It was with astonishment and dismay that I read the Feb. 1 St. Paul Journal interview with Town of St. Paul CAO Ron Boisvert as he described the administration’s decision to no longer accept glass, plastic and tin at the recycling station as of April 1, 2011. In light of the 21st century global discourse about our precarious relationship with the earth, this response is disturbing on many levels.
First is the message. What does this decision say about our local government’s understanding of sustainability and its commitment to supporting citizen self-responsibility for best-practice management of our own post consumer waste? How does it speak to citizens about the way we solve environmental challenges? And what kind of leadership does this hold out to our children as they struggle with questions about the world they will inherit and try to assimilate their teachings about recycle, reduce and reuse as part of their contribution to the solution?
Second is the single bottom line thinking. When administrators rely only on single bottom line thinking, their focus narrows to profitability alone as the measure of socio-economic viability. What we have therefore been reduced to on this issue is whether or not we have an immediate market to sell plastic, tin and glass. The most progressive governments and businesses in the world today have abandoned that singular lens for the more favourable Triple Bottom Line approach which embraces the economic, environmental and social aspects of business activity. In 2007, the United Nations and ICLEI (an association of 1200 municipalities from 70 countries focused on sustainability) ratified the triple bottom line as their criteria for measuring organizational and societal success. What does this decision say about our criteria?
Third is political process. The exclusivity of the “in camera” approach that decided on this issue is fundamentally flawed and has produced a regressive solution to the recycling problem by doing what is familiar (returning waste to the landfill) rather than what’s possible (opening dialogue around sustainable waste management practices). The Feb. 1 interview describes a “lack of markets” as the primary rationale for returning more than 8 tons of glass and 4 tons of plastic back into St. Paul landfills every year. I find it incredulous that while the operations were supervised by SPAN, there was no reported issue in finding available markets for all of these products, yet the private waste management firm that now handles the program is unable to do so.
An issue such as this requires time and sober reflection to chart a course that is feasible not only in the short run, but long after the current administration is gone. Just a brief thirty minute search of the internet revealed things to me that I had not previously been aware of – the commodity market for recyclables, plastics being converted to diesel fuel, and a 2006 study by SNC-Lavalin in Nova Scotia that pointed out a number of emerging markets for glass that included sand-blasting applications, septic wastewater filtration, road beg aggregate, winter sand mix for roads and landscaping. Imagine what kind of business case and resource pool a summer student dedicated to this could achieve in helping us move forward with a top shelf recycling plan.
Clearly, when the political and public will is brought to bear, there are many more possibilities available to us than simply throwing recyclable waste away. We need to continue pursuing our local leadership to invite those discussions and to bring those with local experience back into the dialogue. We need to continue pursuing our local leadership to invite those discussions and to bring those with local experience back into the dialogue. We may need to revisit the triple bottom line costs and the decisions made to turn our recycling project over t6o private outside interests rather than building more jobs and recycling capacity inside the community. Doing the rough math, the $70,000 a year that SPAN was asking from the town amounts to less than $40 per household per year. Not bad for a full service system. If county residents can be brought into the mix or the enterprise can be expanded to take in product from other communities, the costs can be spread even further.
Examining the costs we are paying now for the service and determining how that same amount of money can be used more effectively is another option. What about the value added aspects of moving beyond collection toward increased processing of the materials? What about things like “pay as you throw” programs that might promote greater citizen accountability in waste management and amplify the commitment to recycling? What about branching out to commercial, school and industrial programs for additional untapped potential? I expect that many more possibilities can be found once people apply their minds to this problem in an inclusive way.
To simply bury our problem like an ostrich with its head in the sand does not make the problem go away. As citizens it is important that we demand a greater level of accountability from our leaders and ourselves in designing a sustainable future that makes sense to our grandchildren. Increased public input not only offers the opportunity to expand the conversation toward alternative solutions but also creates the opportunity to expand the conversation toward alternative solutions but also creates the opportunity for council and the citizens of St. Paul to determine what contributions they are willing to make toward maintaining or even becoming a center of excellence around recycling for the region.
Scott MacDougall
St. Paul
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