COMPELLING SESSIONS AT THE RESOURCE RECYCLING CONFERENCE

The Resource Recycling Conference, to be held October 26-27 at the Marriott Rivercenter in San Antonio, will include a number of comprehensive sessions focusing on the latest trends and developments in materials recovery and municipal waste recycling. The following are a sample.

Top editors to opine

At the inaugural Resource Recycling Conference - brought to you by the producers of the acclaimed E-Scrap and Plastics Recycling Conferences - top editors of the industry's leading trade periodicals will offer their take on the issues facing the world of recycling.

Joining us in San Antonio will be Guy Crittenden (Canada's Solid Waste and Recycling Magazine), Allan Gerlat (Waste & Recycling News), Nora Goldstein (BioCycle), Brian Taylor (Recycling Today) and John Trotti (MSW Management), with Jerry Powell (Resource Recycling) moderating. What are the major trends to monitor? These experts will offer their important assessments.

The latest in MRF developments

The conference will include extensive information on the operation of materials recovery facilities (MRFs). Come to San Antonio to learn about new ideas and systems. For example, Resource Recycling is surveying all North American MRF managers to determine what's working and what's not. What new systems have been installed, and how are they functioning? What new technologies are on the horizon?

In a second presentation, Kim Holmes, principal of 4R Sustainability, will summarize research on optical sortation recently completed for the American Chemistry Council. Included in this presentation are details about all known sortation systems, with many being manufactured in Europe, and elsewhere.

Mike Birett, manager of Waste Diversion Ontario's Continuous Improvement Fund - currently spending $40 million to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of recycling systems in that province - will describe a number of innovative ways to improve materials recovery.

The future of recovered paper markets

The agenda includes a comprehensive assessment of current and future market conditions for paper recovered in North America.

Is demand sufficient if more fiber is collected? Who are the major consumers, and what are their plans for the future? These and other critical questions will be answered by a stellar panel, consisting of Rod Young, RISI's chief recycled paper analyst; Vivian Ou, an executive at Lee & Man, China's second largest recovered paper consumer; and Myles Cohen, president of Pratt Industries, the recycled paperboard producer.

Is industry-funded curbside on the horizon?

Canada's most populous province may soon require manufacturers and brand owners - think Coke, Campbell's Soup and Kellogg's Corn Flakes - to pay all the costs of residential recycling collection and processing. Yes, all the costs. What does this mean for industry and for local governments? Is full extended producer responsibility the next advancement in municipal recycling?

The head of the Ontario agency charged with bringing this system forward will lay out all the opportunities and pitfalls ahead.

Looking to local recycling leaders

In research being undertaken exclusively for the conference, we are surveying local government recycling coordinators. Many industry executives, environmental leaders, and others, want more recycling to occur; however, only those working in the fox holes, such as governmental recycling coordinators, know firsthand how growth can occur. The survey results will lay out the map ahead for recycling's future.

Where are markets for aluminum, plastics and glass containers heading?

As the recession ends, municipal recycling programs are hopeful for a return to robust and stable markets for recovered materials. Will these hopes be attained in 2011? Three industry experts will provide their assessments of current market dynamics, and will look into their crystal-ball projections for the future.

Gregory Wittbecker, director of corporate metal recycling strategy for Alcoa, has a keen eye on market trends for aluminum cans. Will demand improve in the coming months, and will new efforts by smelters to assure better quality bales lead to industry changes? He'll provide his view on these and other critical issues.

We've asked Chase Willett, director of polyester and polyester raw materials at CMAI - the acclaimed chemical and plastics industry market research firm - to provide a comprehensive review of the important factors driving today's, and tomorrow's, markets for PET and HDPE. Is prime resin capacity headed so much higher that excess resin supplies will overhang the industry, thus driving prices down? Should one be optimistic or pessimistic?

Owens-Illinois, the world's largest glass container producer, is keenly interested in boosting cullet consumption, and is undertaking new initiatives to boost utilization. Ann House, the firm's new cullet market director, will outline new, exciting steps by the glass container recycling industry to move forward in recycling.

How is the climate-change debate going to change materials management and recycling?

A growing body of evidence shows that it is the extraction, refining, conversion and use of materials, such as metals and paper, that is the greatest contributor to greenhouse gases. As a result, improved waste management is an important way to attain global cooling and, thus, climate-change issues will be at the forefront of future recycling debates. We offer a comprehensive panel looking into this important area.

Laura Draucker, a Life Cycle Asessment Associate with the World Resource Initiative's Greenhouse Gas Protocol team, will offer an up-to-date overview of climate change science, policy and politics. Her focus will be on providing attendees with a clear assessment of where we're at and where we're headed.

Sara Hartwell, representing the U.S. EPA's Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, will then explain how these broad findings and legislative ideas directly affect solid waste management. Where does garbage generation and management fit in the climate change debate? What can we expect in terms of possible ways waste management and recycling will change?

Jeff Morris, a noted economist and lifecycle expert for the Sound Resource Management Group, will then translate what has been learned about greenhouse gas generation into practical, grounded advice for recycling program managers and recycling company executives. How can the recycling industry change - today - to aid in global cooling? What would an ideal materials management system look like?

Will recycling be measured in new ways in the future?

The uniform measure of recycling success is based on weight. But, a large body of evidence indicates that few weight-based recycling rate assessments are accurate. For a wide variety of statistical and political reasons, rates are not accurate and, more and more, may not provide a true measure of recycling's progress or a way to truly compare efforts.

At the same time, pressure is being exerted to look at and measure recycling in a different way, such as an energy saving industrial process, or as a viable way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or as a key element in a green economy.

Jerry Powell, of Resource Recycling, will provide an overview of the metrics debate, and provide insight in how we might be better measuring recycling in the future.

The never-ending story of packaging development and recycling

Some forms of packaging in the residential recycling stream, such as aluminum and steel cans, have changed little over the past decades. On the other hand, we continue to see other types of packaging, especially plastics packaging, being introduced. Because many people want to boost the recovery of packaging, the conference has asked some leading experts to offer their insights on this issue.

A 30-member stakeholder group has been working for over a year to assess recycling opportunities for mixed rigid, non-bottle plastic packaging, such as margarine and yogurt tubs and thermoformed trays. Much research has been completed and new supply-and-demand assessments are underway. Steve Sikra, global package development leader at Procter & Gamble Co. and chairman of the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers rigids working group, will provide a detailed overview of this important work.

But do w know what new forms of packaging are on the horizon, and do we know if these new items will truly be recyclable? Betsy Dorn, a senior consultant with R.W. Beck, Inc., has completed several key assessments focusing on these questions, and she'll provide her look at the future of packaging and recycling.

All parties in the packaging supply chain are being called upon to expand their sustainability practices. Consumers are demanding it and so are large retailers, such as Walmart. Included in these sustainability efforts are actions aimed at boosting the recycling of packaging. To offer an important example of one industry’s plan to move forward, Stephen Gardner, vice president of communications for the Aluminum Association, will be joining us on the conference stage to describe how aluminum makers are going to work to push can recycling higher.

What's the future of producer responsibility?

The greatest change in recycling in recent years, according to some analysts, has been the move toward having product makers be responsible, in whole or in part, with the end-of-life management of their goods. For instance, nearly half of the states in the U.S. now require computer and television producers to fund local recycling programs. Is this the future for recycling. Working with the Product Stewardship Institute, the conference will include a comprehensive assessment of extended producer responsibility.

The draft panel includes David Ranson, director of the Environmental Quality branch of the B.C. Ministry of Environment, who will describe Canada's success in the past decade; Resa Dimino, a special assistant for the New York DEC's Commissioner's Policy Office, will look at how states are working together to push EPR forward; and Jen Holliday, an environmental and safety compliance manager with Vermont's Chittenden Solid Waste District, will detail the role of local governments in producer responsibility schemes.

Where is the Obama administration headed in terms of waste management?

New leadership is now in place in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with new ideas being introduced and new programs being launched. What does this mean in terms of solid waste management and recycling? The Resource Recycling Conference is pleased the EPA’s top solid waste official – Mathy Stanislaus – will make a major presentation in San Antonio regarding the federal government’s focus on recycling in the coming years.

The learning lessons from Europe

Many of the materials recovery systems in Europe are global leaders. Some of the issues being confronted in North America, regarding how to push recycling levels upward, have already received attention in Europe. Kit Strange, director of the Resource Recovery Forum and one of Europe’s top recycling experts, will offer his advice, given the learning lessons from abroad.

The most information in the shortest time

An exciting element of the conference agenda will be our lightning session. Fourteen speakers will summarize cutting-edge, important recycling research. Come to this fun session to learn about exciting work being done elsewhere. Learn about new recycling markets and hear about fascinating ways to collect and process materials. The CD you will receive after conference will have complete details about the research and projects summarized during the session.