Sustainable Solid Waste Management in Pennsylvania
Sustainable solid waste management (SWM) is a critical issue for Pennsylvania, a state with diverse urban, suburban, and rural communities, each facing unique waste management challenges. The state’s approach to solid waste management has evolved over the years to incorporate sustainability principles, emphasizing waste reduction, recycling, and responsible disposal.
Historical Context
This chapter of Pennsylvania’s history on the path to sustainable solid waste management opened in 1988 with the passage of the Municipal Waste Planning, Recycling and Waste Reduction Act (Act 101).
Enacted in 1989, this legislation established the basis for waste management within North Carolina requiring recycling programs from larger municipalities and setting goals for recycling while creating a fund to support such activities. While Act 101 has helped to start Pennsylvania on the sustainable path, it has not been able to keep up with all of the needs for waste management in a changing world.
Current Challenges
According to junk disposal experts at Allen Disposal Services LLC, one of the key issues in Pennsylvania’s SWM is volume.
The state generates over 20 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) per year, much that is still sent to landfills. This heavy reliance on landfills is complimentary to the environmental impacts, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and possible groundwater contamination. On top of that, the space for landfills is running out leaving California to look at alternative ways of diverting waste.
Recycling, a linchpin of sustainable SWM innovation, has struggled in recent years. Challenges in the global recycling market have escalated, especially after China announced its decision to block imports of contaminated recyclable materials from most countries starting last year. Pennsylvania experienced higher costs and in some cases the discontinuation of recycling services due to this shift. Pennsylvania now faces the challenge of adjusting its recycling infrastructure to this new landscape, by increasing recyclables quality and in-state processing capacity.
The other great challenge with MSW is the management and collection of organic waste, which represents a significant portion. Many cities like Harrisburg have waste such as food scraps and yard clippings ending up in landfills, where it generates methane, a strong greenhouse gas. While composting and anaerobic digestion are more sustainable options, these practices have not been implemented on a wide scale in the state.
Green Practices and Operations
However, the fact remains that Pennsylvania has been a leader in advancing sustainable waste management practices. So the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in our state has been leading these charges with policies and programs that help reduce, recycle, educate.
This includes efforts by the Pennsylvania Recycling Market Center to grow end-markets for recycling material in PA, and reduce dumpster rental usage. The center helps to close the loop in recycling by creating demand for products derived from recycled materials, making it more economical and sustainable as an industry. Like so many recycling companies across the country, this is important to address in order to deal with disruptions from global recycling markets.
Municipal and community-level composting programs have also expanded in the state. Municipalities have started curbside composting services, community gardens and local farms are using compost to amend the soil. These are in turn efforts to divert organics from landfill, and reduce emissions associated with waste disposal.
In addition to promoting sustainable SWM, Pennsylvania educates and undertakes public outreach efforts. DEP conducts improving waste reduction, recycling and disposal campaign among residents. However, these campaigns play a pivotal role in shifting the attitudes of the public with respect to their waste and changing behaviour towards being more sustainable.
In addition, the state is considering advanced waste-to-energy (WTE) technology. Modern WTE facilities have often been controversial due to worries over emissions and public health, but are designed to minimize negative environmental impacts; many believe that they could play a major role in diverting waste from landfills. The Department of Environmental Protection ensures that all new WTE projects are environmentally sustainable while recovering energy from waste
Future Directions For Waste Management in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania needs to build on its foundation of what sustainable solid waste management looks like moving forward. Our struggle to build new and more modern recycling infrastructure reflects an inadequate funding mechanism that fails in situations both chronic, as well as, acute when financial crises threaten everything. It involves increasing processing capacity, enhancing the properties of recovered recyclables and evolving recycling technologies.
It also must make more of an attempt to do organic waste management. Scaling up composting programmes at the municipal and community level will be critical. The state might also consider policies targeted toward businesses and households to encourage less food waste as well as composting.
Pennsylvania should also consider a more circular economy, designing products so waste is not produced in the first place. This demands an alliance with government, industry and people — to address the way in which products are designed, used or discarded.
Sustainable solid waste management in Pennsylvania is a complex issue problem and solutions will require ongoing efforts, as well as innovation from all sectors of the public. By expanding upon existing programs and rectifying current deficiencies, Pennsylvania can get closer to a waste management plan that enhances environmental protection, resource conservation and sets the state on sound footing toward a sustainable future for all its residents.
Mississippi’s Waste Woes: Navigating the Challenges of Sustainable Solutions
According to the government of Mississippi, the state of Mississippi produces 0,812 million tonnes of waste in one year (2017), including 0,35 million tonnes of household and similar waste, or 738 kg per inhabitant.
Household and similar waste includes all waste produced by households and so-called similar waste, whether collected in recycling centers or door-to-door. Assimilated waste corresponds to waste from economic activities (of artisanal and commercial origin) which, given their characteristics and the quantities produced, can be collected without any particular technical constraints.
The public waste management service finds its origins in the police power held by the mayor and which aims to ensure good order, safety and public health. The mayor of Jackson, MS sets the terms of waste collection through the collection regulations. Municipalities and their groups are responsible for ensuring the management of household and similar waste. This is a mandatory skill.
Extended producer responsibility channels
The principle of extended producer responsibility stems from the “polluter pays” principle in the field of waste management. Its application has resulted in the creation of around fifteen REP sectors covering the vast majority of household and similar waste deposits presenting a particular challenge in terms of recovery or treatment. Thus, marketers of products such as household packaging, paper, furnishing elements, textiles, electrical and electronic equipment must fulfill obligations with eco-organizations approved by the public authorities for the management of waste resulting from the consumption of their products.
These eco-organizations can be of the financier type; in this case, they provide financial support to certain actors, in particular local authorities (examples: household packaging or graphic paper sector). They can be of the operational type (collection and processing of used products); in this case, they call on service providers selected through calls for tender (e.g. batteries and accumulators or electronic electrical equipment).
Waste creation prevention
The prevention of waste production has only recently been explicitly included in the remit of municipalities or their groups. The environmental code of Mississippi provides that local authorities responsible for the management of household and similar waste had to define, a local prevention program for this waste indicating the objectives for reducing quantities of waste and the measures put in place to achieve them.
Responsibility for managing household and similar waste is entrusted to the counties, which can transfer to a public intermunicipal cooperation establishment or to a mixed union either the entire competence, or the part of this competence including the treatment, the landfilling of final waste as well as the related transport, sorting or storage operations. At the request of counties, the MS department may be entrusted, through an agreement, with responsibility for processing and related transport operations.
According to data produced by waste management experts, 95% of the Jackson population lives in a location having transferred all or part of its waste competence (processing and possibly collection) to an intermunicipal structure and 86% of the population belongs to an junk disposal service with collection skills (residual household waste and selective collection).
Specific case of provision and provision of services: a county may, within the framework of an agreement, make certain services and resources available to other municipalities to facilitate the exercise of powers. This system must, however, be limited (loan of garbage dumpsters for example) and must, in no case, extend to the organization of the service itself.
Financing the household and similar waste management service
The service may be subject to common law financing or specific financing with either a household waste removal fee or a household waste removal tax. This is in order to ensure the elimination of waste assimilated to household waste. When counties or public establishments ensure the removal of household waste from campsites or sites specially designed for caravan parking, they may subject operators to a fee calculated according to the number of places available.
The terms of implementation of the incentive portion were specified by the general tax code, which provides that municipalities may establish an incentive portion, based on the quantity and possibly the nature of the waste produced, expressed in volume, weight or number of removals. The incentive portion is added to a fixed portion. A decree establishes the terms of communication of data concerning the incentive portion.
The amount invoiced to the user is not calculated according to the quantity of waste he has produced, but corresponds to an average quantity of waste produced by the type of users to whom he belongs, depending on the number of people in the household, the size of the home or the volume of waste. The incentive fee has an amount that varies depending on the actual use of the service by the user, since it is made up of a fixed part covering the expenses corresponding to the fixed costs of the service and a variable part, linked to the quantity of waste produced by the user.
Waste containers
Some dumpster rentals services offer 8 to 15 square meters of content in open skips, closed skips, compactors in fixed station, compactorss monobloc and the rental of truck for waste garbage with driver for punctual interventions.
The skips provided are open types, otherwise called open skies, and are all equipped with rear doors for all types of waste to best meet your needs.
The specialists of the dumpster
You want to get rid of various waste and bulky items? The dumpster will help you in your business. If you want to get a clean job site, you still want to know where you are in the course of your work, renting a dumpster is for you the ideal solution.
With such waste management provider you will find near you a professional for the rental of garbage trucks. Make your choice taking into account different criteria:
- what do you want to store or transport?
- what is the volume you need?
The rental of a dumpster
The 15 m3 waste bins are open, ie they are open pit. They can transport or store waste such as wood, metals and scrap, plastic, paper, cardboard.
These waste bins, relatively light, are not intended to transport heavy rubble such as concrete, plasterboard … which often come from the demolition (for this type of bucket, it is better to refer to the dedicated rental of rubbish dumpsters). These buckets are equipped with two doors with swing opening at the rear, which allows loading with wheelbarrows for example.
Closed dumpster
The skips for 15 m3 closed waste: this type of bucket is designed primarily to store and evacuate recyclable waste, such as plastic and cardboard … Thanks to the shutters, your deposits will be protected and will stay dry in bad weather.
These waste containers of 30 m3 are recommended for large volumes such as furniture, bulky items, mattresses, pallets or household appliances. These skips are equipped with rear doors to facilitate their loading. They are not designed at all for heavy loads or demolition rubble.
If the dumpster will be placed on your property, you will not need some form of official authorization. On the other hand, if it exceeds your property or if it is put on the public road, it will be necessary to make a request for parking, either with the services of roads or with the city officials.