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1f,(trJjr~ -fD ~ tt 1- peo V! 1161) I BV bW{;8 ~PMIJ. . - . . ,;'OplnIOnS .1\ ?i f\~ t.Yr-T.::.iT ~-tTa ~ ~<I. ? ....-. ~utures in garbage-based indu~try.~~._. oy David Morris City sanitation chiefs rarely talk to city economic developers. They should. We must stop treating garbage only as a dis- posal problem and begin to see it as an economic development opportunity. Waste handling is this nation's fastest growing industry. A S I 00 billion lTl3rket may eltist. Twin Citians will invest more than S400 million from 1985 to 1990 to develop new garbage handling systems. Yet this enonnous sum will not be. judged by the same criteria as would smaller investments in a convention cen- ter or an industrial park or in downtown . office buildings. We should demand the greatest benetit for our local economy from such an in- Vestment. We need to consider the num- ber and 'quality of jobs created, the num- ber oi businesses developed, the amount of innovations spurred and the value of eltpClrts generated per ton of garbage handied. No Minnesota agency has ever undertaken such an analvsis. . - Con,ider employment. ,., Canadian s:r.d\' found that recvclin~ creates six time"s as many jobs is Ian "dolling. If a similar ratio holds lor incineration. the Twin Cities would create 6000 more jobs by investing in recycling than by in- vesting in incineration. That is a signi- ticant number, especially if we consider that most of these would likely be entry- level jobs, suited. for those age and skill groups with the highest unemployment rates. Our goal should be to create as much value as possible from our "raw materi- als. . The worst policy is to put them in the ground. The second worst is to burn them. Why is incineration inherently uneco- nomical? Because it is inefficient. It recaprures only the direct energy of wastes, not the energy and eltpense that transfonne.1 raw materials into finished products in the tirst place. All the elt- pense of making a tree into paper is lost. Only the btu value of the paper itself is recovered. Materials recovery is only the tirst step in a development process. We receive relatively linle benefit if we merely elt- port the scrap we recover. We become like a developing country that eltports raw materials and imports more expen- sive tinal products. The real benefit to the local economy comes from converting scrap into useful products: processing aluminum into in- gots and paper into pulp, then making ingots into bicycles and pulp back into. paper. How far a city can move in this direction is ? function of its size and density, industrial milt and political will. The Twin Cities and Minnesota could capture a great deal of the potential val- ue added, in the economists' .lingo. After all. Minnesota has a larger internal economy than more than 50 independent nations. - Consider how we might apply a val~c- .added approach to a small buttroubic- some waste item-scrap tires. On aver- age. each Minnesotan disposes of about one 20-pound tire a year-SO million pounds in the Twin Cities alone. When Minnesota banned landfilling of tires in 1986, the cost of disposal was about 10 cents a pound. So we in the r", in Cities were paying about S5 million merely to dump the tires into the ground, eltclud- ing the cost of transportation. Tires can be recycled in several ways. They can be shredded and burned as fuel. But competition from today's depressed oil prices would keep the price at about 1-2 cents a pound. This method onlv creates another S500,OOO to SI million in value for the community. Tires shredded into finer pieces can be added to road asphalt and are more valu- able. But the real benefit to the local economy ~ comes when the scrap can be converted inlo a high-value tinal material. This has been done by a Minneapolis based firm, Rubber Research Elastomerics (RRE). A patented liquid polymer is added to pul- verized tires which enables the material to compete both with virgin rubber and with plastics. RRE's primary customers are tbennoplastic molders. For this pur- pose the malerial can be sold for about 50 cents a pound, If all of the Twin Cities' tires were recy- . cled in this manner the economy would not "uiy avoid the disposal cost but could create a S25 million a year busi- ness. Moreover, these sales would spur 'unher research and development efforts I,' improve the quality of the tinal mate- rial. And this knowledge, in turn. could become a significant eltpoll to other parts of the COUntry facing similar dis- posal problems. Finally. having a supply of valuable materials may anract other tinns who make the material into a tinal product, adding still further to the value caprured by the local economy. One manufacrurer has already moved from Ohio to Babbin to be near its raw material supplier. The same value-added criteria could be applied to paper, glass. organic waste or metals. Unfortunately such a vision does not in- form our public policy. In 1985 the Metropolitan Council decided to bum 80 percent of our garbage and recycle less than 20 percent. It never evaluated the economic impact of alternative strate- gies. City officials in the metro area are no beller. In fact, at this point our recy- cling efforts lag behind even the very modest goals set by the council. Mean- while we are ahead of its incineration schedule. Even those officials who support inciner- ation agree thilt we could achieve very high recycling levels. The Japanese city of Machida, the size of Minneapolis. recycles 75 percent of its total waste stream. Several small U.S. cities on the east coast recycle more than SO percent of their household garbage, compared to 10 percent in Minneapolis and St. Paul. " .... .::.... , '';.,'''-';, ",..::;. . , ", -fi . ., 4.. i l . :j .S; J It is not too late for our communities to rethink and redirect their garbage poli- cies. Indeed. cities in Hennepin County have recently been given a marvelous opportunity to do just that. The' county commissioners have agreed to pay 80 percent of the costs of recycling pro- grams for cities that achieve a 16 per-. cent recycling rate by 1990. For every dollar spent. 80 cents can be recovered from the county. Cities could undertake an accelerated. materials recovery-based economic development policy that will be almost entirely paid for by the County. ' .......... This window of opportunity should spur COUnty cities to invest quickly in materi- als recovery and processing at a level equal to that of investments that have al- ready been approved for incinera.tion -. that is. S50-75 million. Waste handling is a fast growing indus, try worldwide. Entrepreneurs in this. tield often are at the CUlling edge of technological developments in both. ma- terial and biological sciences. The com' munity that learns how to get the most value from its scrap materials will tind a ready market for its equipment and its ~nowledge. It will take a great collective effort and even greater imagination for the Twin Cities and Minnesota to shift our present garbage policy, Bur the rewards will be equally grear. Garbage is nor a disposal problem. It is an economic development opportunity . D.vld Morrla la a St. Paul ruldent, dlr.ctor 01 the Washington D.C.-based 'nstitute lor Local Sell-Reli.nc. and a r.gular columnist lor the St. P.ul Pioneer Pre.. Dlsp.tch, Reduction: state's wasted garbage strategy by Bill Dunn Waste reduction: the prevention of wasre at its source by redesigning products or otherwise changing societal production and consumption patterns. vast majority of its waSle. Meanwhile. reducrion has no real role in dealing with Minnesota's solid waste stream. which grows at about 4 percent a year. Minor changes will not produce th.. rfr""'""";"" ..........,..- _ ,...1~ I n.. I to assess the impact of their products and packaging. Polluters must pay Ihe true social costs for their decisions and actions. T~x.ins in the wa~te stream prc~cnr J boycotts are very difficult to execute. But these may be needed to do the job. Future wasle reduction measures mu~t create an aCCOuntable method to track pr('l~re"'~ and To rfnrnm('nT r('""lto;: in