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Given the drop in oil prices and rise in the dollar, "a lot of economic statistics were
distorted and you did see a slowdown in a lot of places. ... This indicator is an
attempt to get a more pure view of where the business cycle is at the moment,"
Slok said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."
At this point, the garbage transport gauge "is indeed suggesting that the recovery
continues, or that the economic expansion is moving forward from here."
Slok isn't the first to notice the connection between waste carloads and
the GDP growth. Michael McDonough, an economist at Bloomberg, has followed
growth in the waste carloads indicator for years.
Indeed, the data series has been shown to have a high correlation to changes in
GDP. This makes some intuitive sense, given that consumption, construction and
other such activities generally create waste.
While peering deeply into trash may sound strange, "all joking aside, this is really
an attempt to capture what is the economic activity when we measure it from a
whole different angle than we normally do," Slok said.
He added that it generally confirms what economic data have shown, but "if
anything, this also points to that there are some upside risks to the outlook from
where we are at the moment."
In more conventional data, Tuesday's ISM reading showed that the manufacturing
sector expanded in October. The October employment report is set to be released
Friday.
Editor's Note: This piece was written by Shift Energy Holdings CTO Adrian
Tylim, a renewable energy expert and former adjunct professor of
sustainability. The opinions represented in this piece are independent of Waste
Dive's views.
Leaders around the world have been celebrating the news of ratification of the
Paris Climate agreement by major economies like the U.S., China and India.
For the U.S., our commitment means reducing emissions more than 25% below
our 2005 level by 2025.
Recent work by Jeffery Greenblatt and Max Wei, two researchers at Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, shows that America's current contribution plans
to reduce the impact of climate change is insufficient to meet the Paris
Agreement. So, as we are ratifying the agreement, after counting all inputs and
outputs based on current and programmed reduction practices, the scientists
tell us that in essence our plans fall short. It feels as if we lost before we
started although, this is not totally accurate. Many states like California have
demonstrated over and over that clean energy is the way to a better
environment and improved economy.
Credit: EPA
On the bright side, significant reduction in greenhouse gases from oil and gas
emissions will continue to be achieved as more renewable energy and cleaner
technologies are deployed. Obvious economic benefits are pushing more
people to replace their cars and trucks with better, more efficient hybrid and
electric equivalents. Both commercial and residential building owners are
implementing energy efficiency technologies that reduce their carbon footprint
because they save money. Regardless of the reason, we embrace any positive
contribution to climate change.
Almost the same landfilling practices that originated with the Romans and
Greeks thousands of years ago are still being used in many places around the
world. Landfills affect surrounding communities and the natural environment.
Downwind odors cant be contained. Leachate is a nasty polluting liquid that
can severely affect water reservoirs, animals and plants.
To deal with this problem, tighter EPA regulations mandating leachate control
and technology for capturing the methane gas produced by the decomposition
of waste have been implemented. In a recent rule, EPA determined that a well-
designed and well-operated landfill gas collection-and-control system remains
the best system of emissions reduction for controlling landfill gases. It further
determines that flaring gas is an acceptable gas control method.
Mind you, these are our "best practices" to reduce the effect of landfills on
climate change. They are short and they are ineffective. This cannot be an
acceptable way to deal with basic infrastructure problem in America in the 21st
Century. We can do better. Many examples abound in the European Union and
Japan where significant and almost complete elimination of landfill practices
have been achieved by converting municipal solid waste to energy, for
example.
Today we can find, around the world, commercially proven technologies that
can be integrated to convert all of the waste from an environmental nuisance
into renewable commodities. Investment in this type of infrastructure should be
a welcomed opportunity and acceptable risk for global investors given the
predictability of waste volumes, availability of proven technologies and the
ability to produce marketable renewable commodities.
There is no reason why the U.S. and other countries cannot focus on a path to
ridding the world of a practice almost as old as humanity that is contributing to
the destruction of our standard of living and the demise of many species
around the world.
AUTHOR
Cole Rosengren@ColeRosengren
PUBLISHED
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include comment from
Washington, DC Department of Public Works.
Even if a city can reach a "zero waste-to-landfill" goal, there will always be
some waste left. Depending on whom you talk to, waste-to-energy facilities are
either a part of that problem or a solution to it.
Despite ongoing growth in Asia and Europe, the U.S. has not seen the
construction of a new greenfield waste-to-energy (WTE) thermal combustion
facility in years. The ongoing trend toward high diversion rate goals among
companies and cities is seen as a potential opportunity for the existing market
to grow. Yet when it comes to seven major cities with more than half a million
residents and high diversion or "zero waste" goals New York, Washington,
Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas and Austin, TX only
one plans to utilize WTE in a significant way.
"There are still elements of the waste stream that either cannot be recycled or
cannot be reused. And so really the only opportunity you have is to create
power with them," DSNY Commissioner Kathryn Garcia told Waste Dive at a
recent event on the topic. "So we do think it's a component. The challenge is
always the cost differential between landfilling and waste-to-energy facilities."
"There are just some things that are really difficult to recycle. Our view is you should at
least recover the BTU content."
Covanta processes DSNY's waste at multiple facilities in the Northeast and will
continue to do so for years under existing contracts. During a recent
interview CEO Stephen Jones recognized that competing with low landfill costs
can be difficult when it comes to municipal contracts, but said that it would be
tough for cities to truly achieve "zero waste" without using WTE.
"There are just some things that are really difficult to recycle. Our view is you
should at least recover the BTU content," said Jones. "You should get the BTU
content and recover the energy from that waste that can't be recycled."
Nadeau highlighted areas in Florida and New York where Wheelabrators WTE
facilities have complemented local programs with high diversion rates and
noted that more communities seem to be looking for "integrated waste
management solutions."
"DPW fully expects both the percentage and tonnage of material sent for
waste-to-energy to drop significantly in order to achieve this goal," saidNancee
Lyons, DPW public affairs specialist, via email.
After Washington, the next closest "zero waste" city to use WTE is Los
Angeles. According to the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, about 3% of the
waste it currently manages goes through WTE. That number is expected to
increase as the city works to hit 95% diversion by 2035 , though the city is more
focused on reduction and recycling first.
San Francisco, which is often held up as the paragon of "zero waste" cities,
processes less than 1% of its waste through WTE. This material is residual
from one of the two composting facilities used by the city and that number is
expected to decrease as operational efficiencies improve.
"Incineration is not the highest and best use of discarded resources, recovering
only a small fraction of the embedded energy and less than if it was
recycled," said Jack Macy, commercial zero waste senior coordinator for SF
Environment, via email. "Highest and best use is a principle of our zero waste
policy."
Yet the fact that only one of the major U.S. cities with a "zero waste" goal is
planning to get there by using WTE is notable.
Avoiding WTE options does line up with definitions set by the Zero Waste
International Alliance (ZWIA) which is seen as the arbiter of the terms true
meaning. In its 2015 policy updates the organization took issue with the term
"zero waste-to-landfill" and repeatedly noted that combustion is not seen as a
preferred disposal method.
"There are just some things that are really difficult to recycle. Our view is you should at
least recover the BTU content."
"The idea was that you dont burn discards on your pursuit of zero waste," said
Eric Lombardi, one of ZWIAs founders and the current director of Eco-Cycle
International. "Theres no culture shift required with burying and burning our
trash."
Lombardi said that truly achieving zero waste is difficult and any city which can
reach a 90% diversion rate through recycling without WTE will have done very
well. His issues with combustion included high operating costs, the
classification of biogenic carbon and the effects of nanoparticles, among
others.
While this opinion is also shared by many of the major U.S. cities moving
toward "zero waste," the National Waste & Recycling Association's (NWRA)
policy director didn't think that was indicative of a larger trend.
As for why more of the major U.S. cities with zero waste goals are on the
West Coast, both Lombardi and Miller chalked it up to easier access to Asian
recycling markets more than anything else. Looking at municipalities on the
East Coast or other parts of the country, Miller said it may be harder to pass
new goals in the future without serious political momentum and questioned
their efficacy.
"Goals are all very nice but you still have to ask yourself what work was done
when they were set. Were they just set on pick a number out of the air or were
they set on some analysis and the idea of where you could get?" he said.
In 2020, San Francisco will become one of the first cities to arrive at its target
year and, at the moment, it looks like an uphill climb for the city to hit its goal by
then. Other cities have a little more time, yet they will face similar challenges.
Whether theyll choose to use WTE along the way, or whether it will "count" if
they do, are still very open questions.
What does New York do with all its trash? One city's waste in numbers
The Big Apple generates more than 14 million tonnes of rubbish a year, and
spends around $2.3bn disposing of it sometimes 7,000 miles away in China. Max
Galka counts the costs of a city literally built on trash
Press play to see where New Yorks waste goes from its local district all
the way, in some cases, to India or China. Click on a marker to see the
amount of waste it generated/received in 2015. Graphic by Max Galka
As the largest city in the worlds most wasteful country, New York
generates more than 14 million tonnes of trash each year; reputedly
(though possibly inaccurately) more than any other city in the world.
Not only that, New York is also Americas densest city: its narrow, traffic
jam med streets make collecting all that garbage a logistical Gordian knot.
And New York is located smack in the centre of the Northeast
megalopolis, a giant urban expanse where available land for disposing of
garbage is in short supply.
Through most of its history until the mid-1900s, New Yorks primary
method for disposing of its waste was simply to dump it into the ocean. At
one point, as much as 80% of New Yorks garbage ended up out at sea.
However, in what was surely its most enduring waste management
initiative, New York City used some of its garbage (mostly ash, rubble and
other debris) to create artificial land, thereby increasing its own size.
Much of the citys land today, including some of its priciest
neighbourhoods, are literally built on garbage.
In 2012, New Yorks public and private waste management systems spent
a combined $2.3bn on garbage collection and disposal.
Each day, New Yorks public garbage trucks collect nearly 7,000 tonnes of
residential mixed solid waste. After finishing their routes, most of these
trucks will deposit the garbage in one of New Yorks waste transfer
stations located throughout the city. From there, the garbage will
eventually be loaded on to a barge or train and carried as far as 600 miles
to its final stop. For most of New Yorks mixed solid waste (about 80% of it
by tonnage), this last stop will be a landfill. The remaining 20% will end up
at a waste-to-energy plant, where it will be incinerated and converted into
energy.