March 9, 2022
The Honorable Jay Inslee
Governor of Washington
Olympia, WA
Dear Governor Inslee,
As someone who has championed the fight against global warming and supported the Green New Deal, you know that we don’t have much time left to prevent a climate catastrophe. The report recently released by the IPCC stated it bluntly: “To avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity and infrastructure, ambitious, accelerated action is required to adapt to climate change, at the same time as making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.” There is no question now that we have been too slow, and too cautious, in our collective efforts.
The USEPA has made methane, a potent greenhouse gas at least 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, a target of opportunity and necessity, and identified three sectors as the major contributors of methane in the US: energy (chiefly leaking natural gas pipelines), agriculture, and waste management (chiefly methane from landfills, even those with landfill gas capture systems). The EPA has also stated recently that estimates of methane from landfills have been understated by a factor of two. That alone would make landfills a good target for reducing greenhouse gasses. There are many other reasons, however, why moving away from landfilling to an integrated waste management system makes sense, from a financial as well as an environmental perspective. The effectiveness of this approach has been well documented in several European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and would likely be equally successful here.
The landfill industry makes two unsubstantiated and, again based on the European experience, false claims: that landfilling is not detrimental to the environment, and that the practice is the cheapest approach to waste management. In addition to the methane emissions described above, landfills pollute water and soil, release toxic emissions into the air, and spread noxious and harmful odors. Landfills are also heavily subsidized, both by local and state taxes and by the avoidance of responsibility for externalities and lost resources. Given these characteristics, making a systemic change is long overdue and makes good sense.
An integrated waste management system is based on USEPA’s waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, and dispose. Its underlying premise is that the “throwaway” approach to production is not valid, and that we need to do more with less. It starts with a reduction in the amount of waste, through such mechanisms as extended producer responsibility (for example, our electronics recovery programs and excess paint returns), reductions in packaging, and product substitution.
Reuse requires better made products, while an increase in recycling can be achieved through at source separation to avoid the contamination caused by collection in a single bin. Recovery of metals, glass, minerals and other useful materials, along with the energy imbued in items that cannot be recycled, further contributes to a “circular economy.” The final element is the disposal of inert materials, less than one percent of today’s waste stream.
As I stated above, this approach has worked in several European countries, substantially reducing methane and other greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time lowering the cost of waste management. For example, the average German pays significantly less per year than a King County resident for disposal. The adoption of this alternative to landfilling has also created thousands of family-wage jobs, contributed toward energy independence, and retained billions of euros in the local economy. Several of the architects and managers of these programs have joined the Board of IeRM. We would welcome the opportunity to assist the state in planning for and adopting this change.
As Chairman of the Clean Technology Alliance, I dealt with a number of firms that had great promise in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. I can say unequivocally that the integrated waste management system as a substitute for landfilling is one of the best. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Stephen Gerritson
Board Member, IeRM
contact@ie-rm.org