Over the last few years the Northampton ReUse Facebook page has received an increasing number of “déjà vu” comments on posts about waste reduction. Followers react to suggested strategies with comments like “Wait… we did that all time in the 1980s!” and “My grandparents did their whole life!” They are right. Many of the “new” ideas are ones that have been around in one form or another for years. Even when the phrase Reduce-Reuse-Recycle was coined 40 years ago, it was new packaging for old concepts. Some things haven’t changed all that much.
But while the notions of conservation and restraint have not changed, the composition of American municipal solid waste over the last 60 years has changed dramatically. Plastic arrived in the 1950s, and soon after plastic products — and later packaging — began to permeate our daily lives. Over the next several decades the percent of plastic in our waste stream rose from 1 percent (by weight) in 1960 to just over 13 percent in 2015. Most single-use plastic is lightweight, so the volume of plastic waste we’re generating is a much higher percentage of total waste volume; plastic fills landfills!
Between our new awareness about plastic pollution in oceans and the troubling global recycling market changes of 2017, it has become clear that we need to change the composition of our trash. There are at least three ways to accomplish this.
Until recently, recycling was the primary tactic employed in the U.S. to reduce plastic in the waste stream. A container’s ecological cost is primarily generated when it is created (think raw material extraction, transport, and initial production), so recapturing existing materials is just smart. Unfortunately, only small fraction (about 9 percent) of all plastic ever produced has been recycled… and we keep producing more. About 390 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide annually, and based on industry projections that amount is expected to increase by 40 percent over the next decade.
In a recent Los Angeles Times editorial, Annie Leonard, sustainability proponent and Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, asserted that even with increased investment, recycling will not be able to keep up with the ever-increasing flow of plastic waste or all the new types of plastic packaging that continue to emerge. Recycling is crucial, but it cannot be the sole American plastic waste reduction technique. She maintains that if your bathtub is overflowing, you need to turn off the tap.
Individuals can reduce generation of plastic packaging purchasing food and personal products in bulk, but a more expansive approach to turning off the tap is passing legislation limiting or banning the use of problematic materials. This approach is gaining in popularity, with municipal and state governments banning single-use plastic bags (Hawaii), foam take-out containers (Washington D.C.), and the use and sale of plastic water bottles from public buildings and stadiums (San Francisco). Just weeks ago, the city of Berkeley, California, passed a ground-breaking ordinance requiring that restaurants provide disposable utensils, straws, lids and sleeves by request only. In addition, by 2020, all disposable take-out foodware in Berkeley must be certified biodegradable material, vendors must charge 25 cents for both hot and cold cups, and all eat-in dining facilities will be required to use reusable foodware.
The new “Loop” packaging program announced last month at the Davos 2019 World Economic Forum is another approach to turning off the tap. The ambitious, reusable pilot program has been called a 21st century milkman approach, because ownership of a product’s container will stay with the manufacturer. The hope is that manufacturers will shift their focus from producing inexpensive packaging to reusable containers that are durable, highly functional, and attractively designed.
The program, which will pilot this spring in Paris and New York before additional pilots in other population-dense communities, is a collaboration between TerraCycle and a large group of major product manufacturers, including Proctor and Gamble, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Nestle, and Unilever. Participating manufacturers have developed reusable containers that will last for at least 100 uses. Consumers participating in the pilot will shop for over 100 products online and pay refundable deposits for the packaging. The items will be delivered, and empty containers (no rinsing required) will be picked up by the United Parcel Service, washed, and refilled. If the pilot is successful, the program could be expanded to brick and mortar stores.
While each of the three disposable plastic waste reduction methods is not without its risks or challenges, they all address a problem that has gotten out of hand. It is helpful to understand that when the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle phrase was coined, the word order was chosen carefully based on the potential ecological benefit each activity provides. The most powerful thing we can do is reduce our consumption, the second best is to reuse what we already have, and the third is to recapture existing resources… not anything new, but we haven’t yet mastered them.
Susan Waite is the City of Northampton’s waste reduction coordinator, and a member of the Springfield MRF Advisory Board.