Beyond RCRA: Prospects for Waste and Materials Management ... · important insights into future technological, societal, environmental, and economic trends, and how they might affect

Waste and Materials Management in the Year 2020

Beyond RCRA

2020

sustainable use of resources

life cycle approach to managing chemical risk

safe, environmentally sound waste management

2002

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The RCRA Vision Paper was written by the RCRAVision work group:• Dave Fagan, Office of Solid Waste, EPA• Angie Leith, Office of Solid Waste, EPA• Peggy Harris, California EPA, Department of

Toxic Substances Control• Jennifer Kaduck, Georgia Environmental

Protection Division• John McCarroll, EPA Region 9• Wayne Naylor, EPA Region 3• Jeff Scott, EPA Region 9• Shiela Sevenstar, Cherokee Nation• Karen Ueno, EPA Region 9

This paper is intended to provoke discussion andfacilitate a public dialogue to explore possibledirections for the mid- to long-term future of theRCRA program. Even as the ideas presented inthis paper remain open to honest reflection, thedesired dialogue has already begun. Based oncomments received on an earlier draft of the paper,EPA, with its co-regulators in the states andtribal governments, has already identified a num-ber of short-term opportunities to explore in moredetail some of the ideas and issues raised here. Thisdialogue will continue as EPA works with allstakeholders to continue to craft a vision for theRCRA program of the 21st century.

This paper could not have been completed withoutthe assistance of the many individuals who kindlyvolunteered their time and expertise. In particular,the work group wishes to express its appreciationto those who participated in the September 1999roundtable meeting in Washington, DC that laidmuch of the groundwork for this project:• Braden Allenby, AT&T• Earl Beaver, Practical Sustainability• Fred Hansen, Portland Tri-Met• Amy Kyle, University of California, Berkeley• Reid Lifset, Yale University• Kay Martin, County of Ventura, California• Emily Matthews, World Resources Institute• Vernice Miller-Travis, Partnership for Sustainable

Brownfields Development• Bruce Nordman, Lawrence Berkeley National

Labs• Lorenz Rhomberg, Gradient Corporation• Robert Socolow, Princeton University• Jane Williams, California Communities Against

Toxics

The work group also wishes to thank Bill Ross,Megan Duffy, and Elizabeth McManus of Ross &Associates Environmental Consulting, Ltd., for theirinvaluable assistance to this project.

Acknowledgmentsand Disclaimer

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Beyond RCRA:Waste and Materials Management

In the Year 2020

“Looking into the future is a fool’s occupation,but it is the bigger fool who dares not to.”

—Voltaire

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>> The year is 2020, and America’s wastefulways are a thing of the past. New technologiesand a changed economic climate, combined withenlightened government policies and a pro-nounced shift in societal and corporate attitudeshave resulted in dramatic decreases in the vol-umes and toxicity of industrial wastes generatedby the country’s industries. Materials that wereonce considered wastes suitable only for landfill-ing are now continually reused and recycled, and“industrial ecology” has become the mantra ofcorporate executives across the nation. Landfillsare becoming obsolete—the small volumes ofwastes that actually need disposal are carefullymanaged under an efficient and environmentallyprotective system that features a mix of economicincentives, voluntary measures, and regulatorycontrols. Cleanup of most contaminated sites hasbeen largely completed, and thousands of areasonce known as brownfields have been put backinto productive use.

Generating and managing post-consumerhousehold wastes has undergone a similar trans-formation. Concern for environmental sustain-ability has become ingrained as a societal value,

as individuals have become much more aware ofthe environmental consequences of their con-sumptive choices. These changes in consumervalues have prompted shifts in manufacturingtechniques and choices, so that manufacturingprocesses are based on managing resources effi-ciently, closing the loop of material flows, anddesigning for the environment. Products containfewer toxic materials and are designed to lastlonger. Much less—and less toxic—waste is gen-erated during manufacturing. Manufacturers now take responsibility for their productsthroughout the product life cycle, and productstewardship,—involving all members of theproduct chain,—is a standard operating proce-dure. Household recycling, as well as advances inpackaging, product design, and other market-based measures, have reduced household wastegeneration rates to a small fraction of what theywere in the late twentieth century. Virtually allorganic wastes, construction and demolitionwastes, and other materials formerly managed aspart of the municipal solid waste stream are nowdiverted to beneficial reuse, dramatically reduc-ing the amount of landfill space needed. Farfewer raw materials and fewer toxic chemicals

A Vision ofthe Future


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are used to manufacture consumer products,and consumers are far better informed of thepotential risks from toxins in the goods and serv-ices that they use.

By the year 2020, a chemically safe environ-ment has also become established legally andculturally as a basic human right. Advancementsin telecommunications and information manage-ment have created much closer linkagesbetween government agencies, citizens, andbusinesses, and the resulting flows of informa-tion have enabled a more participatory approachto making environmental decisions. These devel-opments have prompted pollution abatementmeasures that ensure lower income communi-ties no longer bear disproportionately high risksfrom exposure to industrial chemical emissions.

These gains in waste and materials manage-ment have not, of course, been confined to theUnited States. Heightened concerns over thehealth of the global environment, combined with

an increasingly globalized economic system,have created new institutions and policies topromote environmental sustainability andensure that wastes and materials are managedwisely worldwide.

What kind of world will we actually inhabitin 2020? Some predict that it will be better thanthe present—where products and materials willbe less toxic and reusable, and where resourceswill be used more efficiently so that far lesswaste is produced. Others predict we will experi-ence a bleaker future—where harmful chemicalswill be more prevalent throughout our environ-ment and may seriously affect groundwater,drinking water, and food supplies. While we can’tknow which of these scenarios—or others—willexist in 20 years, considering the future nowmakes sense if we want a chance to shape it positively. This paper is intended to stimulate adialogue around this important issue.


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>> At the turn of the new century, theUnited States has completed two decades ofmanaging wastes under the federal ResourceConservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). In thesepast 20 years, waste management practices haveimproved tremendously. Uncontrolled dumpingof hazardous industrial wastes has decreaseddramatically, and the number of facilities thathandle hazardous wastes has shrunk by half.Municipal solid waste landfills have beenupgraded across the country, and unlined haz-ardous waste landfills and lagoons have almostdisappeared from our landscape. Thousands ofcontaminated sites across the country are beingcleaned up to restore land to productive usesand protect ground-water resources. Post-con-sumer recycling rates have risen dramatically,and many industries have made impressive gainsin pollution prevention by reducing the amountand toxicity of wastes they generate.

Despite these impressive achievements, theRCRA program also receives its share of criticism.Critics point to the way the RCRA program identi-fies materials, particularly byproducts of manu-facturing, as “waste,” which they argue has a

chilling effect on recycling, reuse, reclamation,and energy recovery. Others state that the pro-gram continues to focus too much on “end of thepipe” controls, and not enough on earlier inter-ventions targeted at upstream pollution preven-tion measures. In contrast, some believe that theprogram has not done enough to require safemanagement of industrial, municipal, and haz-ardous wastes.

This paper is not an attempt to document oranalyze the strengths and weaknesses of theRCRA program as we know it today. Rather, aftertwo decades of experience with the current sys-tem, it is time to look forward to the next 20years, to begin to examine how the programcould and should evolve to meet the challengesand opportunities of the new century. In 1999,the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),in concert with state and tribal environmentalagencies, formed a small work group to begin toexplore the RCRA program’s longer-term future.In September 1999, a roundtable meeting ofexperts from academia, industry, and publicinterest organizations was convened inWashington, DC to lay the groundwork for this

Introduction


effort. That meeting provided a number ofimportant insights into future technological,societal, environmental, and economic trends,and how they might affect the future of wastemanagement in this country. The proceedings ofthe roundtable meeting have been summarizedin a separate paper.1

In the Fall of 2001, a draft of “Beyond RCRA,”also referred to as the RCRA Vision Paper, wasmade available for public review and comment.Public meetings were held in Washington, DC andin San Francisco, California, and the public wasinvited to submit written comments. Overall, thosewho commented expressed support for the RCRAVision Paper and the value of examining thefuture shape of the program without being con-strained by current legislative and regulatoryapproaches. At the same time, some individualsmade specific suggestions for improvement to the paper or offered their views on the trends andfactors that will (or should) shape the RCRA pro-gram of the future.These comments have beenvaluable to the work group in shaping the finalversion of the Vision Paper and will continue to be important as dialogue on the future of the program continues.2

The primary focus of the RCRA Vision Paper isto suggest broad outlines for what the programof the future might look like, and the forces thatmight shape it unconstrained by the current legaland institutional structure. The work group is notadvocating or recommending any particular poli-cies or directions, nor is the paper intended to

advance any particular administrative or legisla-tive action.

The work group has not attempted to quan-tify how effective any of the measures discussedin the paper might be, nor to calculate theirpolitical feasibility—these are issues for futuredebate.

The scope of this paper is confined toexploring the future of waste and materials man-agement in the United States, although the workgroup believes that much of the paper’s sub-stance could be relevant to other nations withrelatively affluent, industrial economies. In fact, asnoted elsewhere in this paper, it is unrealistic inthis era of increasing globalization to considerthese issues in purely American terms. Manycountries have already made great strides inmoving forward with some of the ideas outlinedin the RCRA Vision Paper; the United States cancertainly learn from their experiences. The workgroup acknowledges, however, that the prob-lems associated with waste and inefficient use ofresources in the United States do not receive thesame level of attention in those parts of theworld where poverty and resource scarcitiesoften overwhelm such concerns.

1 Copies of the “RCRA Vision Roundtable Meeting Summary” can be obtained by contacting the RCRA Docket at

[email protected] or by calling (703) 603-9230; reference RCRA Vision No. F-2001-BRVP-FFFF.2 Copies of comments received on the draft RCRA Vision Paper are available from the RCRA Docket (see above).4


>> In developing a vision for the future ofRCRA (or whatever its successor program mightbe called), it was necessary to make certain pro-jections and assumptions as to the future “land-scape”—that is, the economic, technological, andsocietal setting—in which the program mightoperate in the year 2020. These projections andassumptions have been organized into six broadcategories: Resources, Health and Risk, Industry,Information, Globalization, and Society andGovernance. The work group recognizes thatthere is uncertainty about these trends andfuture directions and that the future will also beshaped by trends we did not recognize, break-throughs in science and other future events thatwe cannot predict, and other factors that are cur-rently unknown. However, we do not believe thisuncertainty, which is natural and unavoidable,should argue for inaction. Rather, since change iscertain, the United States must begin now toanticipate changes and prepare to respond tothem. In that context, we believe the RCRA pro-gram of the future will be influenced by the fol-lowing trends and directions:

Resources• Pressures on natural resources will continue

to increase. It is relatively safe to assume thatworldwide demand for basic resources (e.g.,fresh water, minerals, energy sources, fibers,agricultural land) will continue to increase overthe next 20 years, as the world’s populationincreases and the global economy continues to expand. It is also likely that a number of areasof the world that now have relatively low livingstandards will become more prosperous, whichwill tend to increase demand for goods andservices and the basic resources that are used to supply them. It is not assumed that there willbe wide-scale shortages of basic resources orcommodities in the year 2020. However, it isexpected that as worldwide demand forresources mounts, some specific resourcesmight become less abundant and/or more diffi-cult to exploit in the future, which could increasetheir economic value. Some of these variationsin supplies and costs of commodities/materialswill likely vary geographically. Increased costs ofcommodities would likely result in somechanges in consumptive behavior, but shouldalso create market pressures to develop substi-tute materials and/or products.

Trends andFuture Directions

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• New technologies will change howresources are used and wasted.Technological advancements will also affectthe availability of resources and the way weuse them. It is entirely possible, for instance,that a dramatic technological breakthroughcould alter—in a positive way—the currentbalance between resource supplies anddemands, and the efficiency with whichresources are used. For example, a revolution-ary new energy source could realize extraordi-nary environmental, economic, and socialbenefits by substantially reducing the use offossil fuels; however, it seems unwise, at thispoint, to assume that technological advanceswill somehow rescue us from having to worryabout resource scarcity in the future. It is morelikely that the effects of technological changeon economic and ecological sustainability overthe next few decades will be more mixed,though nevertheless profound.

The future could bring a variety of changes inresource use—not only in terms of howresources are extracted and used, but also interms of what materials are considered“waste.” For example, new technologies couldenable extractive industries (e.g., minerals,petroleum) to become more efficient, and thusless wasteful. This change is already beingseen in a number of manufacturing industries,with the prospect of important futureadvances in energy efficiency, efficient use ofmaterials, and materials substitution.Technology improvements may open newdoors to reuse, reclamation, and recycling of

materials that are now viewed as wastes, andcould increase the safety of disposal practicesfor wastes that remain. Life spans of someproducts will likely increase, which coulddecrease waste volumes. On the other hand,technological innovations could createdemands on different types of resources andcreate new types of wastes, or could producenew consumer products that are popular butresource-intensive. The sheer rate of techno-logical change could result in many productsthat quickly become obsolete, which couldalso increase waste generation rates.

• There will be a need for more sustainableuse of resources. Most people believe thatthe current trend is toward greater demandson, and consumption of, material resources inthis country and elsewhere. While the econom-ic value of some of these resources mightincrease, the more important (but often hid-den) price to be paid may well be an environ-mental one. Extracting, producing, and usingever-increasing volumes of materialresources—most of which are finite—willinevitably have important environmental con-sequences. Some recent studies have project-ed that the current global economy cannot besustained over the long term without severeenvironmental consequences. The challenge athand, therefore, is to create a system thatenables economic prosperity to co-exist with ahealthy global environment, by using less andmaking more efficient use of the materialresources that are consumed.


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Health and Risk• More chemicals will bring new risks. The

number and amount of human-made chemi-cals that are produced, used, and eventuallydisposed of has dramatically increased overthe past several decades. This trend is expect-ed to continue, and it is likely that by the year2020, advances in chemistry, biology, and otherfields will have created tens of thousands ofnew chemical compounds, many of which willbe derived from genetically engineered organ-isms. While many of these products may repre-sent important improvements, undoubtedly,some of these new substances may have thepotential to cause harm to human health andecological systems. Knowledge of risks posedby new chemicals will likely not keep pacewith their development.

• Health effects of chemicals will be betterunderstood. It is expected that scientificadvances over the next few decades will yielda much deeper understanding of how variouschemicals affect humans and other livingorganisms. It is likely that we will learn somechemicals are more harmful than we nowthink, while others may be found to be lessharmful than is now understood. We will alsolikely better understand the health effects ofchemicals among sub-populations, such aschildren and the elderly, people with geneti-cally predisposed chemical sensitivities, andpeople who have had chronic or multipleexposures to chemicals. In addition, muchmore should be understood about cumulative

and synergistic risks to people who areexposed to multiple chemicals over timebecause of where they live or work. As thisinformation becomes available, communitieswith particularly high risk burdens will expectgovernment and industry to take action toreduce those risks.

• Methods for measuring and managingchemical risks will improve. Techniques forestimating the fate and transport of chemicalsin the environment should advance greatly inthe next few decades, with correspondingadvances in technologies used to detect andanalyze (and perhaps characterize the risks of )chemicals in the environment. There will bebetter understanding of life-cycle risks of some,but not all, chemicals as they are produced,used/reused and disposed of, and it is likelythat more examples of potentially harmfulchemicals in common consumer goods andservices will be identified (recent exampleswould include lead in gasoline, and mercury inhome thermometers). As the public becomesmore aware of risks, it might demand morecomprehensive and pro-active measures fromindustry and government to mitigate them,including potential bans on some chemicals.

Industry• Industry will consume and waste different

types of materials. Over the next 20 to 30years, a wide range of new products and mate-rials will be produced by the U.S. economy that


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will have important effects on the profile ofmanufacturing residuals (e.g., wastes, by-prod-ucts) generated by industry. For instance, thereare already many examples of products andindustries in which potentially harmful chemi-cals have been phased out in favor of morebenign materials. This trend, which the workgroup expects will continue, will have manypositive environmental effects, includingwastes with lower hazard potential. On theother hand, production of some new chemi-cals and products may result in new, relativelyhigh-risk waste streams. As the industrial basecontinues to age, as some existing industriesevolve over time, and as new industriesemerge, the volumes and characteristics ofindustrial wastes can also be expected tochange, for better or for worse. The geographicdistribution of waste-generating facilities inthis country can also be expected to change inresponse to a number of different factors.

• Industry will be more efficient and lesswasteful. Given the assumption that the eco-nomic value of certain basic materials andresources may broadly increase over the nextfew decades (as discussed above), it seemssafe to assume that market forces will creategreater incentives to use such materials moreefficiently. This trend might be manifested inproducts that contain less expensive substi-tute materials, or that use less material per unitof production. More valuable materials willalso create new incentives to reuse or recyclemany products, as well as many wastes andby-products from various manufacturing

processes. Technologies for reuse and recy-cling of materials should also advance in manyareas, which could lower the rate at whichmany such materials are wasted.

As a general matter, therefore, the capabilitiesand incentives for U.S. industry to use materialresources more efficiently (i.e., less wastefully)will likely increase over time. Many materialsnow considered wastes will instead be used toproduce new materials and products. As thishappens, it is likely that current distinctionsbetween wastes and materials (which are inlarge part regulatory in nature) will become lessmeaningful.This change could warrant govern-ment policies that more effectively promotesafe management of wastes. Reducing unneces-sary regulatory constraints on more efficientuse of materials, might also be necessary.

• Wastes will still be with us. Wastes will not dis-appear by the year 2020.Though industrymight become more efficient (i.e. much lesswasteful) in producing goods and services, itseems logical to assume that some industrialresiduals will continue to have very low poten-tial for productive reuse or recycling and willthus need to be managed as wastes.The workgroup anticipates, therefore, a continuing needto ensure that wastes are managed safely undersome system of controls and/or incentives thatis at least analogous to today’s hazardous wasteregulatory framework.

Given that wastes (and the need to managethem safely) will exist in the future, the work


group anticipates that waste treatment and dis-posal technologies will evolve in importantways. Such future technologies could includethe use of chemical markers, sensing and moni-toring devices, and/or advanced telecommuni-cations systems to allow industry, government,and other interested people to more closelytrack generation, composition, movement, andultimate disposition of wastes.Waste treatmenttechnologies should also improve, as should theperformance of landfills and other disposaltechniques.The concept of disposal as we nowknow it (i.e., permanent entombment) mightalso change over time if, for example, new tech-nologies or economic forces emerge thatenable recovery of materials from previouslylandfilled wastes.

Information• The information revolution will continue.

Over the next few decades, we will almost cer-tainly continue to see dramatic increases in theamounts of information available to nearlyeveryone on the planet, and their ability toaccess and share it. At this point, it hardlyseems possible to overestimate the effects thatthis will have on virtually every aspect oftoday’s society and economy.

• Industry, individuals, and the environmentwill benefit from the information revolution.Advances in information and communicationstechnologies have already begun to transformthe way business is conducted in this country,and many of these advances should be environ-mentally beneficial with respect to waste and

materials management. For instance, more effi-cient information exchange should stimulatethe business of buying and trading recyclablematerials between companies and industry sec-tors, which could create much more sophisticat-ed markets for such materials, similar to thecommodity markets of today. More informationshould enhance the ability of consumers tomake more environmentally friendly choices forproducts and services. As a general matter, thework group believes that in the year 2020, fasterand more efficient information flows will resultin greater awareness and knowledge of envi-ronmental issues and concerns on the part ofindividuals, businesses, and other institutions.

Globalization• The global economy will be more highly inte-

grated. The trend toward an increasingly global-ized economic system is also likely to haveimportant effects on the future of waste andmaterials management. Freer movement ofmoney and materials could result, as many nowpredict, in a much more integrated world eco-nomic system, as well as higher levels of prosperi-ty and consumption in many countries. Increasedglobal demand for material goods and serviceswould create the need for more capacity in man-ufacturing and extractive industries, which arelikely to become more globally dispersed.Theenvironmental impacts of these industrial activi-ties worldwide also, presumably, would increase,though this could have both positive and nega-tive environmental consequences for the UnitedStates and other parts of the world.

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• Environmental protections will need to bemore internationalized. The worldwide envi-ronmental consequences of freer trade andinternational monetary policies have recentlybecome the focus of a highly visible publicdebate, particularly in the United States andEurope. This debate may go on for many years.In any case, this issue may be particularly rele-vant to environmental concerns regardingwaste and materials management, in partbecause potentially hazardous materials andwastes can be easily moved between thosecountries that have strict environmental pro-tections and those that do not. Therefore, ifnew approaches to waste and materials man-agement in the United States are to be suc-cessful, they will likely need to be harmonizedwith, if not integrated into, a more global sys-tem for instituting and maintaining environ-mental protections.

Society and Government• People will have more influence in environ-

mental decisions. Recent years have seenimportant changes in the relationshipsbetween individuals, industry, and governmentregarding waste management issues, particular-ly at the local level. Much of this has been driv-en by increased awareness and environmentalactivism on the part of individuals and grass-roots community groups; as people becomemore aware of chemical risks, they naturallydemand further protections. By the year 2020, itis expected that continued developments ininformation and telecommunications technolo-gies will have created much stronger links

between people and the government institu-tions that serve them. One result of this trendmay be that individuals will be empowered tomore directly and effectively influence govern-ment decisions on environmental issues thatare local, regional, or even global in nature.

One result of greater public involvement inenvironmental decisions would hopefully beto focus increased attention and resources onenvironmental problems that to date have notbeen adequately addressed by government orindustry. One example might be a concertedeffort to upgrade waste management prac-tices on Native American lands and at remotesettlements in Alaska, where the environmen-tal realities of waste disposal are still oftenharsh. Another example could be actions tofurther reduce exposure to harmful chemicalsin communities that bear disproportionaterisks from nearby sources of pollutants.

• The size and cultural diversity of the UnitedStates population will continue to increaseand will affect environmental decision-making. The environmental justice movementhas framed environmental protection, includingpatterns of impacts, as a civil rights issue. Othershave framed environmental health more broad-ly as a human rights issue.These efforts will like-ly continue, and the right to live in a relativelyclean environment will continue to gain curren-cy in this country as a basic civil right and ahuman right, through both laws and societalattitudes.This trend will likely influence the siting and operation of future manufacturingand waste management facilities.

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>> As originally conceived, RCRA wasdesigned primarily as a system of controls overthe management of wastes in this country, withtwo fundamental mandates: protect humanhealth and the environment, and conserveresources. To achieve these mandates, EPA andthe states (and to a lesser extent, tribes) wereprovided with two primary tools: broad authorityto regulate management of wastes, and broadauthority to enforce RCRA’s regulatory and statu-tory provisions. The statute, however, limited thescope of the regulatory program to certain typesof wastes and certain types of regulatory mecha-nisms (e.g., permits, land disposal restrictions).RCRA was also designed to fit within the existingframework of media-specific environmental laws(e.g., Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act). Thus,Congress by design limited the scope of the pro-gram and its goals, and provided EPA and thestates with a set of specific tools for implement-ing the program.

The work group believes that the originalbroad mandates of RCRA remain valid, and willbe valid in the year 2020. However, we now have

two decades of experience with federal, stateand tribal regulation of waste management inthis country, and the work group can see that the“landscape” of waste management will changedramatically over the next 20 years. It thereforemakes sense at this time to examine how wasteand materials management should evolve in thiscountry to meet future challenges and opportu-nities, while building on the elements of the cur-rent program that have been most successful. Indoing so, it is necessary to redefine the specificgoals that will guide such a future program, andexamine new tools and strategies to achievethose goals.

The following discussion describes threegoals that could form the foundation of a newsystem for waste and materials management inthe year 2020. For each goal, the work group alsosuggests some tools and strategies that might beeffective in making such a new system work.Ultimately, of course, decisions regarding thespecific shape and scope of a future system, andits legal underpinnings, will likely need to bemade through the legislative process.

Goals


Goal #1: Reduce waste andincrease the efficient andsustainable use ofresources.

As discussed previously, over the next fewdecades it is likely that the human population ofthe planet will continue to rise, as will the materi-al aspirations of large numbers of people in manyparts of the world. Many believe that the result-ing increased demand for resources cannot besustained3 without wide-scale degradation of theglobal environment, unless those resources areused with much greater efficiency than they aretoday. This goal is centered around two objectivesthat call for using resources more efficiently.

The first objective is to reduce the overallvolumes of all wastes that need to be disposedof in this country, regardless of source or compo-sition. This includes wastes currently captured bymunicipal solid waste programs and hazardouswaste programs, whether produced by individu-als or industry. Some would argue, in fact, that“zero waste” should be the goal. Even today,some companies and local governments haveadopted a zero waste goal, with impressiveresults. While zero waste is not realistic in a literalsense, the work group believes a future wastereduction program could achieve more than itwould otherwise by setting its aspirations high,and explicitly focusing on reducing waste asmuch as possible, even approaching zero.

The second objective is to reduce theamounts of materials used to make products orperform services. Increasing the useful life ofproducts would contribute to this objective,as would increasing rates of reuse/recycling ofmaterials and products. A key aspect of achiev-ing this objective would be production process-es that gear their design, use, and reusecapabilities to minimize raw material inputs,extend product life spans, and maximize the ease and frequency of subsequent product dis-assembly, recycling, and/or transformation forfurther productive use. Such continuous utiliza-tion processes (from “cradle-to-cradle”) are criti-cal both to reducing waste and increasing thesustainable use of resources. Important tech-niques are already emerging and being imple-mented in selected instances, such as designingfor the environment, life cycle planning/design/assessment, product-stewardship and producttake-back campaigns, and other industrial ecology initiatives.

Creating a system truly oriented towardsefficient use of resources could also require fun-damental changes in the waste versus non-wasteregulatory construct embedded in the currentRCRA system so that materials now consideredwastes would be seen, whenever possible, ascommodities with potential uses. One approachto making such a system work would be to iden-tify materials as “wastes” only when they areclearly destined for disposal; until then, all poten-tially hazardous materials would be subject tosimilar management controls/incentives basedon their risk potential rather than on designation

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3 The concept of sustainability addresses many issues, such as land use and species protection, which may only indirectly relate

to waste or materials management. This goal would address the issue of sustainability only as it relates to material resources

that potentially may be discarded as wastes.


as a waste—that is “materials management”rather than “waste management.” Reducing dis-tinctions between wastes and materials coulddramatically improve recycling and reuse ratesand, therefore, make great contributions towardsconservation of resources. A materials manage-ment system rather than a “wait until it has beendesignated as waste” management systemimplies a revamping of RCRA Subtitles C and D.However, any effort to diminish the distinctionsbetween what are now considered “wastes” (par-ticularly wastes now identified as hazardous) and“materials” must not ignore legitimate needs toprotect humans and the environment from risksposed by hazardous chemicals.

An important concern, for example, wouldbe ensuring that reused and recycled materialsand products are safe, and do not contain unac-ceptable amounts of potentially harmful sub-stances (“toxics along for the ride”). With respectto materials currently classified as wastes butdestined for reuse or recycling, this has been andremains one of the most difficult challenges ofthe current RCRA program; making it work moreeffectively in a future materials management sys-tem would likely require development of moresophisticated risk assessment techniques thanare currently available, and/or establishing con-taminant limits on a product-by-product, orindustry-by-industry, basis.

Tools and Strategies:• Economic tools may be most effective. In a

market economy, decisions involving which

resources are used, what they are used for, howefficiently they are used, and ultimately howthey become waste, are primarily driven byeconomic forces. Thus, the most effective toolsfor achieving this goal are likely to be thosethat use economic incentives to promote moreefficient resource use and thus minimize wastegeneration. Specific tools could include wastegeneration fees or surcharges on consumptionof certain resources, or credits or rebates toreward resource use efficiencies or purchase ofgoods and services that rely on recycled mate-rials. With many of these tools, revenues couldbe generated and invested in specific waysthat might help achieve this goal, such asdeveloping more efficient design techniques,better recycling technologies, and/or develop-ing markets for recycled products or materials.Achieving this goal might also include imple-menting measures to reduce current economicincentives and subsidies that encourage theuse of virgin raw materials; taking steps to cre-ate economic incentives for recycling andreuse; and using renewable resources.Government might also play a role throughgovernment purchasing programs thatincrease demand for goods, services, and prod-ucts that are produced sustainably.

• Informational and technical innovationsmay also be effective. Informational tools,such as investments in public education toenhance awareness of resource use/sustain-ability issues, could be an important part ofmeeting this goal. This trend could involvelabeling of consumer products (e.g., some typeof sustainability rating), media-based public

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service campaigns, Internet resources, andother approaches. In addition, developmentand investment in more resource-efficienttechnologies could be stimulated by govern-ment policies; these might be developedthrough NASA-style direct investments inhardware, or other targeted, government-funded research and development initiatives.

• New regulatory strategies might be needed.Many traditional environmental regulatorymechanisms (e.g., pollutant emission limits)would likely be less effective than other toolsin helping to meet this goal, since such con-trols would only marginally affect the econom-ics of resource use/reuse. Regulatorymechanisms that could more directly affectresource use/reuse would likely be necessary.Many of these mechanisms are already beingexplored as part of current pollution preven-tion programs. For example, one suchapproach might be a system of “extendedproduct responsibility,” under which properstewardship of products at the end of their lifecycles would be the responsibility of the man-ufacturers, retailers, local governments, and/orother appropriate entities, analogous to theproducer responsibility programs already inplace in several European countries. Other reg-ulatory approaches could include prohibitionson disposal or mandated recycling of certaintypes of post-consumer and/or industrialwastes. In addition, quasi-regulatory approach-es that might be effective could includegreater reliance on corporate environmentalmanagement systems (e.g., ISO 14001), third-

party certification systems, industry-specificstandard practices or methods, local govern-ment or community-based oversight, perform-ance standards, or other approaches.

Goal #2: Prevent exposuresto humans and ecosystemsfrom the use of hazardouschemicals.

Hazardous chemicals are and will continueto be features of our everyday lives. While someof these chemicals have resulted in significantbenefits for society, exposures to materials thatcontain hazardous chemicals can present risks topeople and the environment. These risks canoccur at any point in a chemical’s life cycle,regardless of whether it is considered a product,raw material, or waste. If distinctions betweenwastes and materials become less important inthe future (as suggested by Goal #1), the need tocontrol risks from hazardous chemicals andmaterials throughout their life cycles couldbecome a critical feature of the future program.A truly integrated waste/materials managementsystem would therefore need to appropriatelyaddress risks from chemicals as they are pro-duced, transported, and used in product manu-facture, as those products are used and reused,and if and when the products ultimately becomewastes with unwanted harmful properties. Thesystem would also need to address productionand manufacturing wastes and byproducts.

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Hazardous chemicals (such as dioxins) that donot have commercial uses, but that can be creat-ed as an unintended byproduct of other manu-facturing or production processes (or wastetreatment processes), also must be addressed. Asdiscussed below, a regulatory program similar tothe current RCRA Subtitle C system would almostcertainly be unworkable for the purpose of thetype of integrated waste/materials managementsystem that would be necessary to address allthese elements in a seamless way.

At the present time, managing risks frompotentially harmful chemicals in the UnitedStates is accomplished through a patchwork offederal, state and local regulatory controls, volun-tary industry standards, liability incentives, publiceducation efforts, and emergency response serv-ices. In many respects, this current system worksreasonably well. There are, however, inherentgaps and inconsistencies regarding which chemi-cals and which types of exposures are addressed,under what circumstances, and what types of riskmitigation measures are employed. We believethat a more coherent and consistent system foridentifying, reducing, and controlling chemicalrisks could benefit human and environmentalhealth, and could be advantageous to industry inmany ways as well.

An integrated waste/materials managementsystem would need to address both wastes andmaterials, and products that are potentially haz-ardous but clearly are not wastes. Currently,potentially hazardous materials and productsthat are not wastes are subject to regulation

under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).An integrated waste/materials management sys-tem, therefore, could require integrating the func-tions of what are now two separate and distinctCongressionally mandated programs. A new,broader system of incentives, controls, and func-tions would likely need to assume a new legaland programmatic identity, rather than beinggrafted onto either RCRA or TSCA. Such consoli-dation (which might not necessarily be limited toRCRA and TSCA) could also have the advantage ofgreater consistency and administrative efficiencyfor both industry and government.

Tools and Strategies:• More information could be a powerful tool.

Informational tools (perhaps combined withother tools) might be the most effective wayto reduce risks from chemicals in consumerproducts and other commonly used materials.More information on potential risks couldinfluence the consumptive choices and behav-iors of individuals, which could create powerfulmarket incentives to make lower-risk products,in much the same way that nutritional labelson food packaging have greatly enhanced ourability to make informed dietary choices.Better tracking and communication of materiallife cycles could allow governments and con-sumers to more easily examine the long-termimplications of their choices and account fortrue life-cycle costs.

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• Utilize the potential of economic incentivesand technical innovations. Economic incen-tives and/or disincentives might be effective infurthering this goal, by, for example, making itmore costly for manufacturers to use certainhigh-risk chemicals, or encouraging develop-ment and use of less harmful materials.Liability schemes are another type of tool thatcould provide strong incentives for industry tomanage chemicals safely, as could certaintypes of insurance instruments. Risks from theuse of hazardous chemicals could also be miti-gated by technological advances, such asthrough development of less hazardous sub-stitute chemicals or improved chemical han-dling techniques and equipment, or the use ofalternative, renewable resources. Public/privatepartnerships that focus on product design andtechnology development and transfer couldcontribute to this evolution.

• Some regulatory controls would be needed.Some traditional environmental regulatorycontrols would almost certainly be necessaryto ensure safe products and safe handling ofhazardous chemicals by industry. Such con-trols might address siting of facilities, trans-portation and storage of hazardous materials,limits on hazardous chemical content of cer-tain products, or outright bans on very high-risk chemicals. The work group believes,however, that any such system of regulatorycontrols would need to be less complex andmore performance-based than the currenthazardous waste regulatory system.

Goal #3: Manage wastesand clean up chemicalreleases in a safe, environ-mentally sound manner

As discussed under Goals 1 and 2, a fullyrealized transition from a RCRA-style waste man-agement program to a broader waste/materialsmanagement system has the potential for sub-stantially reducing the volumes and toxicity ofwastes generated by the nation’s businesses andhouseholds. Even so, as discussed previously, it isalmost certain that two to three decades fromnow some wastes will still be with us. Ideally, ofcourse, all wastes would be used and reused in acontinuous cycle, in much the same way naturalecological systems work. Unfortunately, U.S.industry and consumers are not yet as efficientas nature at materials use and are unlikely tobecome so fully within the next few decades.Although the types, volumes, and composition ofwastes will change over the next few decades,we must assume a continued need for waste dis-posal capacity, as well as some type of wastemanagement system that ensures adequate pro-tections for human and ecological health.

In fashioning an effective waste manage-ment program as part of a broader waste pre-vention and materials management system, oneof the important issues that would need to beaddressed is how and at what point in a materi-al’s life cycle would the material be considered awaste. As discussed previously, one approach

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could be to classify a material as a waste at thepoint where it is clearly destined for disposal,such as when it is shipped to a facility to be land-filled. Because, under an integrated materialsmanagement system, all hazardous materialswould be subject to essentially the same con-trols/incentives, the concept of waste manage-ment would be reduced (from the current RCRAprogram) to controls over the transportation,landfill design, operation and monitoring, andany required treatment of wastes prior to dispos-al in landfills.

Under an integrated waste/materials man-agement system, the current “cradle-to-grave”approach to waste management would be sup-planted by programs under which materials thatare now considered wastes would instead bepresumed to be valuable materials, unless anduntil their useful life is expended (however thatmay be determined), resulting in a “retirement-to-grave” rather than “cradle-to-grave”system. Themain features of a future waste managementprogram, particularly for high-risk wastes, wouldlikely evolve from the more successful elementsof the current RCRA program.

A major emphasis of the current RCRA pro-gram involves protection of ground water andother environmental media from contamination,by both prevention measures (e.g., unit designstandards and monitoring requirements) andcleanup of past releases. Preventing futurereleases would obviously remain a key objectiveof a future waste management program. By theyear 2020, cleanup of existing contamination

problems at RCRA-regulated facilities will hope-fully largely be complete, though some long-term remediation work may still be ongoing, andsome mechanism for addressing releases thatmay occur in the future will presumably be need-ed. Opportunities may also remain to furtherrevitalize idled or under used properties, current-ly called brownfields, and therefore to increaseconservation of open spaces and greenfields.This cleanup function of the current RCRA pro-gram could be retained in a future waste man-agement system, or could become theresponsibility of one or more other federal orstate cleanup programs.

Tools and Strategies:• Some regulatory controls would likely be

necessary. Under an integrated waste/materi-als management system, the materials thatwould be considered wastes would primarilybe those that are lowest in value and leastamenable to reuse/recycling. Because these“wastes” would have negative value to thosewho generate them, there would be a clearincentive to dispose of them as inexpensivelyas possible. This at least implies the need for asystem of government-administered controlsto ensure protective management, disposal,and long-term care, particularly for thosewastes which have the highest relative riskpotential. As stated previously, a future regula-tory system should be able to effectively protect public health and prevent mismanage-ment of wastes, while being less complex and


more performance-based than the currentRCRA Subtitle C system.

Regulatory controls will also likely continue tobe necessary to ensure cleanup. Even if in 20years remedies are in place at most contami-nated sites, it is unlikely that these remedieswill have resulted in complete destruction orremoval of all contamination. Even now, manyof the remedies put in place during cleanupsrely at least in part on forms of containment toreduce opportunities for exposure to contami-nants. Provisions will be needed to ensure con-tinued protection from residual contaminationthrough operation and maintenance of reme-dial systems and institutional controls.Contingencies will be needed to ensure dis-covery and cleanup of releases of hazardousmaterials that may occur in the future—including the inevitable releases that willoccur from present-day landfills and otherwaste management facilities, especially whenopportunities exist to redevelop propertiesthrough cleanup.

• Other tools could lessen the need for regu-lation. Economic incentives such as sur-charges on waste generation or disposalmight be used to encourage waste minimiza-tion, and resulting revenues could be used todevelop waste treatment and recycling tech-nologies. Other fiscal policies, such as tax cred-its for companies that reduce wastegeneration, incentives to cleanup and redevel-op idled or under used contaminated proper-ties, or a requirement that companies maintain

certain types of insurance, could also be effec-tive incentives.

Information tools could also work. For exam-ple, public disclosure (e.g., on the Internet) offacilities’ waste generation and managementpractices could create pressure on companiesto manage wastes safely. Advanced informa-tion and communications tools could alsoenhance government oversight capabilitiesover waste management activities.

It is also entirely possible that future technolo-gies could make waste treatment much moreeffective and/or less expensive than today. Inthe next 20 years, we will also presumablyhave much more information on the long-term performance of landfill containment sys-tems, which could lead to significantimprovements in waste disposal techniques.

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>> It is certain that in 2020 waste and mate-rials management will have changed consider-ably from today, no doubt in many ways that areimpossible to anticipate at this time. The workgroup believes that the current system for wastemanagement in the United States, and perhapsother environmental regulatory programs thatwere developed in the 1970s, will also need tochange in important ways if we are to meet theenvironmental challenges of the comingdecades.

The work group acknowledges the likeli-hood that some of the trends and directionsarticulated in this paper will ultimately be provedwrong, and that the future of waste and materi-als management two decades from now will beinfluenced by many forces that the work grouphas not anticipated. This uncertainty is expectedand does not argue for inaction. The UnitedStates must begin to move towards the futurenow—and the work group believes that the fun-damental goals of a future waste and materialsmanagement system, as described in the preced-ing section of this paper, will likely remain valid20 years from now, despite uncertainties.

The work group believes that sustainabilityis a critical environmental, economic, and qualityof life issue that this country and others will needto confront over the next decades. Since theUnited States is by far the world’s largest con-sumer of goods and services, it has the responsi-bility to act with serious purpose to useresources more efficiently and work toward amore sustainable national and global economy.The work group believes that developing newapproaches for conserving resources, reducingthe amount of toxic materials in society and thetoxicity of materials that remain, and managingwastes properly can and should be an importantpart of responding to this challenge of making amore sustainable world. Promoting resource con-servation along with economic growth will needthe full range of innovative tools we can collec-tively devise.

Many of the ideas presented in this papersuggest the need to create a more comprehen-sive system for waste and materials manage-ment, in ways that go well beyond the scope ofthe current RCRA program. For example, control-ling risks of chemicals throughout their life cycles

Conclusions


(e.g., before and after they become wastes)under a single, unified system would obviouslybe a major departure from how the RCRA andTSCA programs currently operate. It might alsorequire integrating other programs and authori-ties, including some that are not currentlyadministered by EPA. The work group recognizesthat creating such a comprehensive or “holistic”system for wastes and materials would be a com-plex undertaking. The work group is certain,though, that these are ideas well worth explor-ing. It might be that this effort could eventuallybecome part of an even larger effort to create asingle, unified program for all environmentalmedia that the federal government, states, andtribes now implement under various statutes.

Those who commented on the draft RCRAVision Paper generally supported the goal ofreducing the amount of waste generated andchanging the ways in which society identifiesmaterials as wastes; however, comments weremixed over the idea of an integratedwaste/materials management system. Somecommentary expressed strong concern over thepaper’s examination of such a system. Thesecomments tended to advocate for reform of par-ticular elements of the current RCRA programand the ways in which it identifies and regulates“wastes” destined for reclamation, recycling, orother reuse, rather than consideration of a newsystem, arguing that these reforms alone wouldaccomplish increased rates of recycling andreuse and that “materials management” was notappropriate or needed under RCRA. In contrast,some of those who provided comments asserted

that the paper does not adequately emphasizethe issues and benefits associated with materialsmanagement approaches. These commentstended to emphasize the need for initiatives toreduce the amounts of raw materials (especiallytoxic chemicals) used to produce goods andservices, and increase consumer knowledgeabout manufacturing processes and productcomposition to inform consumptive choices.Some also discussed the need for life-cycleanalysis, the benefits of increased productresponsibility through product stewardship andrelated initiatives, and other non-waste-orientedtechniques that might be used to encouragemore sustainable behaviors.

The work group recognizes that these arecontroversial issues. However, the work groupalso recognizes that potentially harmful chemi-cals can enter the environment throughout thematerials life cycle: from the extraction of rawmaterials, to the production of goods, to the useof those goods, to the management of the result-ing waste. At this point in time, waste disposalprobably represents only a small part of thesource of exposure to harmful chemicals. If wewant to reduce the volume of materials used increating a sustainable lifestyle and reduce theamount of toxic chemicals in the environment,the work group believes that society needs tofocus on materials management, as well as prop-er waste disposal. How to create the proper setof economic incentives, share accurate informa-tion to inform choices, control and restrictimproper practices, and measure the environ-mental benefits of such a system will be the

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major challenges facing those who are interestedin pursuing the goals outlined in this paper.

The work group encourages readers to jointhe dialogue surrounding the primary questionthis paper has explored: how can appropriatepolicies regarding resource conservation, materi-als management, and the proper disposal ofwastes (which will hopefully be smaller in vol-ume and less potentially harmful) emerge tomeet the challenges of the next quarter century?

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Beyond RCRA: Prospects for Waste and Materials Management ... · important insights into future technological, societal, environmental, and economic trends, and how they might affect

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