On July 28, 1988 Pennsylvania, faced with the prospect of running out of municipal waste disposal capacity, adopted and Gov. Robert Casey signed into law what was then one of the most sweeping waste planning and recycling laws in the country—Act 101 the Municipal Waste Planning, Recycling and Waste Reduction Act.

Senate Bill 528, sponsored by Senators Mike Fisher (R-Allegheny) and Ray Musto (D-Luzerne), included the largest mandate in the country for curbside, community-based recycling programs for communities of 5,000 or more.

Now more than 9 million Pennsylvanians in 1,364 communities (more than half voluntarily) are recycling.

Grants to municipalities paid for 90 percent of the cost of setting up local programs which had to recycle at least three of seven materials outlined in the law and separate leaf and yard waste from other trash for handling.

Since 1988, these programs have resulted in the recycling of over 45.3 million tons of municipal waste, or put another way, almost the same amount of municipal waste that’s disposed in Pennsylvania in two entire years.

Pennsylvania’s recycling and reuse industry includes more than 3,247 recycling and reuse businesses and organizations made more than $18.4 billion in gross annual sales, paid $305 million in taxes, and provided jobs for more than 81,322 employees at an annual payroll of approximately $2.9 billion.

Aside from the economic benefits, the environmental benefits have been significant: recycling has saved enough energy in one year to provide power to 940,000 homes for one year, according to DEP.

Roadside littering of beverage containers, now collected in recycling programs, declined by 64 percent between 1988, the first year of the program, and 1999, according to a state Department of Transportation survey.

Local governments and private industry have creatively implementing recycling programs throughout the state.

RecycleBank, a private firm, works with communities and local businesses to provide residents with a dollar-incentive to recycle. In communities that sign on, residents earn RecycleBank “dollars” for each pound of material they recycle. These dollars can then be redeemed for coupons worth real dollars at local food stores, clothing shops and can even be donated to non-profit groups, up to $300 per year.

Since the pilot program in Philadelphia tripled the amount of recyclables collected and participation, RecycleBank has taken its program to dozens of other communities in Pennsylvania and other states with similar results.

But Act 101 had other innovative features as well: it required counties to plan for waste disposal and recycling, a ban on the landfilling of yard waste, the mandatory recycling of lead acid vehicle batteries, support for household hazardous waste collection events, requires a waste and litter reduction program, added incentives for state and local government agencies to purchase products with recycled content, authorized host municipality inspectors for waste disposal facilities and benefit fees for municipalities hosting landfills and resource recovery facilities, established certain siting criteria for waste disposal facilities, and protection from groundwater contamination, set up county Landfill Closure Accounts to insure funds were available to properly close landfills at the end of their useful life and provided funding for independent evaluations of waste facility permits by municipalities.

Funding for these programs was provided by a $2/ton fee on municipal waste disposed in the state that generates about $45-48 million annually. This fee has not changed since 1988.

Links: PA Recycling Program

Pennsylvania Resources Council

Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania

PA CleanWays

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful

RecycleBank

7/25/2008