Response to Texas’ Recycling Debates
Over the last few months, we have noticed discussion within the DFW Metroplex around whether or not recycling is profitable. The consensus seems to be that it is not, but perhaps wasting and throwing resources into deep holes is not the only option at this point. The good news is, this error can be corrected with a few Zero Waste thought processes:
1. Re-Use comes before Recycling and creates 7.5–25x more jobs per 10,000 tons of material.
2. Organic-Recycling should be the first consideration in a community recycling plan, not glass bottles which could be broken down into sand.
3. Zero landfill is not Zero Waste, and burning resources prohibits Reuse and prevents job creation.
5. The State and Federal Government should empower communities and incentivize local business to re-manufacture and subsidize recyclable materials, not control the flow of resources for their own gain.
6. Manage Resources. Start a local task force and get your City Council to adopt a Zero Waste goal, and start planning on a Resource Recovery program, rather than spending millions to waste.
Recycling is not free because it is more costly to do less efficient things with our resources. For example, it is very wasteful to ship tons of recyclables to China instead of re-manufacturing them here and creating green jobs. Recyclables are not government-subsidized like for-profit prisons and gmo crop-creation. We must make a local market for the materials and Re-Use/Re-Manufacture to make green American products. This is not about climate change, this is about economics and ecocide. Wasting has an upstream cost. When you throw away a can, you are wasting the effort it took to mine, manufacture and ship it. If people truly fathomed the economic and environment impact of waste, they would stop.
Sustainability Initiatives with funding that are backed by debt, bonds or the like, would never be sustainable, ever and would be a conflict of interest for a city that is trying to reduce costs. International banking clans will not help our cause or make anyone sustainable. We need a different kind of derivative to fund these green projects, like crypto or gold. See, ‘Good Derivatives’, by Richard L. Sandor and Ronald Coase or look at Bitcoin’s success.
Case Study 1: Austin, TX
In 2008, Austin adopted Zero Waste Protocol thanks to local community leaders. In 2016, they hit a wall at 44% diversion, which means, they almost got halfway to zero waste. We think they hit this wall because the city did not have the data they needed to get any further and they lack incentive for businesses or residents to help provide that data. We also noticed the new resource management department hired new city workers, at salary cost, instead of putting those resources into local business initiatives that are already trying to help and are experts on this front with scientific research to back them.
Case Study 2: Dallas, TX
In 2011, we started training and assembling local green business founders and approached economical development for a resource recovery park, which is a landfill replacement system, that us locals would love to have in our community. The Economic Development Department gave us a letter of intent for the Eco-park land across from McCommas bluff landfill, but sanitation did not want to cooperate or provide only 5% of waste materials to our local business ecosystem. They denied use of the Eco-park training facility that we had permission to use after we hired Gary Liss, who designed the Austin Zero Waste Protocol plan. We ended up training the community somewhere else. Soon after, The City tried to pass an ordinance called “flow-control”, which was turned down by a federal judge that said that “the flow control law impairs the waste haulers’ rights and would impede ongoing contractual relationships”. The last conversation we had with economic development was about an industrial bond we learned could be the funding mechanism we needed. The City said they hadn’t “dusted off” the industrial bond in 50 years.
https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2012/01/31/federal-judge-halts-dallas-flow.html
Case Study 3: Farmer’s Branch, TX
After realizing we may have gotten in over our heads, we focused on advocacy on smaller suburban cities within the Metroplex. We held an Intro To Zero Waste Training at local community colleges, a church in South Dallas and online. We honed into Farmer’s Branch because they own the landfill that Addison and Carrolton use. Lewisville sued Farmer’s Branch for trying to expand their landfill, Camelot, into Lewisville. The Mayor of Farmer’s Branch had their waste manager meet with me, and subsequently participated in a Zero Waste training at North Lake Community College with Gary Liss. At the same time, we were training the surrounding community waste managers of Lewisville, Addison and Carrolton. I spoke personally with multiple council people at Farmer’s Branch City Hall about compost, because they needed to direly combat their brush issue which is currently taking up landfill space. Instead of using the Zero Waste training that they underwent, they decided to implement recycling which doesn’t attack their organics problem what-so-ever.
I am convinced after 10 years of Zero Waste Advocacy, that the Government should not compete with its constituents. Anything that has ever happened worthwhile, has happened because people joined together to make it happen. The first step is having the correct knowledge. If anything should be summed up from this article, it is knowing the difference between Reuse and Recycling and when recycling is brought up, to make sure to differentiate between Organic Recycling and recycling cans and bottles. We, collectively, need to understand the Reuse markets need to be developed and that brush and leaves do not belong in a landfill site.
If you have a business waste bill and want to join our beta test, contact: save@zerowasteadvocacy.com.
-Wiz of Reuse
