Reality Check
The Future of Garbage
"Garbage in, garbage out," goes the old maxim. And in the US, that garbage adds up to 190 million tons per year. Where does it all go? Into landfills and incinerators, for the most part. But as the dumps fill to capacity and environmentally dangerous incineration is phased out, consumers and producers turn to waste-management professionals for answers. Taking out the garbage has become a complex, controversial, and lucrative undertaking. Wired asked five experts to talk trash.
| Mandatory Residential Recycling in US | Source Reduction Catches On | Safe Disposal of Nuclear Waste | Launching Garbage into Space
| Heenan | unlikely | now | now | 1963
| Hudson | 2005 | 2020 | 2005 | unlikely
| Loquvam | unlikely | 2050 | unlikely | unlikely
| Vela | unlikely | 2020 | unlikely | 2040
| Wilt | 2008 | 1998 | unlikely | unlikely
| Bottom Line | unlikely | 2017 | unlikely | 2008
Mandatory Residential Recycling in US Dropping that empty soda can into a Hefty bag instead of a green bin probably won't land you in jail anytime soon. Wilt, however, remains optimistic about the recycling trend; if commitments like the EPA's recent pledge to increase the national recycling rate to 35 percent by December 2004 are successful, she says, "the US may move toward mandatory recycling legislation early in the next century." Hudson predicts that we'll need another crisis, "such as oil supply restrictions, to get the political ball rolling." But according to Loquvam, incentive programs – such as a variable-can rate system – are more likely to cut the volume of waste than recycling laws are. "Families would get charged by the size of the garbage can they put outside during the week," she says. "You get down to a smaller can by recycling, backyard composting, and buying smarter."
Until recently, recycling was primarily the province of hippies and homeless people. Is it only a matter of time before source reduction – that is, reducing our amount of garbage – catches on, too? According to Heenan, the concept is already in effect on the manufacturing side of things, where source reduction is considered cost reduction. "This can be seen in the 33 percent decrease in the amount of material used in a soup can today compared with just 20 years ago," he says. Meanwhile, Wilt and Vela think today's schoolchildren will grow up to be greener consumers with a "recycling ethic." Loquvam, however, isn't convinced that the cultural mind-shift needed to reduce waste is coming anytime soon. "Source reduction and sustainable development," she says, "are anathema to our consumer society."
According to most of the experts polled, "no nukes is good nukes" when it comes to the safe disposal of radioactive materials. Even once proper waste-management methods are decided upon, Hudson thinks the high cost of disposal will be built into the price of products, sharply reducing the use of nuclear materials. Holding his ground, Heenan says, "Luckily for nuclear reactors across the world, steel drums are available to safely dispose of wastes in salt mines in a benign fashion." Wilt agrees, for the most part, that our current disposal options for low-level radioactive waste are considered safe and adequate, but it's a whole different ball game dealing with high-level waste isolation. "How safe is safe?" she asks, noting that 10,000 years or more are required for radioactive decay. Answering that life or death question, Vela replies, "There is no safe disposal of nuclear waste, only a holding pattern."
Why not just pack tons of trash into a rocket and shoot it into the sun, the ultimate incinerator? Not a bad idea, according to Vela. "This will be true cogeneration," she says. "Energy created by solar incineration will return to Earth as sunlight." Of course, cost is always an issue, and it becomes a massive one when talking about space missions. "We won't launch trash into space until the cost per ton to get it there is competitive with the cost to landfill it," says Loquvam. At present, she notes, it costs US$35 per ton to landfill garbage in Los Angeles County and approximately $20 million per ton to have a payload blast into space aboard the shuttle. On the other hand, Heenan points out, the process has already begun: "As we leave a trail of unmanned rockets floating above the atmosphere, we already are launching garbage, which, by the way, would be highly recyclable if we could get it out of space."
Bill Heenan president of the Steel Recycling Institute
Barclay Hudson waste management consultant, Thunder Bay Consulting
Mary Loquvam
waste management consultant; former executive director of Waste Not Inc., a nonprofit recycling company; former owner of J and S Salvage, a Ventura, California-based recycling company
Lupe Vela program manager of the Integrated Solid Waste Management Office for the City of Los Angeles
Catherine A. Wilt senior research associate of the Energy, Environment and Resources Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
