Mining the Urban Ore : Waste Management Needs Three R’s--Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

When we run out of landfills here, in about five years, we may have a garbage flotilla of our own. Los Angeles County’s solid waste amounts to about 14 million tons a year. If it were put on barges of 3,100 tons each (the capacity of the infamous Islip, N.Y. “garbarge”) it could fill about a dozen barges a day. Or, 4,516 barges a year stretching bumper to bumper from Marina del Rey to Pismo Beach in Central California. Not a pretty offshore sight, to say nothing of the on-shore smell.

Burn it? Not in my neighborhood or yours either. We don’t want to breathe any more toxics than we already are, in this, the air pollution capital of the nation. Besides, much of the ash from garbage incineration is toxic and takes up considerable space in landfills as well.

Dump all our rubbish in new landfills? Not in my neighborhood or yours either. No new landfills have opened in L.A. County in more than 20 years, while four major sites have been closed in the last five.

Landfills emit all kinds of toxics to both the air and the underlying reserves of fresh water. So-called impermeable clay liners may keep the toxics from leaching into the aquifers for awhile. But in earthquake country it’s hard to be sure.

Throw it in the ocean? Whatever you cast upon the waters, bread or trash, you can count on the tides to bring back to shore. Fourteen tons of litter were recently picked up by hundreds of volunteers along Oregon’s shores. Much of it was trash tossed from ships.

Export it? Just because Islip couldn’t make a deal doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

How about the desert? Too bad all that nothing is really something to Inland Empire protectors. There’s just no “away” to throw things into anymore. It’s ours and one day we’ll be glad we are stuck with it. Much of it is valuable, non-renewable natural resources, a kind of urban ore.

We know we must now recycle as much as possible in order to extend the life of our landfills. At the same time we must work on developing environmentally benign ways to handle what is not immediately reusable.

There should be no such thing as waste. What we call waste is simply evidence of our mismanagement of finite resources.

The name of the game is a new kind of Three R’s: reduce, reuse and recycle. Reducing waste at its source means doing something about the tax benefits given virgin materials. This disparity in taxation results in prices for recycled materials not being attractive enough to develop a strong, competitive market for such goods.

This is one reason that starting up recycling programs may add to the cost of garbage collection rather than defraying it. Part of that also is due to our overlooking the true costs of landfills. Replacement costs at today’s land prices, expensive long-term monitoring for toxics and the enormous cost of liability insurance often are not sufficiently considered.

We need to bring prices for recycled materials up to the point where they will help recycling pay for itself. Another way to do that is by assuring a steady demand for these so-called secondary materials. The largest potential purchasers of goods made with recycled materials are the federal, state and local governments.

Some programs have been put on the books to require government purchase of products containing recycled materials. However, not enough has been done about implementation. Federal procurement standards need to be set to encourage investment to process and manufacture products from secondary materials.

Tax credits for using recycled materials in products also would go a long way to stabilize the market. And low-cost loans for setting up recycling programs and processing facilities are needed, too.

Reusing products is even more environmentally beneficial than remaking them with recycled materials. Keeping things out of the waste stream is essential. Returnable soft drink bottles used to make as many as 19 round trips before being re-formed. That’s when the deposit required was sufficient incentive to bring a bottle back to the store.

California’s compromise version of a bottle bill goes into effect on Oct. 1. Pennies are promised for returned cans and bottles, while one top sanitation department official recently told me, “I wish it were $1 a bottle.” When we get serious about solving the solid waste problem we may have to ban non-reusable containers. Standardized, interchangeable, reusable containers may be the next step. And not just for soft drinks and beer either.

Saving such beautiful, verdant canyons as Rustic and Sullivan, with their stately sycamores and spring time rushing brooks, makes it worth separating recyclables for curb-side collection. Obliterating such beauty with trash and turning the lovely Santa Monica, Santa Susana or San Gabriel mountain ranges into high mesas of mess is sacrilege.

It is time for all of us to do our part. Mandatory source separation of all residential commercial and industrial wastes in Los Angeles must commence. At the same time, Congress, the California Legislature and local government should now do everything possible to make recycling work.