Teru Talk Newsletter

Volume III, Issue 49, December 9, 2013 

Teru Talk by Michael Theroux (pronounced "Terú")  

Just what is this thing we call "waste" anyway? The concept seems simple enough: waste is stuff you don't need, left-overs, clutter that you throw away. Ah, if only it was that simple. A wise old Botanist once told me that a "Weed was a Plant out of Place." Perhaps we can extend this, to say that a Waste is a Resource out of Place.

EPA says solid waste is "any garbage or refuse, sludge from a wastewater treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility and other discarded material, including solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations, and from community activities." EPA concludes with a Teru-ism: "Nearly everything we do leaves behind some kind of waste."

There are just so many onerous rules, regs, and policies layered on Waste Management, perhaps rightfully so, but good grief: there has to be an end-point. If you throw it away or otherwise discard it, then it is a Waste. I'd contend that we have to figure out where that unwanted stuff, that resource, actually has an appropriate place before it becomes a waste. Otherwise, the challenge becomes removing the Waste label once it is assigned.

If you use your own tail-end cuts from making furniture to fuel a furnace for space heating, those leftover chunks of wood never become a waste because you recycled them instead of tossing them. If your market is paying to have a ton or two of "food waste" carted off to the landfill each day, it can put in a digester and make biogas and fertilizer, and then "food waste" is not a waste at all. It's a resource.

Now, if your Trash is destined to be my Treasure, it makes sense that there should be some rate of exchange. We can tell the agencies that we are accepting the responsibility of Waste-to-Resource conversion by paying for it. If only a buck a ton, but something is warranted to herald the transfer of ownership. A Bill of Sale says, "OK, I agree: safely and cleanly managing this almost-a-waste as a Resource is now my responsibility."

Lemme make this clear; it shouldn't matter what kind of material it was. If you intend to use it as a resource you must accept the duty of safety and cleanliness. If you fail, the stuff does becomes a Waste, with all the attendant rules and regs. Recycling's aim is to get waste-sourced materials ready again for the marketplace, but recycling cuts both ways: it is all too easy to go from waste-sourced materials to resource and back to waste. Truth is, we make waste when we recycle, too: it's all just part of the real Circular Economy.