cannot <\/u><\/em>be recycled or composted.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cToday, environmentally safe landfills play an important role for materials that don\u2019t have viable end markets.\u201d Why is this?\u00a0\u00a0 Because today\u2019s modern landfills continue to clear all the hurdles, they work, they\u2019re scalable, they\u2019re economical and there are policies and regulations in place to support and encourage the developments of next generation alternatives in this space.\u00a0\u00a0 In short, these facilities are pumping-out clean, inexpensive, renewable energy like no other option!<\/p>\nThis is where achieving true Circularity comes into play and it\u2019s what most technologies are striving for when it comes to last\/best option in handling waste \u2013 Energy Recovery. WM spends a great deal of time and expense exploring best possible options. However, one of the major pillars of WM\u2019s strategy is adhering to the price discipline that is Mr. Steiner\u2019s legacy. \u201cIn a business where there is no price elasticity in demand, we must stay dedicated to that discipline\u201d and with the current low energy prices, \u201cnothing can compete with the low landfill pricing.\u201d According to Mr. Fish, other options have cost-structures that are at least 3-10 times the cost of landfill air space.<\/p>\n
WM remains dedicated to a \u201csustainable\u201d recycling business. As they should, not only are they the biggest landfill company in North America, they\u2019re also North America\u2019s biggest recycler – by an even wider margin.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, it\u2019s one of WM highest returns on invested capital, a business they want to ensure survives and thrives in the future. But Mr. Fish points out that we are in unchartered waters, the changes in products and packaging that are coming into our homes are significantly different and so are the recyclables going out, considerably increasing contamination rates and reducing value. This has led WM to take a hard look at what recycling means in term of environmental benefits.<\/p>\n
When it comes to packaging, Mr. Fish wants us to realize that we\u2019re an \u201con-the-go\u201d society. This is translating into copious amounts of plastic packaging, much of which simply cannot be recycled.\u00a0\u00a0 This \u201cconvenience rules\u201d trend is going to continue, causing tension between the desire to \u2018recycle it all\u2019 and the limitations of equipment, human behavior and the customer\u2019s tolerance for cost.\u00a0\u00a0 With a 6-7% growth in non-recyclable flexible packaging, a 15% growth in E-Commerce and a recycling stream that\u2019s 30% lighter than it used to be, Mr. Fish recommends evaluating the objectives to make sure we\u2019re targeting that which achieves the greatest return value.\u00a0\u00a0 He explains, \u201cEnvironmental benefits of recycling look very different when approached from a greenhouse gas emission reduction perspective versus simply looking at how many pounds or kilograms of material are averted from landfills.\u201d So this got Mr. Fish and the rest of WM thinking, \u201cWhat\u2018s the right goal? Is it to keep chasing that last ton to recycle or is it to achieve the highest possible environmental benefit? For years, recycle tons has been the goal and in response to high recycling goals, we\u2019ve seen some creative efforts to achieve these goals. Even when the environmental impacts might be questionable and the economics just made no sense. We now believe that recycling should not<\/u><\/em> be the goal in and of itself, we need to be a lot more specific to ensure that we are achieving the environmental benefits we want to and think we can.\u201d<\/p>\nMr. Fish goes on to explain that when it comes to the management of organic waste (including packaging) the first priority is in trying to reduce the amount of material from making it this far down the value chain \u2013 of course. \u00a0However, when this waste is<\/em> collected for recovery (including non-recycled plastics, even the ones that say \u201crecycla-bull\u201d) it becomes feedstock for a process and a new product, either compost or an energy product.\u00a0\u00a0 Anything not designed to comply with either option reduces the quality of this feedstock driving-up cost and threatening the entire process.<\/p>\nTo achieve real success, Mr. Fish emphasizes the need to be actively engaged in the entire value chain of material and suggests that we make-up our minds about packaging when talking about organic waste. \u201cDo we love it for preserving food or do we loath it for making waste? Should we ban it, tax it, recycle it, compost it, burn it or landfill it? What are the comparative environmental benefits and the costs?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Fish went on to highlight the importance of managing food waste. The main objective here is to reduce food waste and fortunately plastic packaging plays a critical role in preserving our food. Plastic packaging is not food and it should not be expected to perform like food, which would defeat the purpose. Nor should this material be comingled with food waste disposal, elevating the risk of more waste-stream contamination. Besides, industrial composting standards (ASTM D6400) require 90% conversion to gas in 180 days, leaving no nutrient value and losing any ability to capture the gas. In my opinion, compostable standards for packaging, although well-intentioned, simply overshoot any return value.\u00a0\u00a0 To jeopardize the entire supply chain with inadequate product performance and stability for the least common means of disposal doesn\u2019t make much sense to me. Instead, more focus should be on the primary means of disposal (anaerobic) and the proven asset that this environment offers, the recovery of clean renewable energy.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Mr. Fish emphasized that we can attack both sides of this problem.\u00a0\u201cWe are in the midst of rapid change, changing demographics, changing consumer behavior, change in purchasing habits and packaging innovations, all of which are having huge impacts on recycling and the waste industry.\u00a0Our response needs to be sophisticated and strategic\u2026 And as we tackle sometimes competing needs, all of us, producers, retailers, regulators and others, must use data to make the right environmental and economic decisions\u2026\u00a0We have the data, let\u2019s put it to use!\u201d<\/p>\n
The data provides a clear pathway to achieving our environmental goals. Packaging should have the highest value and minimize environmental impacts in its most common discard method\u2013 without compromising the package quality. For the vast majority of packaging this does not equate to recycling, instead the environmental and economical winner is conversion to energy in modern, environmentally safe landfills. This shift in creating science and data driven solutions, rather than basing actions on perception or environmental folklore, is vital in reaching WM\u2019s goal to process this material to its highest worth, maximizing the resource value and eliminate the environmental impacts of packaging in a way that\u2019s both good for the economy and our planet.\u00a0\u00a0Although this message seemed to completely elude the panel of experts that followed, discussing the conundrums of complex packaging, I hope others will begin to take Mr. Fish\u2019s advice before we\u2019re all swimming in it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the 2017 Waste Management Executive Sustainability Forum a message was delivered by Mr. Jim Fish, CEO of Waste Management (WM), echoing his predecessor, Mr. David Steiner.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe goal is to maximize resource value while minimizing and even eliminating environmental impact, so both our economy and our environment can thrive.\u201d \u00a0In 2016 Mr. Steiner told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[737,246,740,741,743,1],"tags":[194,831,1521,33,121,291],"class_list":["post-2902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biodegradation-2","category-plastic-news","category-product-innovation","category-testing-and-data","category-thought-provoking","category-uncategorized","tag-biodegradable-plastic","tag-clean-energy","tag-converting-landfill-gas-to-clean-energy","tag-environmentally-friendly","tag-packaging","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2902"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2906,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions\/2906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ensoplastics.com\/theblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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