Address to City Club of Eugene: December 3, 2004

I'm so pleased to have the opportunity to talk trash with all of you here today at City Club. We certainly do have tons of things to talk about, 473,845 tons to be exact-that being how much stuff we chucked out last year in Lane County. We dutifully recycled around 218,000 of those tons, but we still buried 256,000 of them in that large, expensive black plastic shrouded tomb, rather ironically called Short Mountain Landfill, that you can see from the road when you drive down 1-5 near Creswell. Let me give you visual image of what that much waste looks like---it's enough to completely stuff Mac Court to the rafters every 6 weeks. I'm not sure that's what Ernie Kent and Bev Smith had in mind when they talked about packing the pit!

My talk today is a kind of a good news, bad news, good news sandwich. I'll talk about the role recycling plays and the paradox that it poses for us in terms of conservation. I'll talk a little about BRING's role and future plans, and touch on the opportunities and challenges that conservation might us.

Let's start with the good news. Oregon consistently ranks as one of the top states in the nation for the percentage of stuff that we recycle, and Lane County is consistently among the top recyclers in the state. You can thank a fairly obscure piece of state legislation, the 1983 Opportunity to Recycle Act for our success. SB740 requires communities of more than 4000 people to provide their residents with curbside recycling service. This has spurred the creation of around 130 programs, mostly run by garbage haulers, serving 75% of the state's population-a remarkable percentage, especially considering the rural nature of much of our state. Statewide, we recycle nearly 45% of our trash. Naturally, we do better here in Lane County, recycling 52% of our waste.

Recycling, once a fringe activity practiced by a Birkenstock wearing, granola eating, fanatic few has gone mainstream. And it's big business. Nationwide there are nearly 60,000 recycling companies and recycling generates 3% of the gross domestic product. The recycling industry is roughly equivalent in employment and economic impact to the domestic auto industry. Over the years, the grassroots non-profits like BRING that launched recycling have mostly disappeared, replaced by garbage haulers and industry heavyweights like Waste Management and Browning Ferris, whose activities are regulated by city and state government.

Recycling has changed the way some major industries operate. For example, paper manufacturing is an important industry in the Northwest. Paper manufacturers depend on a reliable supply of old paper as feed-stock for new products. Using recycled material not only saves trees, it significantly reduces the amount of power and water needed to produce new paper. Paper companies have made huge investments in equipment to utilize recycled material and if we were to stop recycling today, production would virtually come to a standstill until they could retool again. We have two paper mills using recycled paper close by-Weyerhaeuser, who need over 500 tons of recycled cardboard a day to keep their Springfield linerboard plant running and Georgia Pacific in Halsey who depend on your used office paper to produce the toilet tissue and paper towels sold under the Kirkland label at Costco. Personally, I like knowing that those annoying office memo's and boring documents come to such a fitting end!

I'm fond of telling people that here in Lane County, recycling is our most popular civic activity, practiced by thousands of citizens spanning all income levels, social backgrounds and political beliefs. Our dedication to the recycling ethic is one of the things that defines us, that makes our community special. Nine out of ten households participate at some level- far more than vote, volunteer, read a newspaper, support the Ducks or engage in any other kind of civic activity. Recycling has become part and parcel of our daily lives, as commonplace as a morning cup of coffee. It's a remarkable example of social change that's occurred in a relatively short period of time. Recycling has become so convenient and easy that anyone can participate. You no longer have to haul your recyclables to some depot miles from your home; they are collected right at your door. Heck, you don't even have to sort them any more!

Locally, BRING's name has been synonymous with recycling and conservation for over 30 years. We're perhaps the most "conservative" organization in the community! Our role has evolved and changed as the recycling industry has matured. Today we do very little collection or processing of household recyclables, instead we concentrate on finding ways to recycle things that can't be handled through the curbside system-our recent campaign to recycle all those plastic election signs for example. We provide free conservation education to more than 5,000 school children a year and we salvage and resell about one and a half tons of used building materials every day through our ReUse Warehouse and Deconstruction program. Deconstruction, if it's a term you're not familiar with, is really just construction in reverse. We take apart structures or remove fixtures so we can save the materials for reuse. As Alex mentioned, we're building a new headquarters in Glenwood, called the Planet Improvement Center.

Now this is a bit off topic, and a bit cheeky, but I just can't resist pointing it out: Glenwood's been in the news a lot in the last couple of years. It's been mentioned in connection with a hospital, a convention center, a courthouse, a commercial bakery and a basketball arena, but the only development that actually has an approved site plan and is ready for construction is BRING's Planet Improvement Center. Just another example of BRING's 30 year pioneering tradition in action. Maybe our investment will attract some of those other facilities to locate in Glenwood!

I'm not going to spend much time talking about the new Center, because while what we're doing is visionary and cutting edge, and I'd love to spend all day telling you about it, it's why we're doing it that's really important. Briefly then, here's the what. We're planning a regional destination-part education center, part retail outlet for used building materials and part "theme" park demonstrating sustainable development. It'll be a place where the medium is the message, where doing more with less is demonstrated in practical ways relevant to ordinary people. A place where you can buy a nice old door or find a replacement for the toilet tank lid you broke when you were standing on it to paint the bathroom ceiling. A place where you could learn how to build a greenhouse out of old windows or see how a roof covered with plants helps mitigate the impact storm water has on our rivers. A fun place with art and gardens where you can shop or just visit and be entertained, inspired and educated. A place that helps make living well without waste as popular and as second nature as recycling has become today.

But as I said, it's not the what, it's the why we need to talk about. Why is BRING undertaking such an ambitious project? Why have dozens of volunteers devoted thousands of hours helping us plan and begin implementing our vision? Why are businesses, foundations and dozens of individuals making donations to get it built? If recycling is such a success, why do we need a Planet Improvement Center?

This brings us to the bad news. Remember those 256,000 tons of waste that we sent to the landfill last year? That's why. I'd like you to think for a moment about all those tons of broken toys and toasters, tennis shoes and TV's. Think about all that packaging-used just once to transport stuff to our homes, then discarded. Think about the myriad of disposable items that barely existed 30 years ago. All those things we didn't or couldn't recycle are the natural resources that we, our children, and our children's children depend on. That stuff we call trash is the wild places we love. They're the forests and farmlands that feed and house us. They're the clean air and water we need to live healthy lives. They're the natural environment that supports all life. We fill up our trash-cans and our landfills with the very things we should value and cherish the most.

Despite the success we've had getting recycling established, despite the thousands of tons of materials recovered each year, despite the jobs created and pollution prevented, despite the energy and money saved, despite the myriad benefits of recycling, recycling alone has not and cannot do anything about the real problem we need to tackle: the problem of wasteful consumption. This is the paradox that recycling poses us in terms of conservation, and it is why organizations like BRING will play a crucial role in the next 30 years. Despite our laudable devotion to recycling, Lane County residents make slightly more waste than the average North American, and North Americans in general make twice as much waste as citizens of Japan, Sweden or Germany and other developed nations.

We can't recycle our way to sustainability. We're using more resources and making more waste than ever before and no matter how much we recycle, if we continue to treat resources carelessly, we're robbing ourselves and future generations by withdrawing more from the bank than we return. You don't need to have a degree in accounting to understand that if you continue to spend faster than you accumulate, you're going to be in trouble.

Recycling is a band-aid. It's slows the bleeding, but fails to address the cause. I'd argue that the popularity of recycling has actually worked against conservation by lulling us into a sense of false security. It certainly distracts us from thinking about what we use more thoughtfully. Recycling has become our penance for the sin of waste. We absolve our guilt by putting things in a special bin, in hopes that removes the tarnish on our collective souls for being the most wasteful society that has ever lived on the face of the earth. We've made the first baby step towards sustainability by recycling, but we've yet to really embrace the next steps or make the connection between the stuff that we use and the environment we value.

The reason that something like the Planet Improvement Center is so important, not just locally, but regionally, is to provide a catalyst and focus for change. I cannot stress strongly enough how important change is. Wasteful use of resources is not just a resource conservation problem. Wasteful consumption underlies and exacerbates dozens of other issues-political unrest, human health issues, the poor image the United States is getting among many other nations, economic inequity, global warming, water and air pollution-a veritable laundry list of modern day ills. We need places that help us think differently about waste, that make conservation relevant to people, that inspire change, so that over time, we can shift our wasteful culture and learn to do more with less. We need organizations that help us ask the right questions and encourage different choices and new solutions. Instead of "Can I recycle this?" let's ask, "Why does this need so much packaging? "Could I find a refillable or reusable alternative?", "Can I repair this if it breaks?", and, "How long will this last?"

Waste affects everyone and it hits us in a place that will soon get our attention: our pocketbooks. As pressure on available resources increases and prices go up, that impact is going to get bigger. We're already seeing it at the gas pump and in steel prices. Our new federal courthouse is going to cost $4 million dollars more because of increases in steel prices. Don't be fooled into thinking we don't already pay for waste. Did you know for example that 10% of our food dollars are spent on packaging-that's more than goes to the farmer who produces it. For a family spending $500 a month on food, we're talking $600 a year.

What can we do, as individuals and as a community? Over the past two or three years I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people. I've talked with community leaders, government officials, and owners and managers of businesses large and small. I've talked with activists and environmentalists, teachers and people throughout the recycling industry. I've had the opportunity to discuss waste and conservation with a broad cross section of our community. I've learned that conservation isn't always simple, and that there are no quick fixes, but there is a lot we can do. The good news is that change brings opportunity. I believe that this community is uniquely positioned to make positive, beneficial change and become leaders in the state and maybe even the nation. We're smart, resourceful and we have a local culture that understands the importance of conservation and recycling.

We need to change how we think about waste. Let's start by looking at waste as a material resource, a resource that can create jobs and promote economic development. Every ton of resources we reuse or recycle generates about 10 times as many jobs as every ton of resources we landfill. Let's develop new uses and markets for waste materials, and clear any regulatory hurdles that prevent their use. For example, many tons of asphalt roofing shingles end up in the landfill. Morse Brothers, a paving company, could use those shingles in the mix they use to pave roads, and as we all know, there are a lot of roads that need repaving. Morse is interested in using recycled shingles to save money-with oil and energy prices rising, they're looking for ways to cut costs. Problem is, ODOT has no specifications that relate to using old shingles so they can't be used in mixes that pave public roads, only in private driveways and parking lots.

Here's another example. We put thousands of tons of scrap wood in the landfill-and end markets for scrap wood are poor. On the other hand, wood is a useful resource that could be used in biomass projects to generate ethanol and electricity. As energy prices inevitably rise, this is going to become a more attractive option. Permitting and funding issues need to be solved so that we can create sustainable energy instead of burying this resource. We need business leaders, government agencies, utilities, waste generators and the conservation community to work together to remove the kinds of roadblocks I've mentioned. We need to create reliable supplies so that new users can depend on a consistent stream of material.

We all-government, businesses and individuals-need to invest in reducing waste before we make it, reuse what we can and continue to keep recycling the rest. If I could take you all to the landfill, you'd be shocked to see how many of those 256,000 tons we bury there have established, reliable recycling markets and end uses. We put enough recyclable cardboard there to run Weyerhaeuser's linerboard plant for 3 weeks straight.

Conservation does not have to be about doing without things. It has to do with being smarter about what we do. Small changes made by a lot of people, in aggregate, add up to significant resource savings. For example, if just 10% of the 64,000 households here in the metro area started taking their own bags to the grocery store we'd use 16 million fewer bags a year. Imagine the impact if we all did it! Each change that we make, whether it's a business that invests in a copy machine that can print both sides of a sheet of paper or a government agency that replaces old lighting fixtures with energy efficient ones-makes a difference. Conservation is a place where you can really put the "think global, act local" mantra to work.

As a community, we really do care about conservation. Conservation is not a partisan issue supported by people of just one ideology. People from all political viewpoints understand that waste is opportunity lost-opportunity to save resources and energy, save money and create new jobs. In a community that's often been characterized as being deeply divided, here's something we can all agree on. Let's capitalize on that. I invite you to join BRING and other conservation organizations, business groups and economic developers in helping create economic opportunity and cultural change in this community. Together we can make a difference, and learn to live well without waste. Let's make this the community that's recognized nationwide for putting the eco into economic development!