The Example off Garbage How might we move toward a globe of villages? Consider how we might apply the principles of what I call “ the new localism” to a most pressing local problem —garbage management. The garbage issue a fflic ting Minneapolis-St. Paul and other cities teaches us important lessons. Communities literally changed the rules governing waste disposal. We didn’t run out of space for dumps. Rather we closed down existing dumps and refused to build new ones. We made a political decision to internalize the costs of disposal and in doing so we substantially raised the price of disposal. In fact, the cost of garbage disposal has risen faster and further An emphasis on the global economy rearranges our loyalties and loosen our neighborly ties. than did the cost of oil in the 1970s. But our local and national officials approached the garbage problem with the analytical tools of the planetary economy. They relied almost exclusively on price with little regard to cost. They developed no values to guide their effort. They defined garbage as a disposal issue not as an economic development opportunity. They decided to embrace the solution that appeared to demand the least institutional or political change and in so doing they decided to maintain and nurture a bureaucratic and regulatory system which itself is an outgrowth of a different way of thinking. Above all our policymakers embraced the fundamental importexport paradigm of the global village. They chose to dispose of up to 80 percent of our garbage by burning it. By doing so they voted to continue and perhaps even expand our imports of raw materials. They chose a process that would result in the production of toxic incinerator ash. Since their citizens had refused to site conventional garbage dumps it was doubtful they would agree to site a hazardous waste dump. Thus policymakers chose a technology whose product would be dumped in remote areas. By choosing combustion we chose to continue to separate the producer from the consumer. We chose to make ourselves even more dependent. Now consider an approach to a garbage policy that embraces the concept of a globe of villages. One that strengthens community by reducing imports and capturing the maximum value from local resources. One that emphasizes resource efficiency and expands the productive capacity of the community. The Twin Cities disposes of some 2.5 million tons of human and solid waste a year. Technically we can recycle 75-80 percent of our waste stream. What would that accomplish? We would create many more jobs. Based on Canadian studies, six times as many jobs are created by recycling than by landfilling. If a similar ratio holds true for recycling versus incineration the Twin Cities would create 6000 additional jobs by choosing recycling over combustion. Most of these jobs would be attractive for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, that is, for the hard core unemployed who represent such a problem in our inner cities. Cities that recover materials avoid paying disposal costs. But the real benefit to the local economy comes from converting scrap into useful products; processing aluminum into ingots and paper into pulp, and making ingots into bicycles and pulp back into paper. How far a community can go in this direction is a function of its size and density, industrial mix and political will. The Twin Cities could go quite far. Take the example of scrap tires, a small but troublesome waste item. Every American throws away the equivalent of one 20-pound tire a year. Tires have a nasty habit.of resurfacing years later. Tire dumps have caught on fire and burned for months. The stagnant water in tires is a primary breeding ground for mosquitoes. As a result of all these factors Minnesota banned land disposal of tires two years ago. Tires can be shredded and burned but that captures only the direct energy value, maybe a penny a pound at today’s oil prices. Tires shredded into even finer pieces can be added to road asphalt and be sold for a few pennies more. But the real benefit comes when the scrap is converted into a valuable final product. A Minneapolis based firm has developed a liquid polymer that can be added to pulverized tires which allows the scrap tire to compete with products made from virgin rubber and with plastics. In March 1987 the first plant using this process opened in Babbitt. Its product sells for about 50 cents a pound and is used in a compound for car door panels and plastic garbage cans. For the Twin Cities the cost of tire disposal in 1985 was about $4 million. If all tires could be recovered, treated and sold for 50 cents a pound theTwin Cities would avoid almost all of its disposal costs and create a new industry with $20 million in sales. That industry, and associated ones (one Ohio firm moved to Babbitt to be near its primary materials supplier) would create higher paying jobs. Moreover they would add to the research and development foundation of the area. The tire process is patented and can be licensed for use by other communities who would gladly pay for the benefits it would bring. We would then begin trading knowledge generated in the process of discovering new ways to make us more self-reliant. Tire recycling is just now taking off. But we already have an intriguing glimpse of our decentralized industrial future in the steel industry. Twenty years ago the only steel mill technology available used iron ore and huge amounts of energy. One to two million tons per year was and is still considered the minimum e fficient plant scale using this technology. But in the mid 1970sthe mini-mill was invented. Today’s mini-mills use far less energy and water per ton produced. They rely on scrap steel. And they have captured 20 percent of the market. With each technical advance the industry is able to compete with a greater variety of products manufactured by conventional mills. The average mini-mill produces about 200,000 tons a year and compete with conventional m ills ten times its size. Oh yes, one more thing. Seven years worth of scrap steel is sitting in our driveways and our junkyards while our consumption of steel has remained stable over the last decade as we learn to do more with less and as other materials like plastics and aluminum replace it. We can now imagine an almost closed-loop future—mini-mills relying on local scrap piles to produce for regional customers. We are moving toward E.F. Schumacher’s ideal: “ local production from local resources for local use.” The Carbohydrate Economy We may reduce by up to 80 percent the amount of raw materials we might need to import but we will always need imports. Nevertheless the materials of the future may still be local. Which leads me to the story of chemurgy, a fascinating part of our history. Directly after World War I midwestern farmers faced problems that seem familiar today. Demand fell, prices collapsed and bankruptcies surged while agricultural production continued to rise. A group of scientists, engineers and business leaders gathbred to discuss a way out of this dilemma. They concluded that farmers needed to look beyond the human stomach as their sole market. In 1936,300 leaders gathered for the first meeting of the Farm Chem- urgic Council. Their objective was to develop industrial uses for farm crops. Members included Henry Ford and George Washington Carver. By 1941 Henry Ford was ready to unveil his biological car. The body was made of a soybean-derived plastic, as were the seat covers and the steering wheel. The fuel was corn-derived ethanol. The tires were made from goldenrods. Ford firmly believed that after World War II we would grow our cars. After the war, however, the price of oil dropped. The Marshall Plan opened up export markets for American farmers. Federally supported programs in chemurgy all but disappeared. Carbohydrate science withered on the vine, so-to speak, while hydrocarbon science took off. Today chemicals and fuels made from plant matter are not competitive with those from fossil fuels. Yet the price difference narrows considerably when we take into account the overall cost of the alternatives. Today we are spending about $50 a barrel to defend our access to mid East oil. At that price, fuels made from plant matWe confuse price and cost. Price is what an individual pays. Cost is what the community as a whole pays. ter are competitive. The pollution costs of burning fossil fuels have still not been internalized into their prices. And we know that fifteen years from nowthe United Stateswill have all but exhausted its domestic petroleum reserves. Moreover we are spending $20 billion in subsidiesto American farmers, primarily paying them not to grow. We could spend less money more wisely by creating new markets for materials made from farm products than by paying our farmers not to produce or to store their surplus. Imagine a chemical and fuels industry based on cellulose, botano- chemical plants replacing petrochemical plants. Unlike petroleum, plant matter is bulky and hard to transport. Thus botanochem ical plants will probably be much smaller and more dispersed than petrochemical facilities. By onecalculation Minnesota would need about half a dozen. 32 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
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