I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1034 
To authorize the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to 
award grants for municipal solid waste prevention, reuse, and recycling 
program development, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 14, 2017 
Mr. ELLISON (for himself, Ms. LEE, Mr. QUIGLEY, Mr. CARTWRIGHT, and 
Ms. NORTON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To authorize the Administrator of the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency to award grants for municipal solid waste 
prevention, reuse, and recycling program development, 
and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Zero Waste Develop-
ment and Expansion Act of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. GRANT PROGRAM. 
The Administrator of the Environmental Protection 
Agency (in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Administrator’’) 
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shall award grants to local governments or consortia of 
local governments, which may be acting in coordination 
with one or more nongovernmental entities. The grants 
shall be used to develop solid waste prevention, reuse, and 
recycling tactics and operations, which may include— 
(1) development or deployment of technologies 
or practices to increase rates of waste prevention, 
reuse, recycling, or composting; 
(2) capital investment in infrastructure to start 
or expand waste prevention, reuse, recycling, 
composting, or product reuse programs; 
(3) partnerships with local businesses interested 
in incorporating new technologies or processes to re-
duce or prevent waste in production or packaging; or 
(4) community outreach and public education 
programming, including programming to— 
(A) increase community knowledge of ef-
fective waste prevention, reuse, recycling, or 
composting; and 
(B) increase behavior that will reduce over-
all household waste generation. 
SEC. 3. GRANT REVIEW. 
(a) GRANT AWARDEES.—Grants shall be awarded 
under this Act to applicants that collectively represent a 
range of existing waste prevention, reuse, recycling, and 
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composting rates. In order to be considered for this award, 
applicants must— 
(1) set specific waste prevention, reuse, recy-
cling, composting, or public education goals that will 
bring communities closer to zero waste; 
(2) have a clearly established plan to use grant 
funds for one or more of the purposes described in 
section 2; and 
(3) meet other criteria as determined by the 
Administrator. 
(b) ADDITIONAL FACTORS.—Additional weight may 
be given to the applications of local governments or con-
sortia that— 
(1) have statutorily committed to zero waste 
principles; 
(2) demonstrate job creation; 
(3) have partnerships with domestic manufac-
turers who will use locally recycled materials to spur 
the growth of domestic manufacturing businesses 
and the creation of domestic manufacturing jobs; 
(4) address the disproportionate environmental, 
health, and economic burden of waste disposal that 
is borne by communities of color and low income; 
(5) propose to use funds for waste prevention, 
reuse, or recycling programs in schools; 
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(6) employ adaptive management practices to 
identify and address unintended consequences as 
they arise, including potential contamination of land, 
water, air, or food; 
(7) have a demonstrated need for additional in-
vestment in infrastructure and programs to achieve 
waste prevention, reuse, or recycling; 
(8) will drive technologies for product reuse, re-
cycling, composting, or waste prevention; 
(9) demonstrate ways in which the grant will 
encourage further investment in waste prevention, 
reuse, recycling, or composting projects; or 
(10) incorporate multistakeholder involvement, 
including nonprofit, commercial, and public sector 
partners. 
SEC. 4. REPORTING. 
Grant awardees shall report to the Administrator the 
results of their project and relevant data requested by the 
Administrator to track the grant program’s impact. 
SEC. 5. ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 
The Administrator shall convene or co-convene an an-
nual conference for current, past, and potential grantees, 
and other stakeholders, to learn from each other’s experi-
ences in moving toward a zero waste goal. 
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SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act: 
(1) RECYCLING.—The term ‘‘recycling’’ means 
processing material that has reached the end of its 
current use into material utilized in the production 
of new products. The term does not include inciner-
ation. 
(2) REUSE.—The term ‘‘reuse’’ means extend-
ing the life of a product, packaging, or resources by 
either using it more than once for the same or a new 
function with little to no processing, or repairing it 
so it can be used longer, sharing or renting it, or 
selling or donating it to another party. The term 
does not include incineration. 
(3) WASTE
PREVENTION.—The term ‘‘waste 
prevention’’ includes— 
(A) measures or techniques that reduce the 
amount of wastes generated during industrial 
production processes; and 
(B) reuse, recycling, and other efforts to 
reduce the amount of waste going into the 
waste stream. 
(4) ZERO WASTE.—The term ‘‘zero waste’’ is a 
goal that is ethical, economical, efficient, and vision-
ary, to guide people in changing their lifestyles and 
practices to emulate sustainable natural cycles, 
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where all discarded materials are designed to become 
resources for others to use. Zero waste means de-
signing and managing products and processes to sys-
tematically avoid and eliminate the volume and tox-
icity of waste and materials, conserve and recover all 
resources, and not burn or bury them. Implementing 
zero waste will eliminate all discharges to land, 
water, or air that are a threat to planetary, human, 
animal, or plant health. 
SEC. 7. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS. 
There are authorized to be appropriated to the Ad-
ministrator $100,000,000 for the period encompassing fis-
cal years 2018 through 2023 for carrying out this Act. 
Æ 
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