NEW RECYCLING STUDY FROM REASON FOUNDATION - BUILDING CODES, ETC.
Alexander Volokh
DISCOURAGE RECYCLING
by Alexander Volokh
Reason Foundation Policy Study #202
Project Director: Lynn Scarlett
Part 3 of a Series on
*Recycling and Deregulation: Opportunities for Market Development*
available from the Reason Foundation, 310-391-2245
This message contains:
1. Press release for Policy Study #202
2. Executive summary for Policy Study #202
3. Preface to the *Recycling and Deregulation* series
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1. PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Richard Phillips, 310-391-2245
GOVERNMENT BUILDING CODES, CONSTRUCTION STANDARDS DISCOURAGE RECYCLING
Rely on Performance Measures, Not Mandates, Says Study
March 25, 1996 -- LOS ANGELES, Calif. Government building codes,
construction standards, and procurement guidelines may discourage the use
of recycled materials in homes, buildings, roads, and office supplies,
according to the study *How Government Building Codes and Construction
Standards Discourage Recycling*, released today by the Los Angeles-based
Reason Foundation.
According to Alexander Volokh, environmental policy analyst at the Reason
Foundation and author of the study, part of the problem is industry
standard-setting organizations like the American Society for Testing and
Materials (ASTM) or the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which write standards that sometimes
shut out recycled materials from consideration.
"Drainage pipes made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) can be made with
up to 50% recycled content -- and considering how much drainage pipe we
use, this isn't small potatoes," says Volokh. "But state and local
governments won't buy pipes unless they've been okayed by the ASTM or
AASHTO."
"HDPE pipes and promising new construction materials such as plastic
lumber are not widely used -- in part because the ASTM has been slow in
drawing up testing standards," says Volokh. "The ASTM can take up to 10
years to develop a testing standard for a new material. The problem
isn't that such organizations exist; rather, the problem is that when
governments rely on them these standards become mandatory, not voluntary."
The study also argues that governments themselves often enforce
restrictive regulations that discourage the use of recycled materials.
The ThermaLock Block manufactured by ThermaLock Products of Buffalo, New
York, which is made of a thick layer of molded plastic between two layers
of concrete, is one example of a new and potentially useful
recycled-content building material. But according to the study, building
codes, which are generally enforced on the local level, are often wedded
to traditional materials and processes, and make it difficult for
innovative building materials to be used in construction. The same is
true for roadway construction standards, which either discourage the use
of recycled materials or require them (as with the recent federal highway
rubber mandate), but rarely specify how the roads should perform.
The study recommends reforming the rules and restrictions that govern the
procurement process. Recommendations include adopting more reasonable
costing techniques, eliminating "useless and counterproductive
distinctions" (i.e., pre-consumer vs. post-consumer paper), and adopting
performance standards rather than requiring that materials have
"irrelevant characteristics," such as color or thickness.
According to the study, when different types of plastics are blended
together, they usually become a shade of olive green. Recycled
commingled plastic is difficult to color. But in Lansing, Michigan, for
example, trash bags must be a light mint green, and many trash can
specifications nationwide require white or yellow cans. Brightness
requirements have also led to ridiculous situations like that of Paper
Service Ltd. of Hinsdale, New Hampshire, which couldn't sell its toilet
paper to the state government because it wasn't bright enough.
According to Volokh, "Government procurement agencies should scrutinize
their procurement specifications to see whether they're using irrational
or non-performance-related criteria to buy the products they need. We
should require performance standards whenever possible instead of
dictating what a product must be made of."
"If there was ever a time for governments to coddle recyclers, that time
is past," says Volokh. "Instead, governments should draw up performance
standards wherever possible for everything they buy, and local building
code offices should establish clearer and more predictable approval
procedures that are more open to innovative technologies."
*How Government Building Codes and Construction Standards Discourage
Recycling* is the third study in a series to be released by the Reason
Foundation on the regulatory barriers to recycling. Related studies on
the issue of recycling include *The FDA vs. Recycling?: Has Food
Packaging Law Gone Too Far?* and *Recycling Hazardous Waste: How RCRA Has
Recyclers Running Around in CERCLAs*. Copies are available for $15 (plus
$1.50 s/h) each and may be obtained by calling the Reason Foundation at
310-391-2245.
The Reason Foundation is a national public-policy research organization
with a practical, market-based approach and an outside-Washington
perspective. Founded in 1978 and based in Los Angeles, Calif., the
Reason Foundation has earned a reputation for sound economic research and
a how-to approach that benefits policy makers and elected officials who
require practical solutions.
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2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Why doesn't everyone use recycled materials? In many areas, recycling is
a relatively new technology, and the companies that use the technology
tend to be fairly small. Many people don't know about the full range of
products made with recycled material, and education is costly. This is
especially the case with plastics. The basic problem is one that is
common to many new technologies -- the world as we know it came to be in
an earlier time, before current recycling opportunities became
commonplace. Where recycling technology is relatively new, it has to
overcome many institutionalized barriers to change.
Part of the problem is that potential end-users rely on industry
standard-setting organizations, like the American Society for Testing and
Materials (ASTM) or the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials (AASHTO), which write standards that sometimes
shut out recycled materials.
* Plastic lumber, a promising construction material, isn't
generally being purchased -- in part because the ASTM has been
slow in drawing up testing standards;
* The ASTM and AASHTO haven't advanced standards for drainage
pipes made of recycled PVC or HDPE, because of infighting between
different industry groups.
The problem isn't that such organizations exist; these organizations
serve a useful purpose in developing standards and performance tests.
Rather, the problem is that when governments rely on them, the standards
often become mandatory, not voluntary. Another part of the problem is
that governments themselves sometimes enforce restrictive regulations
that shut out recycled materials:
* Building codes, which are generally enforced on the local
level, are very conservative and make it difficult for innovative
building materials to be used in construction;
* Highway construction standards are wedded to specific
materials, methods, and industrial processes -- sometimes
mandating materials (as with a recent recycled rubber mandate) and
sometimes prohibiting them. This makes innovation difficult in
highway technology, even when such innovation would improve the
performance of roadways.
Yet another part of the problem is that government procurement agencies
can inadvertently or subtly discriminate against recycled materials,
through such methods as:
* The arcane rules of government bidding processes;
* The somewhat arbitrary distinction between pre-consumer and
post-consumer recycled materials;
* Color and thickness requirements, and other conditions that are
unrelated to performance;
* Materials requirements, for instance in the purchasing of
carpets or composts.
One theme runs through this array of government practices. *Governments
often don't rely on measures of performance*. In the past, specifying
materials or methods may have been the best proxy for performance one
could find; when performance is difficult to measure, "doing it the way
we've always done it" may have had some justification. Whatever the
explanation, it's time for governments to move toward performance
standards and away from specifying particular materials.
The question "Why doesn't everyone use recycled materials?" is, in a
sense, as ridiculous a question as "Why doesn't everyone make things out
of steel?" The physics and chemistry of recycling are complicated; there
are lots of different processes which have lots of different effects, and
it would be dangerous to draw blanket conclusions like "We should always
use recycled materials" or "We should never use recycled materials." The
honest answer is to admit that optimal levels of recycled material usage
will vary by situation. Unless we adopt performance standards wherever
possible, we can never know what those levels are, much less reach them.
Many promising products are being discriminated against today because a
performance standard isn't in place.
* Governments shouldn't always rely on industry standards. In
areas like plastic lumber or drainage pipe, when the ASTM or
AASHTO don't have standards for a possibly good product, it may
make sense for governments to draw up their own performance
standards, allowing companies to submit performance data from
approved testing labs.
* Local building code offices, highway departments, and such
agencies should establish clearer and more predictable approval
procedures that are more open to innovative technologies. They
should rely less on materials and methods specifications, and use
performance standards whenever possible.
* Government procurement agencies should scrutinize their
procurement specifications to see whether they're using irrational
or non-performance-related criteria to buy the products they need.
President Clinton's 1993 Executive Order on recycled procurement
has reformed and will continue to reform government procurement,
though it treats recycling too much as an end in itself. More
should be done to require performance standards whenever possible
instead of dictating what a product must be made of.
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3. PREFACE TO THE SERIES, *RECYCLING AND DEREGULATION: OPPORTUNITIES FOR
MARKET DEVELOPMENT*
Spurred on in the late 1980s by fears of an impending "landfill crisis,"
state legislators found a ready remedy in recycling laws. Prompted by
these new state law, local governments put in place over 7,000 curbside
recycling programs that began collecting tons of bottles, cans, jars,
newspapers, and whatnot. In short order, the legislative refrain moved
from "Recycle now" to "We need markets." Legislators moved to calibrate
recycling supply and demand with a host of proposed regulations --
recycled content mandates, manufacturer "take-back" requirements,
government procurement preferences, and various subsidies. Whatever the
reason, deregulation as a way to expand recycling markets was virtually
ignored.
This is unfortunate. Shorn of all its ideological trappings, recycling
is essentially a process of innovation. Like electricity, cars, and
computers, new recycling technologies must overcome a lot of
institutionalized barriers to change. Many obvious regulatory barriers
have been removed, but many still remain. Sometimes, these barriers are
subtly hidden, disguised as unnecessary procurement standards or
superfluous safety regulations. Sometimes, they're unintended side
effects of unrelated legislation. But regulatory barriers do exist, and
their elimination or modification ought to be the starting place for
trying to enhance recycling markets.
It's time for a change of paradigm. For years, environmental policy has
been run on a philosophy of "environment good, industry bad." But this
philosophy can't adequately deal with the reality of recycling -- which
blends environment with industry.
This policy series, *Recycling and Deregulation: Opportunities for Market
Development*, will cover the following areas:
* The use of recycled materials in food packaging, and why FDA
regulations and other laws, originally enacted to protect the
public health, can inhibit recycling;
* The recycling of hazardous wastes, and why some hazardous waste
regulations, instead of protecting the environiment, discourage
the safe reuse of hazardous products, like lead batteries and used
oil;
* The transport of solid waste, and developments to watch out for
that could limit the supply of recyclables by discouraging their
transportation;
* The scrap tire management problem, and how some state efforts
to prevent tires piling up in garbage dumps are counterproductive;
* Recycling building materials, and how building codes
unnecessarily prohibit their use;
* How industry standards groups, which governments rely on in
their procurement practices, can discourage the use of recycled
materials in products like plastic lumber and drainage pipes; and,
* How government procurement agencies and miscellaneous other
government bureaus, through superfluous regulation, stifle the
development of innovative recycling technologies.
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END