Helen Spiegelman

1
Unintended Consequences A short history of
waste
Coast Waste Management Association Spring
Conference Victoria 29 March, 2007
Helen Spiegelman Product Policy Institute
www.ProductPolicy.org
2
The Industrial Revolution
3
Opening up the West
4
Boom towns
Hastings Street
5
Back streets
6
A public health crisis
7
Citizens demanded action
The municipal housekeeping movement
8
and government listened
Waste collection a core service of local
government
9
Municipal waste ca. 1905
CARD OF INSTRUCTION FOR HOUSEHOLDERS
Put into Rubbish Bundles
Bottles, Paper, Pasteboard, etc. Rags,
Mattresses, Old Clothes, Old Shoes, Leather and
Leather Scrap, Carpets, Tobacco Stems, Straw and
Excelsior, (from households only)
The Sanitary Code requires householders and
occupants to provide separate receptacles for
ashes and garbage and forbids mixing these in the
same receptacle. This law will be strictly
enforced.
10
Unintended consequences
11
The change in waste
Kg/cap/year
Waste generation in USA, Source US EPA Facts
and Figures for 2003
12
Designed for disposal
Too much of a good thing
13
An environmental crisis
14
Citizens demanded action
15
and government listened
Curbside recycling a core service of local
government
16
More unintended consequences
17
Cleaning up after the Throwaway Society
18
What most citizens dont know
70 of MSW is buried or burned
SOURCE Franklin Associates
19
A hundred years of progress
Is this good enough?
20
The root of the problem
21
The life-cycle of a product
Waste begins here.
22
products end here!
23
THE PROBLEM
Public responsibility
Producer responsibility
Production Distribution
Collection Disposal
24
Welfare for waste!
Subsidizing the Throw-Away Society
25
A Sustainability Crisis
Economy outgrows Earth
26
A new citizens movement?
Lets give our local governments permission to
stop picking up after us.
27
Producers are responsible for products
Production Distribution
Reverse Distribution
28
Extended Producer Responsibility there goes
75 of the waste stream
Packaging
Food scraps
Non-durable products
Yard trimmings
Miscellaneous inorganics
Durable products
SOURCE US EPA, Municipal Solid Waste
Generation, Recycling and Disposal in the United
States Facts and Figures for 2003
29
So whats the municipal waste manager going to do?
30
Core competence
Courtesy of BioCycle, Feb. 2006
31
The future of municipal waste management
32
Doing what they do best
Municipal
EPR
33
Holistic view of EPR

• Zoning Land Use
• discard malls?
• Business Licensing
• who provides on-street recycle bins?
• Purchasing
• specify end-of-life take-back?

What can your other departments do to support EPR?
34
sustainable production and consumption and good
governance.
www.productpolicy.org