Okay, so I’m moving as quick as I can this morning to get myself packed-up. All that stuff picked-up because it seemed so important – brochures, fridge magnets, beer can cozies, EPA reports – they are all getting mixed with the dirty clothes and the trinkets picked-up for the family. I’m trying get to the Convention Center early. The Advanced Research Foundation Committee is meeting early. While everyone else is sleeping off the big SWANA social the night before, I’m out the door, bags packed. I get to the Convention Center with moments to spare.

ARF is divided into four research groups: Waste Reduction/Recycling, Collection, WTE, and Disposal.

The meeting is chaired by Jeremy O’Brian, a consultant working for SWANA. Anyway, it’s just me, Mr. O’Brian and the Solid Waste Program Manager from North Vancouver and past SWANA president are joined by Leonard Neith, the Recycling Coordinator from Abeline Texas. Later, we’re joined by Andrew Quigley, the new SWANA President. I just sit in and listen. These folks are about doing research on various solid waste issues. Recent ARF papers have been on Bioreactors, single stream recycling, heavy metals control at landfills, and composting of MSW substreams.

At this meeting they were discussing proposals for future research including: the state of MFD recycling and food waste composting.

There were two sets of technical sessions today. The first one I attended was on Municipal Success Stories Computer Recycling. The first speaker was Jerry Hendricks, Public Information Officer with the City of Austin.

His presentation was on the Austin Computer Recycling Project. This was a one year pilot collaboration between the City of Austin, Dell Computer, and Goodwill Industries in Austin. During his presentation, Mr. Hendricks enumerated all of the following objectives of the program:

• Improve the volume of computers recycled
• Provide additional methods of collection – including c’side
• Conduct surveys to collect information to better market services
• Continue to educate the public to increase awareness
• Design scaleable program that can be replicated
• Share responsibility between stakeholders
• Increase donations to Goodwill

Marketing Survey Results:
• How did you hear of Project? - 38% increase in the one year of the pilot program.
• 49% heard about the program on the TV
• Top three reasons why residents didn’t dispose of their computers?
1. Environmental
2. Privacy of data
3. People didn’t know how
• 64% of residents wanted to recycle.
• Permanent drop-off and c’side collection were the two most preferred means of disposal by residents.
• Where did residents go for information?
• Internet was the most preferred source
• Computer manufacturers was the second most preferred.
• People would rather donate than throw away.

Since launch of program Goodwill in Austin is experiencing a 30% increase in donations

The second speaker in this session was Paul Alva who presented on E-Waste Recycling in Los Angeles County

LA collects e-waste as part of their HHW drop-off program. HHW Collection events average 3,000 residents. 66,000 residents used the LA County HHW Program last year
Their data shows that people are not willing to drive longer than 5 miles to drop-off their HHW.

Before combining the two programs, LA held several e-waste round-ups. In combining the two programs, LA realized a savings of $9,400 per event.

LA County perceived three problems:
1. DTSC ban from the landfills
2. Insufficient markets
3. Placed burden on local governments

In 2001, E-waste was merged w/ HHW. LA saw three benefits to this strategy:
• Residents are already familiar with the HHW program
• Weekend collection every week
• Combining HHW and e-waste would reduce administrative costs

LA County wished to be a leader in this area. However, before the program was started, they were concerned with volume, types of e-waste and cost. LA decided to conduct a 9 month pilot. The results of 9 month pilot showed that there was sufficient demand without being overwhelming and that the Costs were moderate adding $10/car to the HHW Program.

1.9 million pounds of e-waste were collected last year. LA is projecting to collect three million pounds next year.

Future plans for the program include:
Secure funding from landfills.
Work to provide a national e-waste policy – stakeholders cannot agree on uniform policy

For more information: www.888cleanla.com

Generally, the crowed was skeptical of these two presenters. No one I talked to was convinced of Dell Computer’s commitment to recycling. In addition, a lot of people in attendance, including myself, didn’t think that directing e-waste to an HHW Program exclusively make a great deal of sense.

WASTECON seems like a meeting of tribes. There was the meat and potatoes tribe, talking about landfill management, waste-to-energy, bioreactors and alike. At the same time, there were other tribes presenting good stuff on composting and single stream versus source separation. Is e-waste much a do about nothing? A lot of people think so. A lot of people have a vested interest in it being a real problem (or at least a legitimate resource worthy of recycling). There’s a lot you could say about SWANA being mostly about meat and potatoes. But, Biocycle and USCC hosted sessions. There was a lot of talk about Extended Producer Responsibility. These people even made room for libertarian speakers – people who want to shrink government down to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. From my standpoint, SWANA gets a lot of credit for diversity of opinion at this year’s WASTECON.

There’s more to say about WASTECON. There was really interesting discussion regarding how a City’s waste stream changes as the City changes. I’ll mention a little about that tomorrow. Right now, this plane I’m on is flying through tubulance over Utah and I’m getting butterflies as I type. My battery is dying and the woman sitting next to me is on her third gin and tonic and getting louder by the sip. Tom Waits is on iTunes and I’m looking for the motrin.