Mandated recycling rates: Impacts on energy consumption and municipal waste volume
- Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
- Argonne National Lab., Washington, DC (United States)
In 1992, Congress sought to rewrite its comprehensive solid waste legislation the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Commodity-specific recycling rates were proposed for consumer-goods packaging, materials and newsprint. In this paper, we compare the impacts on energy, materials use, and landfill volume of recycling at those rates to the impacts associated with alternative methods of disposition to determine, the optimal method for each material. Alternative paths for material disposition include reuse, recycling to the same product, recycling to a lower-valued product, combustion for energy recovery, incineration without energy recovery, and landfilling. The recovery rates considered during RCRA reauthorization are summarized. Combustion was specifically excluded by Congress to meet recovery goals. This exclusion is probably based on the idea that combustion is a form of disposal and therefore wastes resources and has negative environmental effects. Our paper does not make that assumption. A report by Gaines and Stodolsky, from which this paper is derived, offers a more complete discussion of energy and S impacts.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 10134188
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/ES/CP-82315; CONF-940384-1; ON: DE94008479
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Cincinnati `94: Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA) conference,Cincinnati, OH (United States),14-20 Mar 1994; Other Information: PBD: [1994]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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