The US faces a solid waste disposal crisis. It is projected that half of the nation's landfills now in use wil close within five years.  Tipping fees paid by trash haulers to dispose of garbage at landfills have doubled in the last decade.  Many states are experiencing a shortage of potential landfill sites.  Some smaller states in the Northeast pay high tipping fees to out-of-state landfills to accept their trash. The cost of building new facilities to accept garbage is a primary concern; strict environmental regulations increase the cost of building and maintaining landfills. Where to locate landfills is also a problem. Although everyone understands the need for waste disposal, no one wants an unsightly, odorous mound in their neighborhood: the "not in my backyard" or NIMBY syndrome.

    In August 1990, the city council of Austin, Texas adopted a five year plan to expand recycling efforts and reduce the amount of waste generated. A "pay as you throw" program with variable-rate fees was tested. Customers were charged according to the amount of trash they generated each week: $6 for a 30 gallon can, $9 for a 60 gallon can, and $12 for a 90 gallon can.  Stickers, costing $10 for a set of five could be placed on any excess bags.  Recyclable materials were collected along with the garbage.

    Over the first six months of the pilot study, participation in the city's curbside recycling program increased from about 50 percent to more than 80 percent.  As a result, 34 percent of total waste was diverted from the landfill.  Many communities around the US have started variable-fee waste management programs.  Some charge by the bag, selling either stickers or special bags, and some by volume.  Still others charge by the weight of the garbage.

    Many customers like the variable rate; they do no pay for excess trash their neighbor may generate, and are rewarded for recycling and generating less garbage. The increase in the amount of materials that are recycled aids resource and energy conservation.  The production of a 100 percent recycled aluminum can saves 90 to 95 percent of the energy needed to make the can from raw materials. Recycling paper not only saves energy, but for each metric ton of recycled paper produced, 66 percent of the water used in the paper production and 19 trees were saved.

    A pay-as-you-throw program, such as the one in Austin, requires extensive research and foresight.  Recycled goods must have a market, or they will eventually end up in a landfill. Most communities do not include multifamily dwellings in their programs, mainly because of the difficulties in assessing waste generation in apartment or condominium complexes. In addition to being difficult to organize, pay-as-you-throw programs are expensive.  The distribution of cans and recyling bins is costly.  Designing the program and setting up new computer billing systems require administrative and technical expenses. The necessary community education is also costly.  The city of Austin spent $7 per household on educational materials, including a monthly newsletter for the first six months.
    Infrequent collection, such as the once-a-week collection in Austin, generates complaints about insects and odor problems.  Some opponents of this plan suggest that it encourages illegal dumping and backyard burning of garbage. Programs that use stickers to charge per bag have reported stickers being blown off or stolen.
 

    Critics of pay-as-you-throw programs think that communities must also explore other ways of minimizing landfill trash.  The incineration of solid wastes in an option. Composting, which could produce fertilizer in addition to reducing trash volume, is another option. It may be idealistic to expect all Americans to voluntarily reduce waste generation, participate in recycling and buy products made with recycled materials. Therefore the search for new waste disposal solutions continues.
 

QUESTIONS

1. Do you think consumers should be charged for the amount of trash that they throw away?  Why or why not?
2. Do you think consumers should be fined for mixing recyclable material with other wastes? Why or why not?
3. Some communities have commingling programs, in which city workers separate recyclable wastes from collected trash. How does this method affect the cost of the recycling and waste reduction effort?
4. Does commingling give consumers incentive to reduce waste generation? Why or why not?