26 February 2009
By Neil Seldman, PhD*
23 February 2009
"‘Shovel-ready"' is the key to the Obama Administration's hope for a quick flow of money to city public works projects to stimulate jobs, green infrastructure and local spending. But is this plan realistic?
Do cities have shovel ready green projects?
Most are older projects that cities have not been able to afford for the past several years. And they are rarely green. Some are the opposite of green. In Winston Salem, NC, $4 million of the stimulus package will go to build a new construction and demolition debris (C and D) landfill. This will create 10 jobs. There are no plans for C and D recycling, even though a C and D recycling facility will create twice that number of jobs and return valuable materials to the economy.
President Obama has warned cities that he will be tracking wasted expenditures. The group Stimulus Watch will follow these efforts. Groups such as Green for All, the Blue-Green Alliance and the Apolo Alliance can monitor how green the new federal investments in infrastructure will be.
Another major barrier to those green projects that are may be ready to go, are the antiquated codes that new projects will have to work under. Porous cement, for example, which reduces water and toxic street run- off, and thereby saving energy and operating costs at sewer treatment facilities, does not comply with existing codes. Sewer pipe made from new, reformulated materials is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than traditional ones, which are energy intensive materials to manufacture. Yet, these products are disallowed by powerful vested interests, which who continue to benefit from the non-green status quo.
A prime example of wasted stimulus money is the millions of dollars being allocated to cities for neighborhood stabilization. In fact, the money is being used for neighborhood obliteration. There will be minimal deconstruction of buildings, for example, which recovers valuable building materials for affordable housing, and trains workers for family sustainable wage and benefit jobs---the building blocks of neighborhoods. One city will demolish 1,100 homes this year. It will deconstruct only four! Deconstruction is the first step in green building, and a giant step leap towards revitalizing inner cities.
Many cities are not even requiring the recycling of construction and demolition (C&D) materials, which has become state of the art across the US. Sensible cities governments require from between 50 and-75% of these materials to be recycled by permit. Despite readily available local markets for processed C and &D materials, cities are using federal neighborhood stabilization dollars to fill up landfills.
A full throttle effort to fund shovel ready projects could be a green disaster and a misuse of scarce stimulus dollars.
Of course, there are some sectors can that have shovel ready projects for cities to use stimulus money. Energy and water conservation are two examples, and cities could immediately for funding for energy efficient buildings with modern lighting, passive and photovoltaic solar energy, cistern systems and low flow faucets.
Garbage is shovel ready!
The most obvious sector to focus on is the solid waste sector, more aptly described as "resource management." . Every city and county is responsible for solid waste/resource management,. And, every jurisdiction is immediately ready to ramp up its transition to increased recycling and composting. Of course some cities are already at 50%, 60% and even 70% recycling and composting rates. But the national average is 34%. Cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and San Juan are at 10% or less.
Even at this modest national recycling rate, the sector employs 1.1 million workers with a $37 billion payroll. These are more jobs than in the automobile industry. (Unionized And unionized recycling workers can make $20 per hour plus full benefits in companies that are very profitable. Without unions, these jobs are at the minimum wage levels and no benefits.)
The infrastructure for recycling and composting can be improved to easily double the recycling rate within a few years. At 75% recycling, some 1.5 million new jobs will be created. Indirect jobs stemming from these direct jobs could add another million workers. The total of 2.5 million jobs created is represents three-quarters of the 4 million jobs the Obama Administration is seeking. This level of recycling will also reduce industrial energy demand, equivalent to 21% of the country's current coal fired electricity capacity, and reducing the air and ash pollution produced by these plants. Extraction of virgin materials from forests and mines and transportation would be dramatically reduced.
A timely investment.
The investment required to reach these resource management goals is estimated at $10-20 billion. Over several years, these funds can pay for equipment, training, (including college certificate and degree programs for facilities managers), public awareness, peer to peer technical assistance from city managers who have mastered the recycling and composting systems for their communities, and real estate acquisition for industrial parks to process materials and manufacture products locally to build the US economy (as opposed to shipping materials overseas). The money can flow to cities through CDBG (Community Development Block Grants) channels or the myriad other energy, resource, workforce and community economic development, and alternative fuel programs.
The stimulus investment to transform solid waste management into resource management should be sunset. This is transition money. Cities and counties and their constituent businesses already pay from $40-70 billion annually to dispose of resources as."waste". It costs far less to move recycled materials to industrial and agricultural markets. So the stimulus investment is essentially a bridge across the transition period. After the initial investment, traditional budgets can take over, only at much lower levels, making city services more cost effective and the US economy more efficient and competitive. The difference is that the waste stream will be a resource stream supporting employment, manufacturing, tax base expansion and pollution reduction.
Sixty to seventy per cent of the country's total
municipal solid waste and C and &D waste (totaling just under 500 million
tons annually) are readily reusable and recyclable as rich
compost, building
materials and aggregate. Markets are high and steady for quality materials,
and, the market is local. No shipping to China required.
The blueprint for spending on resource management should follow other federal formulae for health care, highways, and education. Local government has to commit to actions to be eligible for federal grants. Thus jurisdictions programs like California's Recycling Market Development Zones and the industrial parks being developed by Hawaii County, HA and Alachua County, FL would have their investments matched by federal dollars. So too, would jurisdictions that follow their lead and commit bond and budget money toward transition goals and objectives. There would be no subsidies for landfilling and incineration.
This transition could take place within the next three to seven years. After that, the remaining materials that cannot be composted and recycled could be subject to research and development programs to clean them up. Bans and redesign of products and packages are part of this stage of the transition to achieve the social, economic and environmental benefits of a near-zero waste economy. Industry responsibility programs have already been implemented for batteries, oil, paints and tires.
If the Obama Administration wants fast, green, and dramatic results for its stimulus package, the best place to start is with at the garbage can. Every citizen, every day, touches every thing that winds up as garbage... at work, at play and at home. By using our fiscal resources to ensure sound management of our natural resources, everybody wins. Small, forward-thinking changes can lead to big results.
. Neil Seldman is co-founder and president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, specializing in start up and expansion of recycling and composting social enterprises. Seldman works with government agencies, industry, community development organizations and trade unions. He is a former manufacturer and professor of political science.
. ILSR was founded in l974 and is based in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, MN. ILSR provides research and technical assistance in sustainable economic development.
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