NRC’s Krebs Calls for Recycling Attention

In an op-ed piece released in recognition of America Recycles Day, Kate Krebs, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition (NRC), Washington, released the following statement:

“The tenth annual America Recycles Day on November 15th occurred in the midst of national debate about how our country can most effectively respond to the fast-approaching crisis of global warming.

Although a majority of Americans now believe recycling is very important, many do not yet appreciate the major role it can play in combating the worst effects of climate change.

The fact is that a dramatic increase in recycling can provide all of us with a simple but meaningful way of placing our homes, our cars and our lifestyles on the frontline of climate change solutions — solutions that can play a role in protecting the small, fragile planet we all share.

The National Recycling Coalition strongly believes that emerging legislation to combat climate change provides a singular opportunity to re-energize the public’s commitment to recycling by education, and, more importantly, by much-needed investment in our recycling infrastructure. With the small individual steps each of us can take to recycle the items we use each day, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions at every step along a product’s lifecycle.

Just think! A bottle used today can be recycled to recreate a bottle for use tomorrow. With each step forward in recycling, we have more materials that can be reused — thereby avoiding the significant greenhouse gas emissions created by harvesting virgin materials and dealing with their disposal in landfills and waste combustors.

If each citizen is motivated and able to conveniently place a used jar, can, box or newspaper into a recycling bin, we can build a foundation for preventing climate change — one newspaper or aluminum can at a time.

Happily, we can build this new initiative on a growing foundation of good news. Over the past few decades, the U.S. recycling rate has grown from single digits to more than 30 percent — annually salvaging 82-million tons of re-usable materials such as paper, plastic, aluminum, steel, glass, yard waste and computers.

That’s the equivalent of removing the carbon emissions of 39.4-million passenger vehicles from the road each year. Recycling all of our 251-million tons of trash obviously is even better — offsetting the carbon emissions of more than 120-million vehicles.

American businesses also are increasingly demonstrating environmental leadership. Consider just a few recent examples:

• Coca-Cola is investing $60-million in recycling initiatives in the U.S. with the goal of recycling and reusing all the plastic in its beverage containers.

• Waste Management, Inc. plans to increase the volume of recycled materials it processes from 8-million to 20-million tons per year over the next dozen years.

• Office supplier Staples, Inc. is offering recycling for computers and Computer maker Dell, Inc. offers free return of any of its used product for recycling.

Yet much more remains to be done. The new numbers on recycling released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today show a disturbing trend: In recent years, the growth of recycling has slowed, with the recycling rates of some key materials and products flattening or declining.

Between 1990 and 2000, recycling volumes and rates rose about 10 percent annually. Yet from 2000 through 2005, the growth rates tapered off to a meager 1 to 2 percent a year. And last year they did not grow at all. It’s hard to believe, but roughly half of all paper, paperboard and aluminum beverage cans, and two-thirds of plastic and glass containers, are not recycled.

Hopefully, the omnibus climate change legislation now moving through Congress will be the catalyst for a renewed national pledge to move from a disposable nation to the world’s first sustainable one.

Many of the current climate change proposals, including the sweeping bipartisan Senate bill sponsored by Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman and Virginia’s John Warner, will launch a multi-pronged assault on global warming. Missing in all of the legislation, however, is any recognition of the value of recycling in combating global warming.

One vital addition: enabling legislation that allows the private and public sectors to work together on jointly funded local projects. Communities and industries that develop new recycling projects should have the incentive of participating in a cap-and-trade program. Tax policy should provide tax-credits and other carrots for processors to modernize and expand infrastructure. Manufacturers should be motivated to optimize the use of recycled materials in their products.

Investments in recycling infrastructure must be expedited. Communities and recycling services need new vehicles and recycling equipment. Processing facilities must be modernized.  And best management practices for collection and processing as well as new approaches to public education and communication must be deployed. We need all of our citizens to understand the link behind their recycling behavior and global warming.

Hopefully, when we celebrate the eleventh annual America’s Recycles Day next November, the value of recycling in a carbon-constrained world be fully recognized, realized and enhanced for all Americans. That alone would be a giant step forward in changing the climate.”

Krebs is the executive director of the NRC, found on the Web at www.nrc-recycle.org. The NRC is a national non-profit advocacy group with members involved in several aspects of waste reduction, reuse and recycling in North America.