ABSTRACT

Recently, local governments experienced unprecedented challenges to their recycling programs and are looking to alternative forms to meet their sustainability goals. Traditionally, waste management policies focus on using a mass-based recycling rate to promote and measure sustainability, however that metric inadvertently promotes recycling over source reduction. Here, we present a metric which measures a community’s greenhouse gas (GHG) and energy use footprints for their consumed and end-of-life material streams. Using materials and waste statistics for Florida as an example, we estimated the consumed and discarded masses of 24 materials in 2018. We developed methods and used existing (i.e., WARM, literature) lifecycle assessment data to measure upstream and end-of-life environmental footprints of these materials. The total upstream footprints were approximately 12 and 10 times larger than the end-of-life GHG emissions and energy use footprints, respectively, indicating the need for sustainable materials management application. Mixed paper, cardboard, mixed construction and demolition (C&D) materials had the largest lifecycle footprints. We then use these data to illustrate a method for local governments to apply the alternative metric referred to as the lifecycle footprint reduction target. We demonstrate this target’s application in Florida using a hypothetical 20% footprint reduction and provide approaches which focus on increasing the source reduction and recycling potentials of key materials to meet the target. The approaches included a junk mail ban, food donation mandate, cardboard takeback mandate, and building deconstruction mandate and were evaluated for their feasibility in meeting the target; the building deconstruction and the food donation mandate resulted in the greatest and least progress, respectively, toward meeting the target. These approaches provide local government a baseline for continued progress toward SMM application.

Implications: Consumer consumption of manufactured products – the packaging for our food and beverages, the products in our homes and offices, the vehicles we drive, and the buildings we live and work in – ultimately must be discarded at the end of their useful life. It is through the management of residential and commercial solid waste that local governments face the consequences of society’s materials consumption. Thus, not surprisingly, materials conservation efforts at the government level focus primarily on efforts to recycle waste and divert these materials from landfill disposal. Here we examine a concept whereby local governments – normally charged with collecting and managing residential and commercial waste, and thus setting waste recycling targets – expand their thinking to include all life cycle phases for the materials consumed and discarded in their jurisdiction. In doing so, local governments can now shift from a waste management to a lifecycle-oriented perspective and expand beyond just managing waste to managing materials.

摘要

最近，地方政府的回收计划遇到了前所未有的挑战，并正在寻找替代形式来实现其可持续发展目标。传统上，废物管理政策侧重于使用基于质量的回收率来促进和衡量可持续性，但该指标无意中促进了回收而不是源头减少。在这里，我们提出了一个衡量社区温室气体 (GHG) 和能源使用足迹的指标，用于衡量其消耗和报废的材料流。以佛罗里达州的材料和废物统计数据为例，我们估算了 2018 年 24 种材料的消耗和丢弃质量。我们开发了方法并使用现有（即 WARM，文献）生命周期评估数据来衡量上游和生命周期结束的环境这些材料的足迹。上游总足迹分别是生命周期结束温室气体排放和能源使用足迹的 12 倍和 10 倍，表明需要可持续材料管理应用。混合纸、纸板、混合建筑和拆除 (C&D) 材料的生命周期足迹最大。然后，我们使用这些数据来说明地方政府应用称为生命周期足迹减少目标的替代指标的方法。我们使用假设的 20% 的足迹减少来证明该目标在佛罗里达州的应用，并提供了专注于增加关键材料的源头减少和回收潜力以实现目标的方法。这些方法包括垃圾邮件禁令、食品捐赠授权、纸板回收授权、和建筑解构任务，并对其实现目标的可行性进行了评估；建筑拆除和食品捐赠任务分别导致实现目标的最大进展和最小进展。这些方法为地方政府在 SMM 应用方面的持续进展提供了基准。

影响：消费者对制成品的消费——我们食品和饮料的包装、我们家和办公室的产品、我们驾驶的车辆以及我们生活和工作的建筑物——最终必须在其使用寿命结束时被丢弃。地方政府正是通过对住宅和商业固体废物的管理来应对社会物质消耗的后果。因此，毫不奇怪，政府层面的材料保护工作主要侧重于回收废物并将这些材料从垃圾填埋场处置中转移。在这里，我们研究了一个概念，即地方政府——通常负责收集和管理住宅和商业垃圾，从而设定废物回收目标——扩大他们的思维，将其管辖范围内消耗和丢弃的材料的所有生命周期阶段都包括在内。通过这样做，地方政府现在可以从废物管理转变为面向生命周期的观点，并从仅仅管理废物扩展到管理材料。