Changing terminology

Kristin Smith

In late June, I had the pleasure of participating in the 2015 Partners Conference, in Dayton, Ohio, hosted by the Association of Ohio Recyclers; the Ohio Buckeye Chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America; and the Ohio Association of Litter Prevention & Recycling Professionals. The theme of the conference was Best Practices in Sustainable Materials Management, and speakers had no lack of information to share on the subject.

Bob Gedert, director of the Austin (Texas) Resource Recovery Department served as a keynote speaker for the Partners Conference. He talked about Austin’s Resource Recovery Master Plan, which he helped author, and its goal of achieving zero waste by 2040. The city adopted a zero-waste strategic plan in 2009 and Gedert has been tasked with helping Austin get there.

“It is a goal that I consider achievable,” he said. Gedert also talked about the role of his department as one that has evolved from a trash pickup service in its early years to an integrated waste management service that offered composting and recycling, to now what is considered a materials management service.

“They are not calling it solid waste management, they are calling it materials management,” Gedert said.

Sustainable materials management or SMM is a term that has gained much traction in recent months. It is the new buzzword for sustainability, recycling and energy recovery programs, and along with its close relatives zero waste and the circular economy, it is a term that isn’t going to go away. Even the highest public authority on the subject of solid waste is changing its terminology.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its annual data on solid waste generation and disposal in June 2015 it was no longer called Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures.” The report they released this year, which includes figures for 2013, is titled “Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2013 Fact Sheet.”

The EPA says the new name emphasizes the importance of SMM and reflects continuing efforts to “expand, improve and enhance the report with new information on historical landfill tipping fees for municipal solid waste (MSW) and construction and demolition (C&D) debris generation.”

The EPA is setting an example, and just as the city of Austin morphed the role of its solid waste management to materials management, other cities, waste and recycling firms, and businesses are doing the same. SMM opens up the door to opportunities for energy recovery from many of these discarded materials.