Recycling It appears technically feasible to recycle over 80 percent of our household materials and even a greater proportion of our commercial wastes. Several small cities have achieved 50 percent recycling/ composting rates. Seattle has established a 60 percent recycling goal. Garbage Generation and Recovery In the Twin Cities (Tons) H Garbage Generation □ Garbage Disposal 0 Recycling/Composting Per capita garbage generation has been increasing in the Twin Cities in the 1980s (the figures for 1990 are estimates). But recently the increases in materials recovery (i.e. recycling and composting) have surpassed the increases in garbage generation. In 1990 for the first time, a ma jo r reduc t ion shou ld occur, assuming s ign ifican t compliance with the law that requires yard waste to be composted. This reduction in the amount of materials destroyed (i.e. incinerated or landfilled) may, however, be outstripped if our exponential increase in generation continues. The amount of materials collected is a good indication of the potential for virgin materials reduction, but it does not necessarily tell you what that reduction is. That depends on the recovered materials’ ultimate destination. The highest form of recycling is re-use. This avoids almost 100 percent of the pollution and materials required. Several Minnesota dairies, for example, offer refillable milk bottles that can be re-used 50-100 times. Each re-use multiplies the savings. The next best use for used materials is to recycle them back into their original form: glass bottles into bottles, newspapers into newspapers. This saves 20-90 percent of the virgin materials required to produce the product in the first place. The worst way to recycle is to transform the material: glassphalt, plastic lumber, paper into compost. We can reduce our use of virgin materials substantially if we emphasize re-use and practice primary recycling whenever possible. The latter becomes more and more possible as manufacturers learn to use higher percentages of scrap in their production process. At the beginning of the 1980s glass mills used only about 20 percent cullet or scrap glass. Today they can use 70 percent and at least one mill has operated with 100 percent scrap. Steel mills based on 100 percent scrap have captured 30 percent of the national steel market in the last 20 years. Several 100 percent newsprint-to-newsprint m ills now operate. A comprehensive materials policy is an effective economic development strategy. Plant Matter Do we have sufficient land for a plant based economy? That depends on our consump tion hab its . Assum ing no improvements in current transportation efficiencies, 100 percent of Minnesota’s existing corn crop could provide an 85 percent ethanol blend in all vehicles. This also assumes current process technology. The growth of the ethanol market can be expected to spur marked improvements in corn to ethanol conversion efficiencies. Alternative crops will compete with corn. For example, based on research by the Minnesota company, Sorgo, Inc., sweet sorghum would require only half the acreage of corn, or about 3 million acres. Assuming present electric demand projections, Minnesota’s 13 million acres of forests could supply only 75 percent of the demand. With much higher efficiency, and fast growing tree plantations, only 5 million acres would be needed. (For comparison, Minnesota’s conservation reserve program alone contained about 2 million acres in mid 1989, although only 3 percent were planted in trees.) _ Acreage Needed to Fuel Minnesota Vehicles with 85% Ethanol and Minnesota Power Plants with 100% Wood H 1988 Acreage ■ Based on Current Trends £3 Assuming High Efficiency What Will It Cost? To accelerate the future we will need to raise the price we pay for many goods and services. One might justify this additional expenditure as simply paying the true cost of these goods and services. Environmental and social costs have long been ignored when the market determines its price. When we prohibited land disposal of garbage we raised the price of disposal by as much as 900 percent in the Twin Cities area. This was the true cost of disposal once we became unwilling to subsidize garbage disposal practices by accepting polluted groundwater. Nevertheless, it is also true that these higher prices will constitute true out-of-pocket expenses. Should we impose these additional direct monetary costs on ourselves before others do? This may constitute the core of the political debate on the issue. These price increases may be relatively modest and short-lived. Even today wood-fired electricity is only slightly more expensive than coal-fired electricity. We would also expect to see production costs decline as industries mature. The wholesale price of ethanol, excluding tax benefits, is about 50 cents a gallon more than gasoline today, but pilot plant data promises a reduction in ethanol’s production cost while gasoline becomes more expensive as oil companies try to reformulate their hydrocarbon blends to make them less polluting. Our modestly higher prices may also create significant indirect benefits to the state economy. Assume th a t re c y c l in g is somewhat more expensive than incineration. What do we get for the difference in price? For every 600 tons of garbage landfilled, about .4 jobs are created. This rises to 1 job if the material is recycled and falls to .05 jobs if the material is incinerated. Additional jobs are created if the materials are processed within state borders. Job Creation in Minnesota (100% Waste Handled in Each Strategy) Direct Jobs Type of Strategy Created Recycling and Composting 6,358 Landfilling 2,543 Incineration 318 Assume that wood is more expensive than coal or oil. What do we get for the higher price? For every $1 spent for petroleum an additional 34 cents in economic activity is generated in Minnesota. For every $1 spent for biomass energy, an additional $1.50 in economic activity is generated in the state. Given its imported nature, coal would probably have a multiplier similar to petroleum. Thus for every $1 million spent on fuelwood, $1.5 million in additional economic activity occurs in Minnesota. For every $1 million spent for coal, only $340,000 in additional economic activity is generated. Assume that wood and ethanol are more expensive than competing fuels. The high cost of transporting plant matter encourages modest sized ethanol refineries and wood- fired power plants. The scale of these processing units strengthens rural econom ies. When evaluating a switch to plant matter, one must include the attractiveness of locally based, perhaps cooperatively owned ventures that retain a high portion of the flow of money within the area. The Marshall based Minnesota Corn Processors is an interesting model. Six years ago the original basis difference between the price of corn in Marshall and at the Chicago Board of Trade was 60 cents. Southwestern Minnesota is landlocked, far from the Mississippi River. Today the difference is 20 cents. Farmer members may be receiving as much as 40 cents more per bushel than if this nearby p ro ce ss ing f a c i l i t y were no t operating. The Materials Czar The Materials Czar would be responsible for coordinating and spurring the following activities. 1. Promoting an internal market. A sc rap based economy demands a large, reliable supply of used materials. To accomplish this we would impose a moratorium on further incineration and introduce statewide mandatory recycling. If the proposed Winona and Dakota Counties incinerators come on-line they could reduce the amount of used materials available to attract scrapbased manufacturers by more than 350,000 tons. 12 Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1989-90
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