Climate and

Materials Management

SERDC November 3, 2009

Jennifer Brady

USEPA

Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery

How are Waste and Climate

Connected??• What is the Life Cycle of a material?

• The simplified version:

– Raw material extraction (bauxite mining, tree

harvesting, oil pumped from underground, etc.)

– Raw materials are processed into manufacturing

inputs (trees made into paper, etc.)

– Products are made from manufacturing inputs

– Products are used

– End-of-life products (and other discards) are

managed as recyclables or waste

The Life Cycle

Greenhouse Gases

• There are many Greenhouse Gases (GHG) associated with the product life cycle (CO2, CH4, N2O, etc.),

• Each GHG has a different impact on global warming

• We normalize the data using Global Warming Potentials (GWP)– a relative scale which compares the impact of the GHG to the

impact of the same mass of CO2 (GWP of CO2 =1)

– for example, GWP for CH4 = 21 and for N2O = 310

– emissions of 1 million metric tons of CH4 and N2O are equivalent to emissions of 21 and 310 million metric tons of CO2 , respectively

• Normalized GHG data are expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2 e

Upstream and Downstream

Emissions

• You are standing in a stream of materials,

holding a product that you just purchased

•“Upstream” of you is the part of the lifecycle

where raw materials are extracted and

processed, and goods are manufactured

•“Downstream” of you is where products are

sent for reuse, materials are recycled, energy

is recovered, or discards are landfilled.

Upstream Links

• GHG emissions associated with energy production are avoided 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.

Upstream Links continued

• Process energy GHGs comprise the majority of upstream emissions for the manufacture of both virgin and recycled materials – on average, approximately 80 percent*

• 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

GHG emissions avoided by recycling

rather than landfilling 100 tons of:

Aluminum Cans 1,371 MTOC2e

Steel Cans 184 MTOC2e

Glass 32 MTOC2e

HDPE 144 MTOC2e

PET 159 MTOC2e

Corrugated Boxes 344 MTOC2e

Newspaper 191 MTOC2e

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.)

Source:

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/nonhw/muncpl/msw99.htm

Systems Based View of US GHG Emissions

Source: USEPA, Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Materials and Land

Management Practices, September 2009.

Legislation

• Kerry - Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

– Does include some provisions for recycling

– Money for State recycling programs

• Not part of cap and trade

• Waxman-Markey

– No recycling included

How do we measure the Waste

and Climate Connection??

The Waste Reduction Model (WARM)

www.epa.gov/WARM

• WARM was designed to provide waste managers with a simple tool to help them understand and evaluate the greenhouse gas implications of their waste management decisions

Emission factors developed for:

• Source reduction

• Recycling

• Composting

• Combustion

• Landfilling

– 26 material types and 6 categories of mixed

materials (paper, metals, plastics, organics,

MSW, and recyclables)

Materials in WARM

Aluminum Cans Magazines/Third-class Mail Food Scraps

Steel Cans Medium Density Fiberboard Yard Trimmings

Copper Wire Corrugated Cardboard Grass

Glass Dimensional Lumber Leaves

HDPE Mixed Paper (3 categories) Branches

LDPE Mixed Metals Carpet

PET Mixed Plastics PCs

Newspaper Mixed Organics Clay Bricks

Office Paper Mixed Recyclables Concrete

Phonebooks Mixed MSW Fly Ash

Textbooks Tires

Modelling the Waste-Climate

Connection

Output

Equivalencies

Equivalencies Output

• Annual GHG emissions from passenger vehicles

• CO2 Emissions from gasoline consumed

• CO2 from the electricity used of homes

Contact Information

Jennifer Brady

USEPA

Office of Resource Conservation

and Recovery

Phone: 703-347-8964

Email: brady.jennifer@epa.gov

EPA’s Waste Reduction Model http://www.epa.gov/warm