Dive Brief: The U.S. EPA will investigate a civil rights complaint filed against Baltimore City and its Department of Public Works over their 10-year solid waste management plan. A complaint filed with the federal agency alleged the plan, which anticipated the continued operation of a mass burn combustion facility run by WIN Waste Innovations, disproportionately impacts nearby communities. The EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights is looking into the case. The office enforces federal civil rights law with entities that receive federal funding, which includes the city and its department.   The complaint was filed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Environmental Integrity Project on behalf of the South Baltimore Community Land Trust. The filers allege that the city has abdicated its responsibility to reduce the pollution faced by people in the South Baltimore communities of Cherry Hill, Mt. Winans, Brooklyn, Lakeland, Westport and Curtis Bay, which are predominantly Black and Hispanic. Dive Insight: Baltimore City leaders supported the development of a zero waste plan that was published in 2020 and included a goal to divert 90% of materials from “burning or burying” by 2040. That plan was supported by Mayor Brandon Scott, but just before he took office, his predecessor closed a deal with WIN Waste to keep the mass burn facility running into 2031. The contract renewal was the latest in a decades-long debate about whether the city should move away from incineration. Most recently, the city passed a law that would have enacted strict air pollution controls on the facility, only to have it overturned later in court. The resulting settlement agreement led to the upgrades made by WIN. Environmental justice advocates in Baltimore have long fought the impacts of the WTE facility, commonly known as BRESCO. Their complaint argues the latest improvements made by WIN are insufficient to address the harms experienced by disadvantaged communities. “As a lifelong South Baltimore resident and someone who loves my community of Lakeland, I’m thankful for EPA’s action to accept our complaint,” Carlos Sanchez, a youth outreach specialist, said in an emailed statement. “Everyday, we live with the consequences of our city’s ongoing missed opportunity to budget for a just transition to zero waste away from toxic trash incineration. The good news is this is a fixable problem and we are confident that our city leadership, who understand the importance of equity - will step up and do the right thing and begin to treat this environmental justice issue with the urgency it deserves.” The complaint takes aim at the city’s 10-year solid waste management plan, approved last year. The filers particularly take exception to the document’s outlook on the WTE facility, which reads: “Until there is universal, coordinated adoption of waste diversion practices across public and private sectors, it is likely that the facility will continue to operate at or near its current throughput.”  The complaint argues that this approach “resigns the City to continued reliance on and operation of the BRESCO waste incinerator at its historical rate.” Instead, the filers say, the city should lay out a path to adopt strategies already laid out in the city’s zero waste plan. They note that waste facilities are concentrated in South Baltimore, which has about 70 industrial sources of air pollution. Removing BRESCO, they say, would reduce the overall burden. WIN Waste has long denied that its facility has a disproportionate impact on South Baltimore, noting emissions from heavy truck traffic also contribute to the air quality of the area. The company says its facility helps Baltimore manage its waste safely and operates “well below strict federal and state emissions limits that safeguard public and environmental health,” according to an emailed statement from WIN Waste Senior Director of Communications & Community Mary Urban. While the complaint specifically cites the incinerator, it also notes that the communities in South Baltimore face a variety of pollution sources that combine to create a significant burden. The nearby Quarantine Road Landfill accepted 355,000 tons of solid waste in 2021, about a third of which was incinerator ash. Last year, the owner of the Curtis Bay Energy Medical Waste Incinerator, the country’s largest such facility, also had to pay $1.75 million to address more than 40 counts of "systemic, improper, and unsafe handling, transport, and disposal of insufficiently incinerated special medical waste," according to the state’s attorney general. It was one of Maryland’s largest-ever environmental penalties. Marco Castaldi, a professor and director of City College of New York’s Earth Engineering Center, said his research has shown such facilities typically contribute no more than 10% of an area’s total air pollution. He said Baltimore is making rational decisions based on the current levels of waste generation in the city. “These aspirational ideas are very, very good. Zero waste is a very, very good idea. Until that happens, you have to have solutions that are practical,” he said. But environmental groups have praised the EPA’s decision to investigate the complaint, noting its rarity. Most complaints that are filed through this process are rejected without investigation, according to the Center for Public Integrity. “Moving forward with this case recognizes what we all know: that transitioning to zero waste and away from incinerators means following the leadership of local communities, especially frontline, fenceline, and environmental justice communities, which are most harmed by these and other dangerous, polluting infrastructure," Denaya Shorter, senior director of the U.S./Canada Region at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, said in an emailed statement. Leah Kelly, a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project, characterized the EPA’s decision as a “preliminary but encouraging step forward” in the process. She said the groups who brought the complaint have multiple objectives for the process, including waste diversion and increased organics processing capacity through composting. “Residents of South Baltimore deserve to live in a clean and healthy environment,” Kelly said. “We hope that EPA’s investigation leads to real benefits for these communities after decades of decisions to add more pollution sources to this area.”

The Solid Waste Association of North America has joined the Canada Plastics Pact, part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Plastics Pact Network. The organization aims to create a “shared vision for a circular economy for plastic packaging” through a series of 2025 goals.  SWANA has shifted its mission in recent years to emphasize resource management over solid waste management, and its partnership with CPP fits with that vision, said Amy Lestition Burke, SWANA’s CEO and executive director. “Our members provide critical roles in collecting and processing plastics to enable recycling and to prevent plastic pollution. We are building connections to support designing for recycling, strengthening demand for recycled content, and supporting critical infrastructure,” she said in a statement.  CPP has four main targets it aims to meet by 2025: ensure at least 50% of plastic packaging is effectively recycled or composted; achieve 30% recycled content in plastic packaging; and support efforts for 100% of plastic packaging to be designed to be reusable, recyclable or compostable. It also created a list of “problematic or unnecessary” packaging it aims to eliminate by 2025. CPP, launched in 2021, now has more than 100 members. The group lists numerous major brands and recyclers as “signatories,” including companies such as Emterra and TerraCycle. It also includes “implementation partners” that represent sectors such as recycling, research, local government and consultants. The Association of Plastic Recyclers, Circular Materials, Upstream, the National Zero Waste Council and numerous provincial recycling groups are also CPP implementation partners. “To eliminate plastic waste and pollution, we need a holistic strategy that includes both upstream and downstream solutions,” said Cher Mereweather, CPP’s managing director, in a statement welcoming SWANA to the pact.  SWANA is also a member of the U.S. Plastics Pact, which aims to achieve similar goals as its Canadian counterparts. USPP recently released an updated strategic plan extending the deadline for some of its recycling and recycled content goals to 2030 instead of 2025. It also updated guidance for participating companies and organizations on how to design, use and reuse plastics in packaging. CPP said it plans to announce updates to its own strategic plan in “early summer.” SWANA was also in attendance at recent United Nations meetings in Ottawa meant to negotiate an internationally binding instrument on plastics pollution that’s widely referred to as a global plastics treaty. SWANA said it sees the work as “a key piece to eliminating plastic pollution.”

What can artists gather from a landfill or the people who move waste? An exhibit in New York City collects the work of artists-in-residence from around the country who have drawn fresh meaning from discarded materials and their experiences working alongside waste haulers. The work, on display at the All Street Gallery through May 30, follows a path blazed by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a conceptual artist who created a residency program with the city’s Department of Sanitation in the 1970s. Ukeles' art pushed viewers to look at sanitation workers in a different light at a time when their work had been devalued by the city’s fiscal crisis. Gabriela D’Addario, curator of the show, studied under Robin Nagle, an author who has worked as a uniformed sanitation worker and served as DSNY’s "anthropologist-in-residence" since 2006. After taking Nagle’s course in discard studies at New York University, D'Addario began researching Ukeles' work.  She found that Ukeles had inspired similar programs throughout the country. Residencies have sprung up in several U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, the latter two run by private hauler Recology. D'Addario decided to bring together pieces from those programs as a means of exploring Ukeles’ artistic legacy.  "I found this one thing that has piqued my interest was actually a small part of a much larger story," D'Addario said. Today, she estimates more than 200 artists have come through the programs, creating pieces in a variety of mediums and disciplines. In the course of cataloging the work, she noticed some trends, like the prevalence of craftspeople working with materials such as wood and fiber on the West Coast and video work, including that of Ukeles, on the East Coast. A wooden sculpture made by Hilary Pfeifer with reclaimed wood and pencils. The piece was made through Recology Portland's GLEAN artist residency program. Courtesy of Eden Chinn/All Street Gallery   "There's all these interesting paradoxes, and I think that continues to be a driving question for me, is why are cities doing this? Why are they sponsoring this kind of thing?" D'Addario wondered. Through the variety of mediums used over the years, the work both documents the country's shifting relationship to waste and casts a fresh light on practices that often occur on the margins of organized society. D'Addario said she finds the work inherently optimistic, as artists reuse materials that are tossed aside and imagine new futures for them in the spirit of environmentalism. "We have these large systemic issues that we're facing and we haven't totally figured out how to fix them," D'Addario said. "Maybe this is a slightly different approach, this artist's toolbox and ways of thinking." Several artists attended the show's opening on May 4, including Jade Doskow, the photographer-in-residence for Freshkills Park in Staten Island, New York. Doskow began her work at the former landfill in 2021. She said she views the site as "a place of infinite possibility" for exploration, in part due to its size — the now-closed landfill is about 2,200 acres and was once the largest in the world. Two prints of photographer Jade Doskow's work at Freshkills Park hang at the All Street Gallery in New York. Between them are engineering images captured by DSNY and Bernstein Associates in 2021. Courtesy of Eden Chinn/All Street Gallery   Doskow's work provides sweeping views of the park that now sits on top of the closed landfill, as well as some of the man-made systems that maintain the waste underneath. She said she largely has free reign to document the site, save for restrictions around the West Mound, which holds debris from Ground Zero disposed there after the 9/11 attacks. By continuing to document the site, Doskow hopes to capture what she describes as "micro moments in the landscape cumulatively over time." "It's this perfect reflection of where humanity is right now in relation to nature, in relation to wilderness and the garbage we make," she said. The show is Doskow's first where her art has been featured alongside other sanitation artists-in-residence. She said she was excited by the variety on display, noting: "There’s so many directions that these very unusual partnerships can take." DSNY's artist-in-residence from 2021 to 2023, sTo Len, said he’s interested in bringing public attention to the agency's long history in the spirit of Ukeles. During his residency, the artist commandeered the agency's defunct screen-printing studio and established the "Office of In Visibility." In that space, Len used old screens to create new interpretive works with the signs and symbols used by DSNY to educate and inform residents for decades. A print by sTo Len hangs at the All Street Gallery in New York. The work remixes several motifs taken from DSNY’s dormant screen-printing studio.  Courtesy of Eden Chinn/All Street Gallery   Through his work, Len also met DSNY employees that held a variety of positions, including collection workers. He said connecting with them was the most important part of the residency. "It was a way of activating an archive and using an older medium in contemporary fashion," Len said. "They were able to see me play with the old imagery, give it new life." Since Ukeles' tenure, Len said the perception of sanitation workers in New York has improved. He also thinks residents today are more "ecologically aware of their own footprint." But he believes the work that sanitation workers do to keep the city clean and free of waste is still overlooked. "They still feel invisible. They still feel unrecognized," Len said. “I was inspired to create a work that gives them visibility and visibility that’s three-dimensional."

New York City environmental nonprofit GrowNYC is shutting down several community programs as emergency funding that's kept them afloat since December expires. Farmer's market food waste drop-offs, a school composting initiative and regular swap meets will be discontinued as part of the move. The programs have been on thin ice since November, when Mayor Eric Adams required all city agencies to reduce their costs in the face of a budget shortfall. The city’s Department of Sanitation zeroed out $3 million in funding for the city's Community Compost Program for fiscal year 2024 as part of those cuts, prompting several nonprofits that have long relied on the program to wind down their activities. GrowNYC was able to continue some of its programming thanks to emergency funding from outside donors, but that money is running out. The funding has supported 53 positions, according to previous statements from the GrowNYC Workers Collective. Courtney Scheffler, a compost driver for GrowNYC, said the nonprofit negotiated with the workers’ union to cut costs by shutting down some low-performing sites and consolidate pickup routes in recent months. Workers were initially hopeful that the emergency funding would support them through the end of New York City’s fiscal year in June. Instead, unionized workers operating the compost program will be laid off by May 20 and those working with schools and the swap meet program will wrap up their work by the end of June, GrowNYC announced on LinkedIn. “It's definitely such a disservice to the communities we serve,” Scheffler said. GrowNYC collected about 2.2 million pounds of food scraps in 2023 and has collected more than 24 million pounds since 2011, according to its 2023 impact report. Its website lists about 50 drop-off sites throughout the city and now features “Last Day Info” for each location. The Adams administration has made organics recycling a priority in its sanitation strategy, rolling out separate bins for organics to most residences in Brooklyn and Queens last year. That program is scheduled to expand to the remaining boroughs later this year. DSNY has also added a number of orange organics recycling drop-off bins on streets around the city.  But environmental activists have criticized the program, which sends most materials to be codigested at an anaerobic digestion facility in Brooklyn rather than composting facilities in and around the city. Scheffler said GrowNYC has routed more of its organic material to composting operations in Long Island rather than in the city, in part because of that strategy.  Members of the New York City Council have been vocal in their support for community composting, rallying in front of City Hall in December and vowing action through the budget process. Shan Abreu, chair of the council’s sanitation committee, called GrowNYC "a fixture of our city" in an emailed statement addressing the shutdown. "Our communities will feel this loss," he said. "These cuts not only hamstring New Yorkers that want to practice environmentally-conscious habits, they upend the lives and careers of GrowNYC workers who are building a cleaner, greener city for all of us."  The council member also vowed to continue pressing the Adams administration to reinstate funding for the program. Abreu said the council's budget negotiations team is making the community composting program a priority. He also noted his committee will hold a joint hearing with the council's finance committee in May "to press the issue once more." "Our communities and our council are resolute: this budget is not complete without full restorations to community composting," Abreu said. GrowNYC workers are still hopeful that the process will lead to a restoration in funding for their composting work, Scheffler said. She’s planning to continue working with the nonprofit’s Greenmarkets program for the time being while seeking outside work to replace the income she made from the composting program. The union will also continue to advocate for the remaining workers and the restoration of funding, Scheffler said. The workers’ union, organized through the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, also ensured laid-off employees will receive a severance package. They’re also negotiating to ensure GrowNYC calls back laid off workers first if the city restores funding for the Community Composting Program, though that procedure is less certain if the nonprofit decides to fund its programs through private donors instead, according to Scheffler. Residents will have to navigate a more fractured organics landscape in the meantime. Scheffler described meeting someone at GrowNYC’s Parkchester food scraps drop-off sites in The Bronx who was excited to find a place to bring their organics, but she had to warn them that the site would soon shut down. “We had to tell them this won’t be here much longer,” Scheffler said. “There will be people that will not be able to compost anymore because of the budget cuts.”

Dive Brief: Gov. Gavin Newsom last week appointed Zoe Heller, a longtime circular economy and zero waste specialist, as the new director of CalRecycle.  Pending state Senate confirmation, Heller will fill the role previously held by Rachel Machi Wagoner. Wagoner was appointed in December 2020 and left the position earlier this year. Wagoner has since started a legislative and regulatory consulting business, RMW Strategies. Heller is CalRecycle’s deputy director of the circular economy division. Industry groups say her industry knowledge and stakeholder engagement experience will help her oversee a department known for undertaking complex, multi-year projects. Dive Insight: Heller will step into a demanding role. CalRecycle is working to implement numerous high-profile policies: SB 1383, the state’s major organic waste diversion law; SB 343, a recyclability claims law; SB 54, the state’s EPR for packaging law; and multiple updates to the bottle bill, among other initiatives.  Optional Caption Retrieved from CalRecycle on May 08, 2024   “Coming from within CalRecycle, Zoe has the experience and knowledge of the complex issues of the many programs and responsibilities facing the director,” said Jeff Donlevy, general manager at Ming’s Recycling and a member of CalRecycle’s Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling, in an email. “Zoe is known and respected by the key stakeholders of the programs, especially [the] beverage container program.” Donlevy credited Heller’s work rolling out grant funding to bolster the state’s container deposit system infrastructure and operations.  Scott Smithline, who served as CalRecycle’s director from 2015 to 2019, also applauded Heller’s appointment. “There has never been more consequential work in front of CalRecycle. Zoe has the experience, skills and temperament to lead the [department] through it,” he said in a post on LinkedIn, in response to Californians Against Waste’s support for her appointment. Heller has been CalRecycle’s circular economy division director since 2023 but has served in several other roles there from 2017 to 2022. She has worked as deputy director of policy development and as deputy director of the Materials Management and Local Assistance division.  Heller worked at the EPA from 2006 to 2017, where she was a manager of the zero waste section, served as special assistant to regional administrator, and worked as an environmental protection specialist. Prior to that, she was a research and policy analyst at the Chicago nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology.  Rachel Oster, co-founder of the Recycle Right Coalition, said Heller was already known for her circular economy work under EPA, and has since become “ a respected policy voice” at CalRecycle while implementing aggressive policy mandates for source reduction, reuse and recycling. “Since these policies are now impacting almost every California resident and business, Zoe has built a strong connection and relationship with the variety of stakeholders at the table,” she said.  CalRecycle is formally known as the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. It manages permitting, compliance, recycling grant funding, market development, education and disaster debris management, among other tasks. Heller will oversee a staff of more than 1,000 people, which could expand further under the governor’s proposed FY25 budget. This story first appeared in the Waste Dive: Recycling newsletter. Sign up for the weekly emails here.

The public can now access an online library of environmental justice-related resources through the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Justice Clearinghouse unveiled last week. The purpose of the searchable library is to make it easier and more efficient for advocates and stakeholders to access resources that could propel their work, according to the agency. “Everyone interested in environmental justice will be able to find resources on one website,” Jalonne White-Newsome, federal chief environmental justice officer for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement.  The library includes over 200 resources such as available funding opportunities, screening and mapping tools, federal research and guides and information about organizations with specific subject-matter expertise. The National League of Cities’ sustainability director, Peyton Siler Jones, said in an email that the clearinghouse “offers a navigable set of useful resources that municipal leaders can use to inform their planning, policy, and funding to center environmental justice in their climate work.” Siler Jones said that the information in the database makes an “excellent start” at providing cities, towns and villages with the variety of resources they need for environmental justice work. The Biden administration says it has made environmental justice a central part of its agenda and is doling out billions of dollars for local projects. The clearinghouse, established through an executive order signed in April 2023, builds upon that work. “President Biden tasked the entire federal government with breaking down barriers to resources and information that help communities pursue environmental justice,” White-Newsome said. The resources currently in the online library are based on submissions from federal agencies, but the EPA hopes to add to the library on a rolling basis with suggestions submitted by the public. “It will only be made stronger with suggestions from the American people,” Theresa Segovia, principal deputy assistant director for the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, said in a statement. Submissions must be free, publicly available and link to a non-editable document like a PDF or website. “The opportunity to provide feedback here will allow the tool to evolve over time to address the needs of diverse stakeholders,” Siler Jones said.

Global waste volumes are set to rise dramatically in the coming decades, absent notable changes, according to a recent UN Environment Programme report. The International Solid Waste Association played a lead role in that document and is calling for the waste industry to adjust its model accordingly. UNEP’s updated Global Waste Management Outlook estimates that global MSW generation could reach 3.8 billion metric tons by 2050, up from 2.1 billion in 2023. Managing this waste, when also accounting for “the hidden costs of pollution, poor health and climate change from poor waste disposal practices” cost an estimated $361 billion in 2020. The report anticipates this could reach $640.3 billion by 2050 without corrective action. “Waste generation is intrinsically tied to GDP, and many fast-growing economies are struggling under the burden of rapid waste growth,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen in a statement. The report — which was financially supported by Japan and Sweden — also took a detailed look at the possibilities and limitations of different circular models, the pressing issue of food waste and much more.  ISWA has been increasingly vocal about what this shift could look like at a time when waste issues are gaining traction on the global scale. Last year, the UN recognized the first International Zero Waste Day and ISWA hosted the first-ever waste and resources pavilion at COP28. ISWA has also been part of ongoing international plastics discussions and recently released a report on the issue. Carlos Silva Filho, president of ISWA and former leader of the Brazilian Association of Waste Management Companies, has been active on these issues for years. Waste Dive spoke with Silva Filho in early April about takeaways from the report, what it means for North America and how he thinks the waste industry can adapt to meet the moment. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. WASTE DIVE: Waste has been underestimated as a climate issue in the past, but it’s starting to get more international attention. How have you seen this recognition evolve in the last few years? ISWA President Carlos Silva Filho Permission granted by Carlos Silva Filho   CARLOS SILVA FILHO: We always felt that waste was underestimated in many discussions. The climate aspect was one, also the health aspect and even the pollution one. Waste was always considered as a minor issue that wouldn't be able to change positively the situation. I would say the Global Waste Management Outlook 2024, and the research to prepare it, was fundamental. Because we were always trying to convince people [that] better waste management is useful, is necessary, but without consistency. When we realized that we have data available to support this message it seems that it turned the perception. So when we have countries realizing that it's not enough to tackle CO2 emissions but you need to tackle methane emissions, and then you have many opportunities and possibilities to tackle methane from waste, it changes the perception. And in terms of pollution it's the same thing. We still have, according to the Global Waste Management Outlook, 38% of the total waste in the world going to dump sites or other inadequate disposal. But we have numbers now to say it costs more than if you have the adequate infrastructure available. I know closing dumpsites has been a priority for ISWA, but it’s a challenging issue. Have you seen any notable progress in recent years? Unfortunately no, not too much progress. When we were researching for GWMO 2 we looked at more than 150 countries. Most of them have national laws prohibiting dump sites, prohibiting open burning. And in fact, what happens is that the law is not enforced. We’ve had the national waste law in Brazil since 2010. The law prohibited open dumps. The deadline is Aug. 2, 2024 and according to the most recent research the country still hosts 1,300 open dump sites. I would say the excuses for that are many, and almost the same in the countries where you have the dump sites. First of all, there is no money available to move to upgrade the system. Second, there aren’t alternatives. It takes time. Municipal authorities, local authorities are not really paying attention to this situation of the dump site. Even the citizens don't care about it, because they just want to get rid of the waste from the front of their houses. And if it goes to a dump site or to another place for them it's not a problem because it's out of sight. We are now raising this flag that we need an innovative approach to fund the upgrade of the systems. It stood out that North America has the highest per capita waste generation rate. The report discusses EPR for packaging systems, which are in the early stages in the U.S. In areas that have more established EPR programs, have you seen research showing that they can eventually reduce waste volumes? We have two separate worlds, what we call the Global North and the Global South. The Global North, they don't have inadequate disposal sites anymore but they do keep generating more and more waste over time and this puts pressure into the whole system. For example, in Europe, they are exporting their waste/recyclables to other countries. When China brought the ban, the Green Sword, [European countries] started exporting to Turkey, they started exporting to other Eastern European countries. So they are still not able to deal with the amount of waste they are producing, even though they have good extended producer responsibility schemes. And this is another discussion we wanted to bring. For example, we are discussing the circular economy for 20 to 25 years now. What real examples of circular economy can we find in place in practice, at the commercial scale, to really put the system into a closed loop? There are several pilots. They are very good ones, they are very successful ones, but I don't see it expanding.  That’s been a notable point of discussion lately, how in areas with EPR for packaging the overall waste generation rate hasn’t necessarily shifted. Many people came to me and said, “Look, but we could reduce the waste generation here and there.” Yes, but it's very tiny movements. If you're looking to the graphs and the data from the last edition — the previous edition in 2015 of the Global Waste Management Outlook — and this one, the waste generation has grown in every region in every continent, in every country I almost dare to say.  And we do have legislation in place, we do have directives, but it's not really being implemented. So we are not dealing with this topic as we should. Because we are not changing the paradigm. We are still seeing waste as trash, as garbage. There are efforts to make packaging more recyclable and use more recycled content, but it's still single-use packaging. Reuse-refill is gaining more attention, but it’s harder to do at scale. How have you seen that trend evolve? There are many initiatives for refilling, for dry shampoos because you don't need packaging. But most commercial brands, are they turning to this approach? I don't see it. The big brands and those who really drive the market forward into changing the whole production system, [they say] we are using recycled content in our new packages. They are creating a market for the waste that is being produced from the previous cycle. But again, as you say, it's still single-use packaging. There is a length in this cycle that you can use recycled content, because the fibers get stressed, they cannot be recycled infinitely. Turning to food waste, another big topic in the report, how should we think about the priority of focusing on that upstream versus downstream? Here in the U.S., downstream collection is gaining more traction but it’s not as widespread as other areas. At ISWA we've been approached a lot with this question. I truly believe that we need to shift our focus to upstream measures, because the time of the end-of-pipe industry is over. We cannot be the ones that are really there just waiting to receive what the society discards. We are part of the transformation industry. Transformation, not only in terms of materials, turning waste into resource, but also in terms of transforming the society. So trying to be the ones who lead this agenda. So in terms of food waste, it's a huge concern because [recently], there was this food waste index report launched by the United Nations with impressive numbers. One billion meals are wasted every day. And in a world that we still see some regions suffering from hunger, we really need to approach this problem in a different way. And not only saying we can transform food waste into a fertilizer or into a gas. But really, how do we improve the process so that we don't have that much food waste at the end? What we are advocating for is the waste sector, the waste industry, [to be] the ones who can assist the whole value chain in order to improve the process.  Part of the waste industry’s financial model is built around waste volumes continuing to go up. What is ISWA’s message to for-profit companies about how they can be part of your goals while still having a good business? This is one of the obstacles to really change the system, because we do have consistent and professional players in the market who rely on the current waste management system. So the more the better, the more waste we have the better for us for our profits. But it cannot be that way anymore. Our vision is a world where waste doesn't exist. Because you don't need to make profit out of waste, you can make much more profit out of resource, out of the transformation. So what I mentioned during the launch of GWMO 2 was the era of this linear waste management approach — discard, collect, dispose — is over. We really need to change into a new system where the intelligence of the sector will make more profit from the materials that are discarded.  We need to change from the previous three-R approach to a three-D approach — decarbonize, decouple and detoxify. So having the waste sector not only recycling, not only promoting recovery, but really promoting what the new world, the new century expects from us — a decarbonized, a low carbon economy.  According to one of the articles we presented at COP28, despite the waste sector representing only 3% of the total emissions, we can mitigate up to 20% of the global emissions. So this is something that can be monetized, that can be explored. We can be the ones who assist the whole cycle to decouple economic growth from waste generation.

A report from the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment found that the public-private partnership’s signatories collectively lowered their unsold food rates by 28% between 2019 and 2022, reducing the tonnage of wasted food in the region by 24.8%, or nearly 190,000 tons. Those participants include the West Coast operations of Albertsons, Kroger, Walmart, Fresh Del Monte, Aramark, Sodexo and others. The findings point to the successes of a program designed to address food loss and waste across the supply chain with an emphasis on source reduction, a priority that the U.S. EPA continues to emphasize in its messaging on sustainable materials management. “This is hands-down the largest progress in reducing food waste that we have ever seen reported,” Dana Gunders, executive director of ReFed, said during a webinar discussing the report Tuesday. "This is a really big deal.” The report, published April 4, drew together high-level takeaways on how grocers, suppliers, growers and other food stakeholders were improving food loss metrics across their supply chains, breaking down data by grocery department and end-of-life destination. The PCFWC was first organized through outreach from state, provincial and local governments to private businesses to meet the EPA’s goal to halve food loss and waste by 2030. Since 2019, the report found a 28% increase in unsold food going to composters and a 20% increase in unsold food getting donated. Anaerobic digestion also continues to be a common destination for unsold food on par with donation, though the proportion of unsold food it's seen has remained roughly level over the past four years. The percentage of food going to landfills or unknown destinations was 46% combined, though those numbers fluctuated year over year based on how much data the report's authors were able to capture, Jackie Suggitt, ReFed's director of capital, innovation and engagement said on the call. The purpose of the report is to help stakeholders identify which practices are working and how they can make the most impact on their food waste. Toward that end, it also breaks down food loss by grocery department to identify where grocers can make the greatest impact.  Suggit said that focus enhances not just grocers’ bottom line but the climate benefits of addressing food loss and waste as well. She noted that about 94% of all emissions from food waste occur upstream before the material reaches a landfill or other disposal option. “We really try to lean prevention-heavy and start adjusting this before we have to start discussing other destinations,” Suggit said. The climate impact of the PCFWC's efforts was significant — the report charted a savings of 2.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent and 141 billion gallons of water over the four-year study period. Those savings meant a 30% decrease in the carbon footprint and a 37% decrease in the water footprint of unsold food. Despite the progress made via the PCFWC's voluntary nature, Gunders said ReFed remains a strong supporter of organics diversion laws across the country. She noted that while the stakeholders in the PCFWC represented about half of the regional grocery market share across member jurisdictions, that still left another 50% of businesses that had yet to realize the benefits of implementing those best practices. "We really think that those types of policies are a critical part of progress on this because they reach everyone," Gunders said. "There's a long tail of businesses that are harder to reach." While the PCFWC is a regional body, ReFed, the World Wildlife Fund and other partner organizations have looked to take the strengths of that partnership and expand. Last year, they launched the U.S. Food Waste Pact committing national leaders to meet the EPA’s 2030 goal. On Tuesday, they said they hoped the takeaways from the report could be applied nationally to ensure continued progress toward that goal. “Food waste often doesn't have a single owner, or a person who is accountable on their own across the food business,” Suggit said. “The solutions are many.”

Dive Brief: Lithium-ion batteries topped the list of materials state officials find most difficult to manage, according to a survey conducted by the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials. Tires and PFAS-containing products rounded out the top three. Respondents were also asked to list the mechanisms they used to address those materials. A majority of state officials, 25, said they used publicly issued guidance documents, while 20 said they used state-level funding and regulations to address the materials. Thirty-nine states responded to the survey. The survey, conducted in June 2023, informs the organization's efforts to support better management pathways for the materials. ASTSWMO has previously weighed in on federal efforts to address several materials, including plastics and PFAS-containing products. Dive Insight: Certain materials have flummoxed state officials who are increasingly looking for ways to divert materials from disposal. Lithium-ion batteries have proven particularly challenging, as the items have been prone to causing fires in recycling and disposal facilities. Last year, the U.S. EPA circulated a memo informing officials that the batteries are "likely hazardous waste" upon disposal, in part because of their "ignitability and reactivity." The memo did not change any federal regulations, and it also clarified that states could regulate lithium-ion batteries more stringently if they choose to. The survey found that respondents most often needed markets, infrastructure and funding to manage difficult materials. One respondent said that their state was home to "a few recyclers for lithium-ion batteries" but lacked collection and transportation infrastructure to shepherd those materials to recyclers. The state also noted “[p]roducer responsibility requirements would help," a view echoed by other respondents who viewed EPR policies as a way to secure ready infrastructure to accept difficult materials. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are also challenging, in part due to uncertainty about the chemicals' health and environmental impacts and shifting regulations. The survey was conducted after EPA's initial drinking water regulation for PFAS in 2022 but before the final version, released last week. PFAS-destroying technologies are still emerging, and concerns around incineration and its impact on the environment have complicated remediation efforts. The Department of Defense is currently partnering with Enviri division Clean Earth on a pilot to study remediation methods, as it first announced in November. The ASTSWMO’s Hazardous Waste Subcommittee generally has been supportive of EPA efforts to address PFAS, including its proposal to list nine of the so-called “forever chemicals” as hazardous constituents. That decision could open up the chemicals to cleanup requirements at Resource Conservation and Recovery Act corrective action facilities. ASTSWMO noted doing so would create new remediation needs for states, and noted the need for increased resources to manage the challenge.  Some materials among the 21 that ASTSWMO surveyed posed unique challenges. Several respondents noted that infrastructure for tires at the end of their lives is scarce, leading to dumping or other improper management. Household hazardous waste was the fourth highest item ranked by states, and plastics, especially #3 through #7 plastics, ranked fifth. 

Dive Brief: Battery recycling company Green Li-ion is launching a new battery materials plant in Atoka, Oklahoma, the company announced Thursday.  The facility is located within an existing recycling facility and will produce battery-grade cathode precursor, lithium and anode materials from used lithium-ion batteries.  Green Li-ion's facility is part of a larger push from the industry to onshore the material processing link in the battery supply chain, which is largely still completed overseas, including in China. Dive Insight: Green Li-ion is one of many companies focused on developing a more circular economy behind battery production, part of a bid to avoid geopolitical pitfalls and snatch Inflation Reduction Act domestic tax credits.  Green Li-ion's equipment focuses on black mass processing — an often overlooked aspect of battery recycling and production. Black mass is created from shredded battery scrap and then processed to recover materials like nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese, which can be recycled into battery-grade components.  While nickel, cobalt and other critical minerals are typically mined, more companies are turning to recycled options as demand for domestically procured material outstrips supply.  Green Li-ion is tapping into this demand with the option for other battery recyclers or manufacturers to send the company black mass for processing or to install the company's equipment in their own facilities.  The company's technology converts recycled scrap into battery-grade precursor cathode active material, eliminating the need to export material for further processing.  In doing so, Green Li-ion is hoping to circumvent China's grip on much of the world's critical mineral mining capacity and offer a domestic solution for rising battery material demand. The Oklahoma plant is expected to produce two metric tons of pCAM per day, or the equivalent of 72,000 smartphone batteries, with plans to quadruple capacity within the year. The site is currently in the final stages of calibration to produce pCAM and lithium carbonate and expects to begin commercial production later this month, according to VP of Operations Stephen Hayward.  Green Li-ion did not disclose the size of its investment in the plant but said it would start with six new positions, with the potential to grow up to 20 as the plant scales production, according to Hayward.  "If you don't have rights to mining, you have absolutely no choice but to start recycling," Hayward said.  What to do with recycled battery scraps is where Green Li-ion and others are hoping to fill the gap in the U.S. Electric vehicle battery recycling could reclaim up to 98% of key raw materials to manufacture new batteries, according to Guidehouse Insights.  Several battery material makers are in the midst of building North American plants to capture the rising demand.  Battery recycler Umicore is building a $1.34 billion plant in Ontario that will combine CAM and pCAM production. And American Battery Technology Co. is in the midst of building a Nevada plant that will process black mass and lithium intermediate material into battery-grade components.

The New York City Department of Sanitation captured less residential and institutional recycling than it did six years ago and encountered more contamination in recycling streams in 2023, according to its newly released waste characterization study.  While the agency attributed some of the shrink in recycling tonnages to shifting trends, like packaging lightweighting and the decline of newspapers, experts say the agency is falling behind on its duty to educate residents and residential building staff members who manage trash, recyclables and organics for buildings of all sizes. “Just mandating a recycling program does not make it successful,” Eric Goldstein, New York City environmental director with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said. “It needs additional focus from the department, including a reinvigorated education and training effort.” In response to a question about the role education should play in improving contamination and capture rates for recycling, DSNY Press Secretary Vincent Gragnani highlighted the “massive, multi-pronged education and outreach” campaign the agency did around curbside organics collection. “We remind New York City residents and businesses that we are all required to give recyclable materials a second life by separating them from regular trash,” Gragnani wrote in an email. The study is the first that DSNY has conducted since 2017. Auditors collected and analyzed material from each residential collection stream: paper and cardboard recycling; metals, glass and plastics recycling; and trash. They found that on the whole, New Yorkers discarded fewer pounds of refuse than during any prior study year, despite the pandemic shifting some waste tonnage from commercial streams to residents’ homes. Recycling and refuse collections in New York City Measured in pounds per household per year The study found additional bright spots. The statewide bag ban that took effect in 2020 contributed to a 68% reduction by weight of plastic bags in the waste stream since 2017, a reduction that appears to have more than offset the increased amount of other types of bags that have since found their way into the garbage. A ban on expanded polystyrene foam containers, mostly used for takeout, contributed to that material decreasing 54% by weight in the waste stream. In a note leading the study, DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the effectiveness of the bans lends “credence to the fight to enact extended producer responsibility at the state level.”  But New York is going backwards in its diversion goals, according to the study. It found that even though 75% of materials in the waste stream can be diverted from disposal, just 20.2% of the waste stream was diverted in 2023. That metric includes a decline in the capture rate of paper and cardboard, which dropped 2.5 percentage points, and a decline in the capture rate of metals, glass and plastics, which dropped 2.6 percentage points. A goal set in 2018 to grow the city’s capture rate from 50% to 60% has spawned little improvement, and the city’s goal to stop sending waste to landfills by 2030 seems more and more out of reach. Clare Miflin, founder of the Center for Zero Waste Design, has worked with DSNY to educate architects on best practices for materials diversion and other initiatives. She said she was troubled by a DSNY official characterizing the changes reflected in the study as “negligible” and by the agency’s head, Jessica Tisch, recently waving away the notion that DSNY should encourage residents to reduce the amount of garbage they produce. “There’s just this hole,” Miflin said. “DSNY doesn't think they’re responsible for getting to zero waste.” Organics This year’s waste characterization study is the fourth since 2000, and it’s the first time a study has logged a decline in recycling rates. Samantha MacBride, assistant professor at Baruch College and a former DSNY official, had a hand in a major waste characterization study the city released in 2005 as well as subsequent studies. She said DSNY has made some improvements since her tenure there ended. “Sanitation is better now than they used to be,” MacBride said. “When I worked at Sanitation, if a resident asked us, ‘Where does our stuff go?’ We would give them a vague, general answer about it, but most of our staff did not even know exactly where it was going.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams, DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch and other officials unveiled an expanded Staten Island Composting Facility on Jan. 4, 2024, which increased the facility's capacity by 2,000%, according to the city. (2024). Retrieved from New York Sanitation Department.   The new study also takes a close look at organics collection. Efforts to offer curbside collection expanded haltingly before the pandemic. But the Adams administration, backed by the city council, began a more permanent expansion last year.  Today, DSNY is largely sending source-separated organics to either the newly expanded Staten Island Composting Facility or a codigestion facility at the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant in Brooklyn. Those facilities have been touted by the agency as a success, as has the rollout of organics curbside collection in Queens and Brooklyn.  The waste characterization study notes these programs offer additional opportunities for diversion. The study estimated that an additional 36% of organics currently in the waste stream could be diverted for collection after Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx get curbside organics collection later this year. But in a study of organics diversion in Queens during the 10 months the borough had curbside collection last year, MacBride found that a troublingly low 4% of organics were captured. Boosting that rate would require a series of measures, MacBride argued in a policy brief, including an embrace of microhauling, community compost and greater transparency. Such efforts would combat skepticism and lack of participation in organics collection. “People always want to know, where does my trash go, where does my recycling go, where does my composting go? And when you can’t give a lot of answers, it’s no surprise that people start believing conspiracy theories,” MacBride said. “It’s transparency … people have a right to know about the world they live in.” Education Issues with both recycling and organics collection have ebbed and flowed for decades, since DSNY first began separating out materials from the refuse stream. But they’re compounded today by budget cuts that have hamstrung the agency’s education and outreach efforts. Miflin noted that November budget cuts made by Adams have halted a program run by GrowNYC in partnership with New York City schools to teach students sustainable practices, just as schools are beginning to receive organics collection service. The nonprofit itself now faces dire financial straits, as the elimination of funding for the community composting program could result in dozens of layoffs. The November cuts also slashed $4.1 million in outreach and communications spending budgeted for fiscal year 2024, with additional multimillion-dollar cuts planned for subsequent budgets. Those cuts reduce the agency’s ability to message on critical programs, but repeated and sustained messaging campaigns on proper recycling are critical in a city that saw more than 2.5 million new residents arrive between 2010 and 2020, Goldstein said.  “The city has not been paying attention to the need to repeat and reinforce the message about how to recycle and why it’s important,” he said. More education and outreach money should be spent on programs that embrace a zero waste mindset, Miflin said. While some opportunities like the Clean Buildings Training remain for staff, Miflin said the new administration did not renew a contract she had to educate architects on how to design buildings for zero waste. She noted that without planning ahead for diversion, designers of large buildings frequently don’t provide enough space for recycling and organic waste, instead furnishing just five square feet for recycling storage or a separate chute as mandated by code. Miflin said current codes and DSNY’s collection systems are incentivizing trash. “A building like that, of course they're gonna get contamination,” Miflin said. The city could make progress by earning back residents’ trust and buy-in with recycling programs, Goldstein said. But reducing the amount of waste sent for disposal could also save the city money, he pointed out — New York City currently spends nearly $500 million on waste disposal and export.  “That’s not chicken feed, and it’s coming from our taxpayers,” Goldstein said. “The economic benefits of recycling and composting when they are fully embraced and comprehensively publicized could be significant for taxpayers as well as for the environment.” Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional information about building code recycling requirements. This story first appeared in the Waste Dive: Recycling newsletter. Sign up for the weekly emails here.

Edward Humes doesn’t think he’s solved America’s waste crisis, but he has a few suggestions he thinks might help. The author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist takes aim at what he sees as the most wasteful aspects of American culture in his new book, “Total Garbage: How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal Our World,” out on April 2.  Courtesy of Random House   The book showcases numerous waste, recycling and reuse advocates and their quest to reduce waste in everyday life. Along the way, he also introduces experts who connect personal responsibility changes with larger systemic solutions, such as advocating for extended producer responsibility laws and curbing greenwashing through changes to packaging labeling and other efforts. The book reads as a how-to guide for people who worry about reducing their waste footprint but aren’t sure where to start.  Humes already has one waste-related book under his belt: the 2012 book “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash.” For that book, he explored the scope of the waste problem in the United States by visiting landfills, delving into single-use plastic issues and spending time with advocates trying to prevent plastic in oceans. But much has changed in the decade since that book was first published: China’s National Sword policy altered the way the U.S. ships recycling overseas, while EPR and other policies meant to raise recycling rates and reduce pollution have taken hold. At the same time, pollution persists and in some cases is getting worse, he said. For his follow-up book, Humes told Waste Dive he wanted to highlight meaningful steps to reduce waste in everyday life — everything including how Americans source and cook food, how they heat their homes and power their vehicles, what types of packaged products they choose at the grocery store and where they buy their clothes. “Everywhere you look, there's a lot of wasteful things that have become normal to us and they're not normal,” he said.   “Total Garbage” follows people that Humes said are “thinking outside that normalcy box” to advocate for better solutions. In one part of the book, he describes accompanying Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Georgia and an author of leading studies on plastic pollution, as she gathered food packaging data at a grocery store. The trip showed Humes just how confusing it can be for consumers to choose the most environmentally friendly or recyclable food packaging, something Jambeck herself admitted was tough for her — even with a self-described “PhD in trash.” Another part of the book highlights Sarah Nichols, then the Sustainable Maine director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, about her work helping to pass the country’s first EPR for packaging law. “It was so interesting to see how she championed it just one heart and mind at a time — talking to town council meetings, recruiting citizen volunteers to talk up the power of saying, ‘We've shifted to this model of foisting the responsibility for dealing with plastic and packaging waste on to taxpayers and consumers. That’s not right.’” Edward Humes Courtesy of Michael Goulding/Random House   Though much of his book includes ways the average person can make personal choices to prevent waste, Humes acknowledged that personal responsibility is just one part of the puzzle. “It shouldn’t be about blaming the consumer, but our choices do matter. They should also inform and drive larger policies so responsibility can be shared,” he said. He also acknowledged that some of the book’s tips — choosing grocery store foods that come in less packaging, for example — aren’t realistic for people who live in communities without grocery store access, meaning the most feasible daily shopping option are convenience stores that sell pre-packaged items. Larger policies are needed to address similar inequities, he said. “The burden of all that waste falls most heavily on disadvantaged communities… because incentives in our economy allow that,” he said. Still, Humes feels optimistic that there are more tools available than ever to help individuals fight what he calls “the toxic disposable economy.” He highlights “micro-farms” in Los Angeles that transform lawns into places to grow food and high-end restaurants that have converted from natural gas to induction cooktops to save energy and reduce indoor air pollution. He also mentions a farming community in Minnesota that dramatically reduced its energy consumption by switching to solar and LED power.  Humes himself is an ardent supporter of thrift stores, which he said keep clothes out of landfills and fight the rise of fast fashion, which often is made of materials that contain plastic but have limited or no outlets to be recycled. “My argument, in most cases, is that not only are some of these options the less wasteful options, but they are the cheaper options. We’re making the economic case, the social and environmental case,” he said.