Agenda - Council - 10/14/1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

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- 8 - Washington State. A large well-run advertising and education campaign is, perhaps, the only way of stimulating personal initia- tive, which is the heart of such a program. An educational tool that has been suggested is requiring that designated products have information about the cost of the package and the composition of the product, in particular, whether it con- tains recycled or recyclable materials. Such aids to consumers in the marketplace may greatly enhance any education efforts. since very little literature is available on the reduction impacts of public education programs, an adequate method of estimating potential reductions is not available. Education programs, how- ever, may provide the most effective means of waste reduction because of political and economic problems with regulatory approaches. 10. PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS From the preceding discussion of various waste reduction tech- niques, it may be concluded that container deposits, packaging reduction, public, education and office paper reduction, offer the greatest potential in Minnesota at this time. Container deposits and packaging reduction offer the largest potential reductions of waste. Public education has great potential because it may pro- vide a politically acceptable and cost-effective alternative to regulatory approaches to waste reduction. Finally, office paper reduction has the greatest potential economic savings to state taxpayers. Tables l'and 2 summarize the potential and current status of waste reduction efforts in Minnesota. Although a maximum 15 percent of the total waste stream in the state could potentially be reduced through full implementation of these methods (some of which re- quire new state legislation) by the year 2000, estimates of the waste reduction impacts on the solid waste stream by 1985 is no more than two or three percent. Voluntary waste reduction (Table 2) seems Promising at the'~oment. Mandatory programs would require legislative action (Table 1). In as much as broad-scale government intervention may have a signi- f.icant impact on the market, legislative action on waste reduction should be initiated only after the potential effects have been thoroughly analyzed. B. WASTE SEPARATION Waste separation includes methods and procedures for extracting useful materials from solid waste that can be returned to the economy. The prime objectives in the development of waste separation systems are: 1) to conserve natural resources and energy; 2) to reduce land re- quirements for disposal; and 3) to facilitate the preparation of refuse-derived fuels for energy recovery systems. There are four basic types of waste separation systems: recycling centers, curb-side source separation, picking (a technique whereby an employee manually removes items from mixed waste) and mechanical separation.