Travis P. Wagner

Shared Responsibility for Managing Electronic Waste: A Case Study of Maine, USA

Based on high disposal and low recycling rates of electronic waste (e-waste) and continued exportation to developing countries, reliance on municipal responsibility for e-waste management has been unsuccessful in the United States. This case study examines Maines program, which was the first US state to mandate producer responsibility for recycling household e-waste. Maines program established a shared cost responsibility among producers, municipalities, and consumers. The study found that Maines program resulted in a significant reduction in disposal and a corresponding increase in environmentally sound recycling. In the first 3 years of the program, 6.406 million kg of household e-waste was collected and recycled for a population of 1.32 million. The new program, implemented in 2006, increased the number of e-waste items collected and recycled by 108% in the first year, 170% in the second year, and 221% in the third year. The program decreased direct economic costs to municipalities and households because of the shared cost approach and for the first time established costs for producers. There was no empirical evidence indicating that producers have or will improve the recyclability of electronic products to reduce recycling costs. While other weaknesses were that found potentially limit the adoption of Maines program, its positive aspects warrant consideration by other governments.

Examining the Concept of Convenient Collection: An Application to Extended Producer Responsibility and Product Stewardship Frameworks

Increasingly, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Product Stewardship (PS) frameworks are being adopted as a preferred policy approach to promote cost-effective diversion and recovery of post-consumer solid waste. Because the application of EPR/PS generally requires the creation of a separate and often parallel collection and/or management system, key to increasing the amount of waste recovered is to maximize the convenience of the collection system to maximize consumer participation. Convenient collection is often mandated in EPR/PS laws, however it is not defined. Convenience is a subjective construct rendering it extremely difficult to define. However, based on a dissection of post-consumer collection efforts under a generic EPR/PS system, this paper identifies and examines five categories of convenience - knowledge requirements, proximity to a collection site, opportunity to drop-off materials, the draw of the collection site, and the ease of the process-and the various factors of convenience within each of these categories. By using a simplified multiple criteria decision analysis, this paper proposes a performance matrix of criteria of convenience. Stakeholders can use this matrix to assist in the design, assessment, and/or implementation of a convenient post-consumer collection system under an EPR/PS framework.

Landfill mining: Case study of a successful metals recovery project.

Worldwide, the generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is increasing and landfills continue to be the dominant method for managing solid waste. Because of inadequate diversion of reusable and recoverable materials, MSW landfills continue to receive significant quantities of recyclable materials, especially metals. The economic value of landfilled metals is significant, fostering interest worldwide in recovering the landfilled metals through mining. However, economically viable landfill mining for metals has been elusive due to multiple barriers including technological challenges and high costs of processing waste. The objective of this article is to present a case study of an economically successful landfill mining operation specifically to recover metals. The mining operation was at an ashfill, which serves a MSW waste-to-energy facility. Landfill mining operations began in November 2011. Between December 2011 and March 2015, 34,352 Mt of ferrous and non-ferrous metals were recovered and shipped for recycling, which consisted of metals >125 mm (5.2%), 50-125 mm (85.9%), <50mm (3.4%), zorba (4.6%), and mixed products (0.8%). The conservative estimated value of the recovered metal was

The Complete Guide to the Hazardous Waste Regulations

7.42 million. Mining also increased the landfills airspace by 10,194 m(3) extending the life of the ashfill with an estimated economic value of

Increasing diversion of household hazardous wastes and materials through mandatory retail take-back

267,000. The estimated per-Mt cost for the extraction of metal was

Compact Fluorescent Lights and the Impact of Convenience and Knowledge on Household Recycling Rates

158. This case study demonstrates that ashfills can be profitably mined for metals without financial support from government. Although there are comparatively few ashfills, the results and experience obtained from this case study can help foster further research into the potential recovery of metals from raw, landfilled MSW.

Reframing Ecotage as Ecoterrorism: News and the Discourse of Fear

A tool for companies which generate or transport hazardous wastes, this third edition of the highly successful The Complete Guide to Hazardous Waste Regulations, RCRA, TSC, Htma, OSHA and Superfund, includes changes made to the hazardous waste and hazardous materials program since 1991.

The generation and cost of litter resulting from the curbside collection of recycling

The disposal of household hazardous waste and materials as municipal solid waste (MSW) remains a vexing problem for solid waste managers and policymakers. A major underlying factor is the inconvenience of special collection programs compared to general disposal. A properly designed, mandatory retail take-back program can significantly improve user convenience compared to centralized or periodic, voluntary special collection programs. San Luis Obispo County, California, population 271,960, was the first county in the US to establish a mandatory retail take-back program for specific household hazardous waste and materials (HHWM): fluorescent lamps, household batteries, medical sharps, and latex paint. This program uses retail locations as collection points for subsequent transport by the county to its transfer facility. This shared responsibility program has been highly effective at diverting HHWM from disposal as MSW. Between April 2009 and October 2012 the estimated collection/diversion rates increased dramatically from near zero percent to approximately 36.44% for fluorescent lamps, 21.4% for household batteries, 28.43% for latex paint, and 72.65% for used medical sharps. For household batteries and fluorescent lamps, the convenience of the collection container and the type of store were statistically significant predictors of the number of batteries and lamps collected.

Reducing single-use plastic shopping bags in the USA

Increased energy costs, social marketing campaigns, public subsidies, and reduced retail prices have dramatically increased the number of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) installed worldwide. CFLs provide many benefits, but they contain a very small amount of mercury. Given the billions of CFLs in use worldwide, they represent a significant source of mercury unless CFLs are recycled and the mercury recovered in an environmentally sound manner. In the state of Maine (northeast United States), despite mandated recycling of CFLs and availability of free CFL recycling, the household CFL recycling rate is very low. A study was undertaken to identify the primary factors responsible for low recycling. The first step was to survey householders who use CFLs. The 520 survey responses indicated that insufficient knowledge regarding recycling and inconvenience of the collection system are the two primary factors for the low recycling rate. To validate these findings, the second step was an examination of the current collection system to assess (a) the knowledge requirements necessary for recycling and (b) the convenience of the collection system. The results of this examination validated that knowledge requirements were excessively difficult to fulfill and the collection system is not sufficiently convenient. Based on these results, waste managers should focus on increasing convenience and simplifying access to information when designing or improving household collection and recycling of CFLs.

Case Study: Examining the Contribution of Historical Sources of Lead in Urban Soils in Portland, Maine, USA

This study examined how national newspapers have participated in the production and reproduction of the discourse on ecotage through a lens of terrorism. The approach used in this study is to apply the thesis of Altheide (2003) that mass media uses the discourse of fear to report on acts of terrorism. Through a content analysis of six national newspapers, this study sought to answer two questions: Do national newspapers frame ecotage acts primarily as terrorism? If ecotage is framed as terrorism, is the discourse of fear used in stories that discuss ecotage? Using 20 search terms commonly used to describe ecotage acts, 155 news stories were found from 1984 to 2006. Based on an analysis of these stories, there was a marked shift in framing ecotage as terrorism starting in 2001, but before 9/11. Increasingly the discourse of fear has been used to indicate the seriousness of ecoterrorism. In addition to this shift and use of fear, the volume of stories has increased, yet the number of reported incidences of ecotage has steadily declined over this same period.