impaired. Finally, a source separation program that reduced the total volume of wastes by 25 to 50 percent might reduce the recovery plant's tipping fees to a point where it was no longer economically viable. These problems of potential incompatibility are actually less serious than they appear. As explained above, the technology for extraction of recyclables, except for iron, is in its infancy for central resource recovery plants. At most such plants operating today, materials recovery contributes a very small amount to overall revenues.138 Many plants burn wholly unprocessed wastes and do not recover any materials at all. Thus a bottle or can recycling program would generally not interfere, per se, with a centralized facility's economic position. The question of whether the removal of paper and other recyclables from waste in a source separation program would seriously reduce the energy value of municipal wastes is a more open one. However, recent EPA data suggest that the impact would be minimal and, depending on the type of source separation program, might even be positive. The reason for this is that recyclables in general, and newspapers in particular, actually constitute only a small portion of the burnable substances in refuse. Approximately 75 percent of all waste can be burned.139 This includes everything from banana peels and plastic bags to old shoes and broken chairs. In general, newspapers, books, and magazines average only about 9 percent of municipal wastes. 140 According to EPA calculations, even an extremely effective newspaper recycling program would reduce the solid waste stream by no more than 7 percent, by weight, and the Btu value of the waste would decline by only 3.5 percent (see Table 4-11). If beverage container legislation significantly reduced the amount of bottles and cans in waste, the Btu value per pound of waste would actually increase by about 6 percent. The third argument-that source separation could reduce tipping fee revenues at a centralized facility below the breakeven point-is more compelling. However, it holds true only under certain circumstances. It applies only when source separation is introduced after a centralized plant has been built, when the centralized plant in question is processing all of a region's waste, and when it has no access to additional wastes, either because transportation costs for such wastes would be too high or because political jurisdictional problems would be too great. In such a situation, the introduction of a source separation program would reduce the amount of wastes going to the centralized facility and thus its revenues from tipping fees (which are charged on a per-ton basis). A plant that handled only a portion of a city's wastes would not, however, experience this problem. In the event that local source separation was instituted, or a national program of beverage container deposits or some other waste reduction measure took effect, such a plant could maintain the volume of wastes processed (and thus revenues) by increasing the proportion of the city's wastes it handled. Table 4-11 Impact of Source Separation Options on Btu • All wastes defined as glass, cans, newspaper, office paper, and corrugated cardboard. Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste, unpublished study, 1979. Many people in fact now think that the best approach in developing a centralized recovery facility is to design the system to work in tandem with source separation at the outset. This would take advantage of the strengths of both systems: materials recovery from the source separation program and energy recovery from the centralized facility. If the source separation program did not materialize or proved less effective than hoped, it would mean a somewhat heavier load on the backup landfill site. However, EPA has pointed out that many other factors can also affect the amount of waste available to a plant, including seasonal fluctuations, jurisdictional problems, and the fact that many localities have only the roughest idea of how much waste they actually generate.141 In general, EPA believes that it is better to plan conservatively and perhaps underbuild, than to build a centralized resource recovery facility that might eventually prove too large for the needs of the locality and, therefore, be uneconomical. FEDERAL ACTIVITIES Beginning with the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965 142 and continuing with the Resource Recovery Act of 1970 143 and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976,144 Congress has asked the federal government to attempt to do something about the nation's solid waste problems. These laws directed EPA to develop and to encourage use of better systems for disposing of solid waste, particularly where health hazards are involved. In addition, DOE has responsibilities for research, development, and demonstration of the energy potential of solid wastes. The 1976 law created the Resource Conservation Committee, a special interagency Cabinet-level group,* for the purpose of examining various possible "incentives and disincentives to foster resource conservation." 145 The committee selected for study 10 existing or possible federal policies that could affect waste generation and recovery. The findings and recommendations of the committee, presented in its July 1979 final report, Choices for Conservation,148 are discussed in the following section. ECONOMIC INCENTIVES FOR WASTE REDUCTION Beverage Container Deposits Given the national interest in and political prominence of the issue, the Resource Conservation Committee gave special consideration to a mandatory national system of deposits and refunds for beverage containers. Deposits would reduce waste by encouraging recycling of bottles and cans. Staff studies summarized in the committee's final report cated that such legislation would: 147 indi • Reduce litter volume by 35 percent eliminating 15 to 20 percent of the number of individual litter items; • Reduce the amount of solid waste by up to 2 million tons per year, or 0.5 to 1.5 percent; • Realize an annual savings in lower disposal costs of $25 to $50 million annually; • Save 250,000 to 380,000 tons of aluminum (5 to 10 percent of annual production), reducing bauxite imports by a potential 1.6 million tons; • Reduce steel consumption by about 1.5 million tons (1 to 2 percent of annual production); • Reduce total atmospheric emissions caused by bottle and can production by 0.75 billion to 1.2 billion pounds; • Reduce waterborne wastes from container production by 140 to 210 million pounds; • Save 70 to 130 trillion Btus, equivalent to 33,000 to 61,000 barrels of oil per day, or 0.1 percent of total national energy consumption; • Reduce the retail price of beverages an average of 0.5 to 1.5 cents per container, saving consumers a total of $0.66 billion to $1.76 billion annually: *The members of the Committee were: Douglas Costle, Administrator, EPA, Chairman; Juanita Kreps, Secretary of Commerce; Cecil D. Andrus, Secretary of the Interior; F. Ray Marshall, Secretary of Labor; W. Michael Blumenthal, Secretary of Treasury; Charles Warren, Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality; Eliot Cutler, Office of Management and Budget; Lawrence J. White, Council of Economic Advisors; Alvin Alm, Department of Energy. • Cause an unquantifiable amount of inconvenience to beverage consumers who presently purchase beverages in nonrefillable containers and discard the containers when empty; • Eliminate between 4,900 and 10,400 jobs in the glass container production industry and between 14,200 and 22,000 jobs in the metal can production industry over a 5-year period; and • Create between 80,000 and 100,000 new jobs in the beverage distribution and retail sectors. In the committee's final report, four of the nine agency and department heads who were members of the Resource Conservation Committee recommended national beverage container legislation. Two officials wanted to wait to see the effect of such laws in the states-Maine, Michigan, Connecticut, Iowa, and Delaware-that have recently adopted them, before taking a position. (Only Oregon and Vermont have had beverage container deposit laws for several years.) One member of the committee took no position, and two were opposed. The committee also recommended that if beverage container legislation were adopted, it should apply to all sealed beer and soft drink containers, regardless of material used, except cartons and carriers; that the deposit should be for a minimum of 5 cents, with possible increases scaled to the Consumer Price Index; and that the deposit should begin at the distribution-wholesaler level. Other Deposit Systems A waste management concept similar to beverage container deposits is that of a system of deposits or bounties for durable or hazardous goods. Under this arrangement, a consumer would pay a deposit when buying a refrigerator or auto battery, for example, which would be returned when the item was turned in at a disposal depot. The system would be valuable in encouraging proper disposal of hazardous substances, such as the chemicals in the car battery. However, its impact on total volume of municipal solid waste would probably be limited, because these items would still have to be disposed of. The Resource Conservation Committee decided that it did not have sufficient information to evaluate this concept and recommended further research.148 National Litter Tax A concept that is often put forth as an alternative to beverage container and other deposit systems is that of a litter tax, that is, a special tax on frequently littered items such as beer cans. Such a tax could be earmarked to clean up litter and might provide an incentive against littering. The committee unanimously recommended against such legislation at the national level, however, for a number of reasons. First, such a tax would penalize those who do not litter as well as those who do. Second, to act as an incentive against littering, it would have to discourage buying the product altogether. To do The Resource Conservation Committee rejected the concept of a litter tax on the grounds that it would create no incentives for individuals to clean up or reduce wastes. By contrast, beverage container deposits would do both. Photographer: Tom Raymond. this would require an extremely large tax, perhaps 20 to 40 percent of the sales price. Such a structuring was considered both infeasible and undesirable. Lastly, the tax would create no incentive for individuals to clean up or reduce wastes. By contrast, beverage container deposits would do both.149 Solid Waste Disposal Charge Congress specifically asked the Resource Conservation Committee to investigate and issue a report on the concept of levying solid waste management charges on consumer products; that is, a federal weight or unit-based tax on products and packaging that would be charged to the producer of the item and would be tied to the cost of disposing of the item. To take a hypothetical example, the manufacturer |