycle • EXTRACTION/MANUFACTURING: Avoided pollution from virgin resource extraction & virgin-content manufacturing, minus the pollution from recycled-content manufacturing • USE: No difference between virgin- and recycled-content products in pollution output during product use • WASTE MANAGEMENT: Avoided pollution from garbage collection, transfer & disposal, minus the pollution from curbside collection, processing & shipping

  12. WA Curbside Recycling vs.DisposalGreenhouse Gas Reductions

  13. WA Curbside Recycling vs. DisposalAcidification Potential Reductions

  14. WA Curbside Recycling vs. DisposalEutrophication Potential Reductions

  15. WA Curbside Recycling vs. DisposalHuman Toxicity Potential Reductions

  16. 3. Results for an Economic Valuation of Life Cycle Impacts from Curbside Recycling

  17. Australian Kerbside Study: Recycling Costs Amount to Just 38% of Dollar Value of Net Environmental Benefits • Environmental Benefits: • 75% from upstream air & water pollution decreases • 21% from upstream land use reductions & future resource access improvements • 4% from global warming credits • 2% from reduced land use for landfills • Environmental Costs: • 2% from increased truck traffic

  18. I.B. Societal Value of Recycling Is Greater Than Its Marketplace Value(I.e., the “Free” Market Fails to Price Recycling Correctly vs. Garbage/Disposal)

  19. II. Policy Options to Correct “Free” Market Failures • Taxes/subsidies to change relative prices – e.g., no-additional-charge (“free”) recycling for garbage collection subscribers • Regulatory Actions – e.g., cap & trade and bans • EPR – e.g., deposit/refund systems

  20. Commercial Garbage Disposal per Week

  21. Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Allowance Trading (average monthly prices)

  22. Beverage Container Recycling Rates • The 10 deposit/redemption states had a beverage container recycling rate of 71.6% in 1999 (redemption rates averaged 78%, varying between 69% and 95%) • The 40 non-deposit/redemption states had a beverage container recycling rate of 27.9% in 1999

  23. Contact Information:Dr. Jeffrey Morris112 Ohio Street, Suite 202Bellingham, WA 98225360-738-0255jeff.morris@zerowaste.comwww.zerowaste.com

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