This document discusses moving Anne Arundel County towards zero waste. It provides background on Community Research, a nonprofit working on zero waste campaigns. It defines zero waste as eliminating waste disposal and designing products and systems to avoid waste. It discusses nuts and bolts definitions, such as reducing landfilling to less than 10% of waste. It provides examples of zero waste initiatives and policies from other jurisdictions that could be models.

1. Moving Anne Arundel County
towards Zero Waste
Greg Smith
Suchitra Balachandran
Community Research
January 26, 2013

2. Community Research is a Prince George’s County-based
nonprofit that conducts public-interest research,
education and advocacy on the environment, public
health, sustainability, and other issues.
We are working with Clean Water Action, the Energy
Justice Network, and the Institute for Local Self-
Reliance to build a statewide campaign and alliance for
zero waste.
communityresearch@igc.org

3. What is “Zero Waste”?
"Zero Waste is a goal that is ethical, economical, efficient and
visionary, to guide people in changing their lifestyles and practices
to emulate sustainable natural cycles, where all discarded materials
are designed to become resources for others to use.
Zero Waste means designing and managing products and processes
to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume and toxicity of
waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources, and not
burn or bury them.
Implementing Zero Waste will eliminate all discharges to land,
water or air that are a threat to planetary, human, animal or plant
health."
-- Zero Waste International Alliance, November 2004.

4. Nuts and Bolts Definition
of Zero Waste
Zero waste means that:
 For many jurisdictions, the final goal is to reduce landfilling
and incineration to less than 10% of the waste produced.
 The amount of waste generated is systematically reduced.
 Nothing that can be recycled, reused or composted goes into
a landfill or an incinerator.
 Green businesses are encouraged to mine resources from
what would otherwise be wasted and destroyed through
landfilling or incineration.

10. Alameda County Waste Management Authority &
Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board

11. Best Practices Study – Mecklenberg County, NC
• Residential Curbside (City and County)
• Residential Multi-family
• Commercial/Industrial/Institutional
• Construction and Demolition Waste
• Schools
• Event Recycling
• Local Government In-house Recycling
• Waste Prevention (Reduce, Reuse)
• Litter

13. Which companies are interested?
• Manufacture of rotary, in-vessel compost units in a range of sizes for commercial
generators of organic wastes including animal manures – 30 jobs
• Mattress and carpet materials recovery – 30 jobs
• Electronic Scrap, hand dismantling and processing of electronic discards – 20 jobs
• Industrial Rubber Compounds – 50-65 jobs
• Topsoil and compost – 8 jobs
• Anaerobic digestion – 8 jobs
• Storage and resale of recovered building materials – 20 jobs
• Glass processing, industrial grade glass products, container glass – 3 jobs
Direct Jobs 200-300; Indirect Jobs 200-300
Alachua County collects about 200,000 tons of waste annually.
It has about 250,000 residents and covers roughly 970 square miles

14. Safeco Field – Seattle Mariners
Recycling rate increased from 17 to 80 percent
Stadium has 17 trash cans, 200 recycle bins and 300
compost bins
“All that’s left are potato chip bags, condiment
containers and wrappers for licorice ropes.”
Saved over $100,000 annually in landfill fees.
Written up on ESPN website
Unwasted: The Future of Business on Earth (http://sagebug.com/zerowaste/)

15. Ohio State Reported Achieving
Zero Waste Last Fall
Last November 3, Ohio State University achieved zero waste at its Ohio Stadium – diverting a record 98.2%
of its total generated waste. Total attendance was 105,311.
At its, previous home game, on October 20, OSU diverted 94.4%. That's everything from food scraps to
compostable packaging to recyclables.

16. Local Initiatives
Not everything innovative and inspirational is
happening somewhere else
• Cheverly - household composting
• University Park - food scrap collection
• College Park - bulk waste pickup for reuse
• Laurel – mandates residential recycling
• University of Maryland - Sustainability Initiative
• Community Forklift, Eco City Farms

18. CB 87 - 2012

19. U.S. municipal waste “disposed”
160.9 million tons in 2009
Source: US EPA, 2009 data (http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/msw99.htm)

20. What is in the waste that is landfilled?
Prince George’s County tonnages based on Montgomery County’s 2008-2009 sort

21. Resources and Dollars Landfilled
Recyclable Paper + Metals + Plastics = 192,000 tons
At $6/ton MRF + $59/ton landfill cost = $12 million
Commodity Prices: $100/ton for paper
$60-80/ton for metals
$10-15/ton for plastics
Food Waste + Non-recyclable paper + yard waste = 145,000 tons
At $20/ton for compost assuming 2:1 ratio of waste to compost and
$59/ton landfill cost saved = $10 million

22. Problems with Burning and Burying
• Both destroy valuable resources.
• Both pollute air, land, water, people and other living things….
upstream and downstream.
• Both destroy jobs and often export money from communities
• Both increase emissions of greenhouse gases.
• Both are subsidized at the expense of recycling, composting and
clean renewable energy.
• Both tend to be sited in communities with lower incomes, higher
percentages of minorities or rural areas.

23. Even More Problems with Burning
• Ton for ton, incineration is the most expensive waste
“disposal” option.
• Watt for watt, incineration is the most expensive way to
generate electricity.
• Watt for watt, burning trash emits more greenhouse gases
and more of certain toxic air pollutants than burning coal.

24. Costs to Build, Operate and Maintain a 1500 Ton Per Day
Trash Incinerator
• Construction costs can exceed $1
billion to build, including interest
on 30-year capital debt.
• Gross operating and maintenance
costs can approach $2 billion over
30 years.
• Retrofits to meet new standards
or simply to deal with wear and
tear can be very expensive.

25. 1,500 TPD recycling facility
= $8 million investment
Institute for Local Self-Reliance

26. Job Creation:
Reclamation vs. Disposal
Type of Operation Jobs/10,000 TPY
Computer Reuse 296
Textile Reclamation 85
Misc. Durables Reuse 62
Wooden Pallet Repair 28
Recycling-Based Manufacturers 25
Conventional MRFs 10
Composting 4
Landfills and Incinerators 1
MRF = materials recovery facility Institute for Local Self-Reliance
TPY = tons per year

27. So How Does
Zero Waste Happen?

28. Key Steps to Zero Waste
• Inform, Inspire, and Involve
• Implement Pay-As-You-Throw trash fees
• Accept many materials for recycling
• Compost
• Mandate recycling
• Target all sectors
• Augment curbside with drop-off
• Market materials
• Create green jobs by welcoming business that
reuse, refurbish, upcycle, recycle and compost
Institute for Local Self-Reliance

29. Policy Framework
• Landfill bans of certain materials, e.g., yard waste
• Recycling goals and requirements
• Beverage container deposits
• Recycled-content laws
• Creative funding mechanisms
• Buy recycled programs
• Pay-as-you-throw trash fees
• Product bans
• Product fees
• Extended producer responsibility (EPR)
Institute for Local Self-Reliance

30. Prince George’s County’s Current
Fee Structure Sends No Clear Signal
Charges the same rate to all “single-family” households:
Base Charge $33.52
Recycling Charge $58.16
Bulky Trash $20.94
Garbage $234.33
Typical Total $346.96
Municipalities – solid waste charges are not broken out

31. EPA advocates PAYT for Environmental and Economic Sustainability and for Equity

32. Unit-based Pricing Sends a Clear Message
Worcester, MA San Francisco, CA
Population 173,000 Population 775,000
Unit based pricing (and better) is just a different way of paying for waste
Source: Kristen Brown, Green Waste Solutions, www.thewastesolution.com

33. Composting & Recycling Collection System Designed
for High Diversion
Recycled Paper Food Scraps
21% 20%
Yard Trimmings
5%
Glass and Plastic Bottles
Aluminum and Steel Cans
5%
Compostable Paper
10%
Construction and
Demolition Waste
25%
Other
Courtesy of City of San Francisco 15%

34. Courtesy of City of San Francisco

35. Designed for Easy Participation
Labeled Lids
Kitchen Pail Wheeled Cart
Courtesy of City of San Francisco

36. Food Scrap Composting
PAYT
Resource Recovery Park
Waste Audit
ZW Strategic Plan
Post Reports on landfilled, recycled

37. "If it can't be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt,
refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or
composted, then it should be restricted,
redesigned or removed from production."
-- Berkeley Ecology Center