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4.9 ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS AS REQUIRED BY 42 U.S.C. § 3253.

4.9a Report to Congress on Resource Recovery
by the Environmental Protection Agency, February 1973.

PREFACE

Section 205 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act (P.L. 89-272) as amended requires that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) undertake an investigation and study of resource recovery. This document represents EPA's Report to the President and the Congress summarizing the Agency's investigations to date and reporting the manner in which the Congressional mandate is being carried out.

The findings of this report are based on a number of contractual efforts and analyses by the Agency staff carried out since the passage of the Resource Recovery Act. Extremely valuable assistance in these investigations has been provided to EPA by The Council on Environmental Quality.

The report is organized into a summary, four major sections, and an appendix. The first section discusses the problem to which resource recovery is the potential solution. Next, key findings related to resource recovery are presented. A section outlining major options follows. The report concludes with a discussion of EPA's program activities in resource recovery.

The appendix presents summaries of information about the status of resource recovery by major materials categories and a listing of existing resource recovery facilities.

A number of typographical errors that appeared in the first printing have been corrected in the April 1973 printing, and the references have been restyled.

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SUMMARY

This report presents an exploration of resource recovery as a method of solid waste management and resource conservation. Information developed over the past several years is summarized and the many questions surrounding the complex subject of resource recovery are discussed.

• The emphasis of the report is on the recovery of materials and energy from mixed municipal wastes and other "post-consumer" wastes that are discarded outside the normal waste collection channels. Although only 5% of the total national solid waste load, these wastes tend to have the most frequent population impact in that they occur in the nation's urbanized places. More than 50% of the total waste load comes from agriculture and is usually returned to the soil. More than 40% of the total burden is mining waste, which occurs in the hinterland.

• Nearly all major materials are recovered to some extent by recycling. Most recovered materials are derived from industrial fabrication wastes. Post-consumer wastes are also recovered to some extent (waste paper, old automobiles); post-consumer recycling has grown in an absolute sense. However, the proportion of the nation's materials requirements satisfied from recycling materials has remained constant or has declined in most instances.

• The level of recycling depends almost entirely on economics. Recycling takes place to the extent that it is the most efficient use of resources. In the absence of artificial economic subsidies for "natural" or "virgin" materials more secondary or recycled materials would be used. The economics of recycling are also influenced by apparently inequitable freight rates-both ocean and rail—which make the transportation of secondary materials relatively more costly than the movement of virgin resources.

• There has been sufficient technology development to allow extraction of materials and energy from mixed municipal wastes. However, few full scale recovery plants exist. The Environmental Protection Agency is funding the demonstration of the most significant conceptual alternatives.

• The costs of recovery plants are estimated to be relatively high, making recovery by technological means attractive only in areas where high disposal costs prevail and local markets for the waste materials exist. There is evidence that recovery by separate collection is not only feasible but economically attractive provided that the collection makes use of an existing transport system and markets for the collected materials exist.

• Preliminary research and analysis indicates that, when com

pared with virgin materials extraction and processing, resource recovery results in lower quantities of atmospheric emissions, waterborne wastes, mining and solid wastes, and energy consumption. There is substantial disagreement among experts about the extent of such differential effects over time, particularly as strengthened environmental constraints on use of both virgin and secondary materials begin to narrow the differentials that now exist.

• Recycling should become more economical relative to other solid waste disposal options during the next several years. Energy costs are rising, making energy recovery more attractive and more economical. As pressures increase to bring about environmentally sound waste disposal, the costs of disposal will rise and recovery will become more attractive as an alternative. Finally, to the extent that air and water pollution control regulations are intensified, the incentives of industry for using secondary materials will improve.

Other incentives for recycling also exist under existing Federal policies. The General Services Administration does not purchase paper unless it contains a specified amount of recycled paper. The military services are exploring procurement policies to reduce waste quantities or to mandate inclusion of secondary materials. The Treasury Department has determined that tax exempt industrial revenue bonds may finance the construction of recycling facilities built by private concerns to recycle their own wastes.

• Additional Federal incentives for recycling are not considered desirable at this time. Studies to date indicate that the effectiveness of specific incentive mechanisms that can be formulated is extremely difficult to predict. New tax incentives may well distort the economics of resource utilization much as preferential treatment of virgin materials distorts them today.

• There is an obvious need for further exploration of the complex issues of materials utilization in the Nation in the context of total resource utilization. Resource recovery is an important part —but only a part of the larger picture. Before additional Federal policies are developed―aimed possibly at overcoming institutional and market imperfections in some areas-a better understanding of the complex materials and energy situation must be developed.

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