Transcript What We Know About Waste

The Energy & Climate
Benefits of the 3 R’s
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Sara Hartwell
U.S. EPA
Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery
October 6, 2009
All materials and products have
climate and energy impacts at
every stage of the lifecycle
 Raw
Material Extraction
 Processing
 Manufacturing
 Product Use
 Management at End-of-Life
Material Life Cycle
http://epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/SWMGHGreport.html
How do we minimize the climate
and energy impacts of the
materials and products that we
use?
 Choose
Materials Wisely
 Use Less
 Reuse Products
 Manage Materials at end-of-life
 Use Recycled Content
(reduce)
(reuse)
(recycle)
Reuse is one way to Reduce
I
need a pallet for 3 one-way trips
 I can make 3 pallets ….or
I can Reuse the same pallet 3 times
 I have Reduced the number of pallets that
are made by 2/3
One More Important Thing
 When
you are making decisions based on
life-cycle analysis (LCA) – be sure to
consider the ENTIRE life-cycle

For example, if reusable packaging is used to
transport case-ready meat, the energy (and
climate!) implications of heating the water to
clean the crates between shipments may
outweigh the benefits of reuse.
Energy Benefits of the 3 R’s
 Energy
demand is reduced through source
reduction & recycling


Replacement of discarded materials requires
energy to extract, transport, and process raw
virgin materials.
Manufacturing products from recycled
materials typically requires less energy than
manufacturing from virgin materials.
Energy Benefits of the 3 R’s
 For
most materials, the manufacturing
process energy for recycled materials
uses a fraction of the energy used to
produce virgin materials. For example:


producing aluminum with recycled cans
requires 92% less energy than using virgin
aluminum;
recycling newspaper requires 45% less
energy for production than using virgin fibers.
What’s the impact of recycling on
energy conservation?
 In
2007, the U.S. recycled 33 % (85 million
tons) of MSW1

Energy benefit of 1.3 quadrillion BTUs
• Residential site energy consumption is stable at
about 10 quadrillion BTUs/year2
• Recycling emissions benefits = 1.3 quadrillion
BTUs 3
1 http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/msw99.htm
2http://www.eia.doe.gov/
3http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/msw99.htm
Use less energy – produce
fewer GHGs
 Process
energy GHGs comprise the
majority of upstream emissions for the
manufacture of both virgin and recycled
materials – on average, approximately 80
percent*
*for materials considered in EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM)
Use less energy – produce
fewer GHGs
 The
transportation energy associated with
manufacturing accounts for a small share
of upstream emissions – on average less
than 20%*
*for materials considered in EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM)
More Climate Benefits of the 3 R’s
 Production
of some raw materials
produces GHGs not associated with
process energy (aluminum is a good
example)
 Recycling
those materials avoids emission
of those non-process energy GHGs, too.
More Climate Benefits of the 3 R’s
 Forest
carbon sequestration increases
when wood products are source reduced
& recycled

trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere
through photosynthesis, converting CO2 in
the atmosphere to carbon in their biomass.
 Carbon
storage increases when organics
are composted and added to soil
More Climate Benefits of the 3 R’s
 Source


Reduction and Recycling Avoids:
CH4 emissions from landfills
CO2 emissions from waste combustion
What’s the impact of recycling on
GHG emissions?
 In
2007, the U.S. recycled 33 % (85 million
tons) of MSW1

Avoided emissions of 193 million MTCO2e
• Equivalent to the annual GHG emissions of 35
million passenger vehicles (about 14 percent of
passenger vehicles registered in the U.S.)
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/msw99.htm