Organic Waste Diversion – Turning Waste into Resource By Stuart MacDonald, Managing Director | Organix Solutions
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ost of us have been accustomed to recycling our trash, or municipal solid waste (MSW), since the 1980s. Almost as a reflex action now, we look for the recycling container when we have an empty water bottle in our hand and have difficulty letting it go if we can’t find one. We have, over the course of a generation, changed our behavior and lifestyle choices with an understanding that to reduce, reuse and recycle is good for our planet. Our recycling habits are making an impact. In 1980 our recycling rate was 10% of MSW generated. By 2012 our recycling rate increased to over 35%. Over the same period of time, our disposal rate to landfill dropped from 89% of waste generated down to 54% in 2012.
The resource value of waste continues to be a critical driver toward more advanced recycling as commodity prices have increased because of demand on our finite natural resources.
This is important to note because according to the EPA, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash in 2012. As our population continues to grow, we must continue to reduce the amount of MSW we send to landfill which reduces emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. When we analyze the contents of our trash that goes to landfill after recycling and composting, organics waste is by far the largest component of the waste stream— with food waste comprising 21% and paper about 15%. Organics waste to landfill is also the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. More and more cities in the U.S. are beginning to focus on the organics “fraction” of the waste stream and are developing policies and laws with targets for diversion from landfill as part of their solid waste management strategies. This includes extended producer responsibility, landfill bans for organics waste materials and aggressive recycling and composting goals. In 2014, the Minnesota legislature established a goal of 75% waste recycling and composting by 2030
and made a substantial increase of grants to all Minnesota counties to promote recycling efforts. Hennepin County alone has up to $50,000 available to commercial business and multi-unit properties for 2015. In Minnesota, Source Separated Organics (SSO) are exempt from county solid waste fees as well as the state solid waste tax of 17%. Simply put, one of the greatest values in recycling is, literally, as a sink. Recycling in general absorbs the various costs that would be spent treating this potential waste by landfilling or incinerating it. Many cities in the U.S. recognized this value during the early recycling years and early recyclers took advantage of the recycling momentum to adapt and modernize. Now, the recycling industry in the U.S. is a $200 billion industry employing more than a million people and accounting for about 2% of the country’s GDP. The resource value of waste continues to be a critical driver toward more advanced recycling as commodity prices have increased because of demand on our finite natural resources. We are expecting 3 billion more people to enter the middle class by 2030, driving more demand for goods and services. This requires us to rethink how we obtain and reuse our materials in a sustainable way. Moving away from a take-make-dispose model that has defined our last century toward more circular, regenerative solutions that close the material loop and reduce waste from landfill are being developed at scale in Minnesota now. Innovative companies in Minnesota are focusing on the large organic fraction of the waste stream to help close the loop by returning organics waste to our community value chain as highest best use commodities. Two examples include Source Separated Organics (SSO) and Anaerobic Digestion. Innovative SSO programs are being