Getting to Zero Waste — Wisconsin's Efforts to Minimize Global Climate Change

The State of Wisconsin has been a leader in recycling and waste reduction for a number of years. With the passage of 1990 Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 335, the State banned over 15 items from landfill disposal and created a series of financial mechanisms to further waste reduction efforts. Since the Act’s passage, the State has provided over $300 million in grants and loans to municipalities and businesses and achieved a 40% reduction from landfill disposal. However, despite this significant effort, many materials are still being landfilled. In 2002, Cascadia Consulting conducted a waste characterization study of Wisconsin landfills and found that: “wood waste (12.8%), food waste (10.2%), and “non-banned” compostable paper (9%) constitute the largest categories of waste going to our landfills... • the landfill material bans, instituted in the 1990s to bolster recycling, have successfully reduced disposal of recyclables in landfills; • new approaches to certain materials may be needed to further reduce the volume of recyclable material that is lost to landfilling.” Based upon these results, more recent attempts have been made to address problem materials. The UW-Extension, in cooperation with staff and students from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, has targeted several key materials for waste reduction efforts. These include: • Electronic equipment, especially TVs and computers • Wood wastes • Mercury containing materials These studies have indicated that further reduction of these materials will lead to significant reductions of green house gas emissions, decrease the toxicity of waste disposal, and lead to less reliance on landfill disposal. This paper will highlight these research findings as well as the strategies being proposed and implemented to achieve further reductions in Wisconsin’s municipal solid waste. Copyright ASCE 2005 EWRI 2005 2 Introduction The state of Wisconsin has been a leader in attempting to reduce the amount of solid waste going to landfills. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the state began adopting a series of legislative initiatives to require the recycling and composting of municipal solid waste. Landmark legislation was passed in 1990, which established a series of bans on landfilling of 15 different materials. The net result has been an over 40% reduction in solid waste going to landfills in 2002. These efforts have led to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the state. For example, the almost 1.5 million tons of materials recycled resulted in a net greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 951,680 metric tons carbon equivalent, which is equivalent to removing over 700,000 cars from the road each year. Diversion Rate Calculation Recovered for Recycling Combusted with Energy Recovery Yard Waste Managed at Home Total Material Diverted Total Generation Tons 1,486,880 140,290 250,800 1,877,970 4,649,240 % of Total 32% 3% 5.4% 40.4% However, despite this effort, much more remains to do. Since much of the state relies primarily on the disposal of wastes in solid waste landfills, consider owned by amount of methane is generated as a result. As reported by the US EPA, methane represents the second most important greenhouse gas and its primary source is landfills (see Figure 1).