SWEEP releases ballot draft of its Municipal Standard

SWEEP (Solid Waste Environmental Excellence Protocol), the sustainable performance standard covering municipal solid waste programs and the private companies that support them, has posted the ballot draft of its new Municipal Standard. Rob Watson, chief sustainability officer of New York City-based EcoHub and the founder of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building certification program, founded SWEEP. Its steering committee includes representatives from the Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA), Epsom, New Hampshire; Waste Management, Houston; the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, Charlottesville, Virginia; and BlueGreen Alliance, Minneapolis.

The updated standard can be found at https://nrra.net/sweep/sweep-municipal-standard-ballot-draft.

As a National Consensus Leadership standard, SWEEP will identify municipal and private sector leaders in the top 25 percent of sustainable materials management performance. The 100-point Municipal Standard consists of 50 credits spread across five Performance categories, plus a bonus Innovation category:

1. Sustainable Material Management Policy (SMMP), 21 points

• one prerequisite
• nine credits;

2. Waste Generation and Prevention (WGP), 18 points

• one prerequisite
• nine credits;

3. Solid Waste Collection (SWC), 15 points, eight credits;

4. Postcollection Recovery (PCR), 28 points, 12 credits;

5. Postcollection Disposal (PCD), 18 points, 10 credits; and

6. Innovation in Sustainable Materials Management, 10 bonus points.

A National Consensus Committee (NCC) will vote on the Municipal Standard over a 30-day period after incorporating the comments received during the first NCC meeting, which will be held April 30 at the Los Angeles Environmental Learning Center. Those interested can register at https://nrra.net/sweep/register-sign-up-for-national-consensus-meeting.

The NCC is comprised of more than 100 experts from municipalities and all facets of the industry from around the country. Participation in the NCC and at the National Consensus meeting is governed by the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS) industry trade association policy. MTS is an ANSI-Accredited standard-setting body that is conducting the National Consensus Standard process for SWEEP.