Local Authorities Waste Management
As 2012, the development of the Production and Management Plan for Household Waste Management became mandatory in the state of New York. Preventing waste production involves reducing the quantity and harmfulness of waste produced by intervening in its production and consumption methods (including reuse and repurposing).
The plan involves the implementation, by local stakeholders like the city of Abany, of coordinated actions aimed at achieving the objectives defined following the regional assessment, particularly regarding the reduction of household waste. It thus allows for the territorialization and clarification of operational waste prevention objectives and the definition of the actions to be implemented to achieve them.
Strengthening Public Information about Waste
The federal law aims to reduce household waste produced per capita by 15% by 2030. This policy is now part of the broader framework of the transition to the circular economy and the efficient use of resources. However, engineering consulting firms supporting local authorities note that, while everyone recognizes the urgent need to act to achieve regulatory objectives, the resources deployed are far from sufficient. Prevention measures remain far too rare, even though they are key to effectively combating household waste production.
To reduce them by 10%, the resources devoted to prevention would have to be increased tenfold and the public would have to be informed more effectively.
The challenge is as much environmental as it is economic: the cost of this prevention currently stands at $1 per capita per year, while the cost of management is on average 100 times higher. It is imperative to encourage the public to change their consumption habits: encourage them to favor bulk and homemade goods; promote reuse and second-hand goods, as well as renting rather than buying. The goal of the plan is to change the way we view consumption. Unfortunately, and despite the positive results achieved by those who have mobilized, only 40% of regions have formalized it.
Increase the number of flow exchange points
All actions combined, the potential reduction is more than 100 kg per inhabitant in New York State. We must therefore accelerate the process. Increasing the number of flow exchange and reuse points is also essential. A quarter of discarded items can be reused and constitute a phenomenal source of economic activity, especially in these times of inflation! Let’s provide exchange points throughout New York State, so that everyone has one within a fifteen-minute bike ride from home, for example. Let’s even dare to enshrine in law a ban on throwing away repairable items.
There is an urgent need for information and a change in the scale of the actions taken. While initiatives and experiments are still too few in number, they are nonetheless effective and demonstrate their positive impact. Let’s make them widespread!
New York is among eight states at risk of not meeting all of the targets set for waste recycling and dumpster rental services. The cause is household waste treatment, which still too often falls short of expectations.
Waste Management Constraints
Will New York meet the waste recycling targets set for 2025? It ranks the state among the eight member states of the European Union which risk not achieving the objectives set by three strategic texts (the waste framework directive, the packaging directive and the landfill directive).
Household waste increasingly poorly recycled
In a recent warning report, junk disposal experts at Albany Discount Bin HQ specifically call into question the recycling of municipal waste, i.e., waste generated by individuals or businesses and processed by local authorities, such as the city of Albany. In 2020, only 41% of this waste was recycled, while the expected treatment rate by 2025 is 55%. This result is part of a downward trend, as 45% of household waste was processed in 2018. This is well below the European average of 49% of household waste recycled.
The collection of biowaste, which represents a third of household waste, is clearly the cause of this poor performance. Although not widespread in New York State, the sorting of this organic waste is subject to a separate collection system for only a small portion of the population (it will be mandatory as of 2026). This is unfortunate, since it is easily recyclable, as fertilizer or for the production of methane: a local energy source that Albany considers can contribute significantly to achieving our climate objectives. Currently, only 60% of recovered biowaste is processed in New York State.
Plastic Packaging Exports
Another drawback of current recycling is that only 21% of plastic packaging is processed, while the 50% target must be reached by 2025. Here, it is the capture of this waste in separate collection systems that is deemed insufficient, while the extended responsibility of the producers of this packaging is not commensurate with the challenge.
The Commission makes four recommendations to rectify the situation. Three of them aim to improve existing systems. The fourth advocates the implementation of incentive pricing, which would limit waste production by only charging users for waste they discard. The 2015 Energy Transition for Green Growth Act requires the deployment of this type of system for 25 million residents by 2025, but local authorities criticize it for being complex, costly to manage, and uncertain in its outcome, according to a report by the EPA in New York in 2023. Around 2 million people currently pay for their actual waste production. The main effort must be focused on prevention, followed by reuse and recycling.
An Uncertain Future For Waste Management
Can the American targets still be achieved? New York’s difficulties had already been identified by the auditors, which pointed out that neither the federal planning nor the state plans, which are intended to coordinate actions undertaken at the territorial level but remain insufficiently precise and restrictive in terms of investments, nor the local programs for the prevention of household and similar waste, which are struggling to become widespread and to coordinate with the actions of waste disposal associations, are proving equal to the challenges to be met.
In 2020, Americans produced an average of 721 kg of municipal waste per person. Forty-nine percent of this waste was prepared for reuse or recycling, while nearly 23% was landfilled. Of all states, 9 are expected to meet all targets, 8 are at risk of not meeting the targets set for municipal waste, while the remaining will certainly not meet either target.
