Maggie Clarke, Ph.D.

I am testifying on my own behalf today, having served for 14 years in various capacities in the solid waste advisory community, four years as the NYC DOS' expert on incinerator emissions, and 2 years as INFORM's director of solid waste research.

These are ideas that have been discussed in the past by the advisory community:

First some history: In 1988, in response to an escalating crisis in waste disposal capacity, the Legislature passed the NYS Solid Waste Management Act. This Act required that all municipalities prepare 10-year plans for managing their solid waste, established the integrated solid waste management hierarchy for New York State, and established goals for recycling (40-42%) and waste prevention (8-10%) to be reached by 1997. Since that time, New York City has made improvements in its waste management practices, increasing the recycling rate to over about 20%, counting such Local Law 19 recyclables as papers and cardboards, waxed paper containers, aluminum, steel and bulk metal, glass containers, and plastic bottles and jugs, excluding lot cleaning debris, auto bodies, construction and demolition, and the like. Also, according to NYC DOS figures, the true source separation rate for metal, glass and plastic is less since 35% is contaminants, discarded in landfill, (contamination of paper is about 5%) so the City is only recycling maybe 16% of its waste stream. The City has not indicated what its waste prevention rate is, if indeed it has decreased the waste stream at all.

New York City, and probably other municipalities in the state, has not come close to achieving the recycling/waste prevention goals set in the 1988 Act, and the City's solid waste management plan no longer even recognizes the 1997 goals as targets in its planning process. New plans have very few new prevention, recycling or composting initiatives. Further, the NYSDEC representatives informed the CRAB years ago that they don't enforce the 40/10 goals in their review of the City's Solid Waste Management Plan updates.

Today, the closure of New York City’s Fresh Kills landfill has created a situation where all of NYC's discards are exported to other states, a risky proposition in light of movements in the Congress to ban exports. For many years, Fresh Kills had taken in approximately 27% of all the garbage disposed of in New York State. Its closure has resulted in dozens of new transfer stations, some of which are crowded near residential areas of Brooklyn and the Bronx, with increased traffic congestion and air pollution. The City's solid waste management costs have skyrocketed to almost a billion dollars per year due to this "interim plan". The City's proposed "final" plan (detailed in the SWMPlan) is for half of the export to go to one facility that is bogged down in a legal and political quagmire (Linden, NJ). If the US Congress ever prohibits export, this waste stream could overwhelm disposal facilities elsewhere in the State. Recycling and waste prevention efforts have not increased to reduce the amount exported, despite reports showing the City's past waste prevention programs have cost an average $27/ton (SAIC reports, 2000) (this is calculated by dividing the DOS figure of $2 million/year expenditure on waste prevention by the annual waste prevention tonnage that the SAIC report gave for DOS' programs. ) The cost of recycling is coming down due to increased efficiencies and with increasing disposal costs, recycling may soon become cheaper (NYC Independent Budget Office).

The advisory boards believe that the Solid Waste Management Act should be strengthened, by enacting new legislation to promote recycling and waste prevention, and by increasing funding for development and implementation of innovative waste prevention and recycling methods. The Act does not state how a plan should be structured or give much in the way of penalty for not adhering to a plan, once written. Plans can list responsible milestones or risky and irresponsible ones (e.g., export of 80% of the City's garbage). This has caused the planning in New York City to be a useless and frustrating exercise.

................... Below is a brief outline of principal recommendations.

Revision of NYS Solid Waste Management Act (or creation of a City Act)

The Solid Waste Management Act established a waste management hierarchy, goals for waste prevention and recycling, and local planning requirements. It is time to now revise the Act with updated goals and planning and implementation requirements to keep New York moving towards increasingly responsible and environmentally sound waste management. The revised Act should:

1. •Establish new mandated targets and dates for waste prevention, recycling and composting rates for waste generated by each sector: residential, institutional, commercial. (e.g., for recycling and composting: 25% by 2004, 35% by 2008, 40% by 2012, 50% by 2015 and for waste prevention, 5% by 2004, 10% by 2008, and 15% by 2012.) )(Year 2000 should be the baseline year for prevention calculations.)
2. Establish a method of recycling measurement to be used statewide. There should be a uniform list of recyclable and compostable items that can be counted towards targets, specific to each sector (e.g., categories of papers, plastics, metals, glass, textiles, food, yard etc.) and a list of waste items that cannot be counted towards targets (e.g., auto bodies, C&D waste). The New York City Local Law 19 requirements do not include the latter grouping and hence a lower recycling rate is required (25% by 1994, which the City has repeatedly fought and lost in the courts). If auto bodies, C&D and other heavy items are to be included in the definition of recyclable, then the mandated recycling rates need to be increased to reflect the additional weight of these items.
3. Establish a uniform methodology for measuring the effectiveness of waste prevention milestones included in solid waste management plans in actually reducing the tonnage of waste (including recyclables) generated. Some methodologies developed to date simply correlate waste generation rates with GDP. Others have attempted to include other socioeconomic factors that cause people to buy more, repair less, etc. (see attachment)
4. Require that biennial updates and modifications to Municipal Solid Waste Management Plans be written with sufficient measures and milestones (for each year of the 10-year planning timeframe to ensure that mandated targets are achieved by the required dates. New plan updates should document diversion and prevention rates, calculated according to the established measurement methods.
5. Require that biennial updates and modifications to Municipal Solid Waste Management Plans be written such that there are municipal solid waste programs, incentives, legislation, and other measures in every year of the entire 10-year planning time frame.
6. Require that biennial updates and modifications to Municipal Solid Waste Management Plans report on the status of every previous Plan milestone, including, but not limited to, copies of research and marketing studies, educational campaign literature and results, waste composition studies and diversion rates.
7. Institute additional penalties (besides non-approval of solid waste facility permits) to municipalities where milestones and mandated targets are not achieved (e.g., ineligibility for solid waste grants, ineligibility for highway funds, fines, etc.) and/or additional incentives for municipalities that can achieve and surpass their goals.
8. Institute a local, per ton fee on wastes disposed at solid waste management facilities (landfills, incinerators, processing facilities, etc...); the lower on the hierarchy, the higher the fee. (Fee to be earmarked for to fund local waste prevention, recycling and composting programs) Example Fee schedule: $25/ton for landfill or old incinerator, $15/ton for new incinerator, $5/ton for recycling or composting facility.
9. Establish and collect quantity-based packaging fees (QBPFs) or taxes (5 cents per package) be charged all manufacturers, direct marketers, packaging retailers, and distributors who market or package products in excessively sized or of materials that are not recyclable in New York State's recycling program. Excessively packaged could be specifically defined using product to packaging ratio and considering delicacy of contents.

To make it easier to pass, the legislation could be applicable at all cities with populations in excess of 1 million persons (i.e., NYC).

Here are some of my own ideas for dealing with solid waste in NYC.

Once we have done as much waste prevention, reuse, recycling of currently targeted recyclables plus textiles and mixed plastics, and composting of food and yard waste as possible, and we have removed all toxic items from the waste stream (variously referred to as household hazardous wastes like paint, batteries, fluorescent bulbs, pesticides, cleaners, etc), I recommend that the City take the remaining discards to a mixed waste composting facility.  Such a facility would first remove all recyclable items from this stream (currently this stream contains about half of our targeted recyclables). Next, it would compost what remains. Since toxics have been removed, what is left should largely become dirty compost. But this is far superior to burying recyclables, compostables, and toxics in a landfill so that it can pollute groundwater and air. It is also far superior to taking these materials to an incinerator. Dirty compost can be used in non-agricultural applications.

The following document, presented to the City Council in November, 2000 shows what comprises the waste stream.

• NYC is separating 20 or 21% of its residential waste stream as Local Law 19 - mandated recyclables. We are/will be shortly exporting roughly 80%.

• The 80% of the waste stream to be exported consists of:

• Currently mandated recyclables that are not separated for recycling.

We target only 49% of the waste stream for recycling and composting. (We only capture about 45% of targeted recyclables, so 55% are in the garbage.) So recycling suffers from both insufficient targeting of recyclables and compostable materials and from insufficient education and enforcement. The reason we only capture 45% is poor public participation. About 20% of the waste to be exported are recyclables.

• Organics that aren't targeted for composting: Food: 16.3%, miscellaneous organics 7.3% = 24% of the total waste stream. Almost 20% of the waste to be exported are compostable.

• Textiles, and plastic films and bags: These account for over 10% of the total waste stream. Over 8% of the waste to be exported could be reused or recycled.

• Therefore, almost 50% of the waste to be exported could have been recycled or composted. If we were able to reduce exports by 50%, we could save over $100 million per year. This money could be used to fund more recycling and composting programs.

Recycling in New York City in 2000
Current and Potential Recyclables
by Marjorie J. Clarke, Ph.D.

Note:  These data are taken from the 1990 DOS Waste Composition Study.
Striped sections on left are potential future recyclables.  Solid sections on right are recyclables as of 2000.
Chart compiled by Marjorie J. Clarke, Ph.D.  November, 2000

Future Recyclables

Total Current and Potential Recyclable and Compostables: 90% of total waste stream

Incineration
Finally, it is important to understand something about incineration. While it is definitely true that the industry has achieved a lot in cleaning up its act over the last 20 years, it is still possible to choose less than the best technology and operate and maintain a plant in less than optimal ways. As co-author of the National Academy of Sciences 2000 report, called Health Effects of Waste Incineration, I pointed out the degree to which dioxin emissions can result from poorly designed and operated incinerators. I know that the City used to operate its old incinerators very badly (allowing 8 times the amount of air to come into combustion as was optimal - a condition that cools the combustion gases, permitting dioxins and other products of incomplete combustion to escape). As a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' committee on Qualifications of Resource Recovery Operators, I co-authored voluntary standards for facility operators and know that many operators do not have college training in air pollution or engineering. Having prepared testimony on EPA's incinerator standards for NRDC, I know that EPA's regulations allow for upset conditions (where the incinerator is polluting badly) to be ignored in terms of measuring compliance with standards. I know many of the latest and best states of the art in incinerator design and operation, as well as continuous emission monitors for many pollutants. More monitors are being developed all the time. But EPA does not absolutely require these to be used, and therefore, DOS would likely not include them. Instantaneous emissions of many pollutants, including mercury, can be monitored and telemetered (sent along the internet) if that is the desire. But it is unlikely DOS would do this unless it were required of them. These are my concerns about New York City depending on incineration.

Export is no panacea either. We have not considered the enormous increase in truck trips and the dioxin emissions (not to mention diesel particulates and other nasties) created. Depending on outsiders to handle our waste got us into trouble back in the late 1920s. We never learn from our mistakes. We have to own our own facilities and we should be trying actively to use every method available to get away from export, landfilling and incineration and using EPA's preferred methods of solid waste management.