The Honorable Jay Inslee
Governor of Washington State
PO Box 40002
Olympia, WA 98504-0002
Dear Governor Inslee,
Thank you for your leadership on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, both during your campaign for the nomination for President and more recently at the COP26 in Glasgow. We concur that more can and needs to be done urgently in the fields of transportation, energy, and the built environment, and we are particularly encouraged that you have recognized waste as a potential source for reductions as well.
In a joint US/EU press release on the Global Methane Pledge, just days before COP26, landfills were cited as one of the three main sources of methane emissions. The EPA has recently stated that methane emissions from landfills may be understated by a factor of two. The agency has proposed regulations that would require more landfills to install methane capture systems, a step that will result in a small decrease in emissions, but one that does not address the problem. We believe that the best approach is the one that much of Europe has already taken, with proven results: stop the landfilling of municipal solid wastes altogether.
In addition to generating methane emissions through the decomposition of organic wastes, landfilling discourages reuse and recycling efforts, pollutes our groundwater, and allows valuable resources to go to waste. In Europe, 19 countries have adopted an Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS) following the international waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, and disposal. Only inert materials, such as construction debris, are disposed of.
This system is described in more detail in an Op-Ed that we recently prepared for Waste Dive, an international journal for the waste management industry. A copy is attached. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this proposal, and how it can be implemented in the State of Washington, creating valuable jobs and retaining important financial and material resources. Once again, we thank you for your leadership on this critical issue, and we look forward to working with you and your administration in using and building on proven working solutions to help save our planet now, while we strengthen our leading environmental role.
Sincerely,
Philipp Schmidt-Pathmann
President and CEO
Institute for Energy and Resource Management