The Privatizations of Solid Waste Collection Services

The mission Statement for Waste Management Inc. is, “As North America’s leading provider of comprehensive waste management services, our mission is to maximize resource value while minimizing impact in order to further both economic and environmental sustainability for all of our stakeholders”. As one reads their mission statement, a picture of integrity, responsibility, and protection for all their community members comes to mind. Unfortunately, during the years between 1992 and 1997, WM’s management let their greed blind them to these commitments. At which time they started to make fraudulent inputs into the accounting books by inflating salvage values and extending the useful life of the garbage

Municipal solid wastes are leftovers made by the population such as food, plastic bottles, household wares and many more. These items referred by most as “the garage” or “trash”. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2015) In the early 1900’s, incinerators were used to burn waste however by the Mid-20th century, lawmakers enacted the first government regulations in an attempt to address increasing concerns about the environmental impact of unregulated waste management practices. With the first waste management legislation being passed in 1965, brought along the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, thus bringing us into a new world of waste management.(Vault, n.d.)

Did you know there is about a million pounds of material in order to provide one average middle-class American family 's needs for one year? In sum, Americans waste or cause to be wasted nearly 1 million pounds of materials per, and did you know that an average person waste is 4.3 pounds per day? Did you also know that the water in the lake and river have about 3 tons?

Opponents of privatization argue that "any cost savings are attributable to reductions in service quality or to worker exploitation, especially through lower wages and fewer benefits." (Ibid. 14). They argue further that "the free market has little sensitivity to the issue of equity...and if unfettered may be expected to exclude nonpaying customers-even if the "public good" would be served by universal access." (Ibid. 14). In a study on trash collection, while the contractual refuse collections was found to

Today, garbage is collected with highly polluting diesel fueled trucks and then that garbage is brought to transfer stations where the waste is then sorted and transported to another solid waste management facility for further processing, treatment, transfer or disposal. This process is again handled using highly polluting diesel fueled trucks that ship it to landfills and waste to energy incinerators in other states. The long-term plan introduced is to reduce costs drastically increasing recycling which in turn will reduce waste and to build a waterfront transfer system in order to be less dependent upon the highly polluting diesel trucks and use barges hauling containers to ship garbage and also trains to transfer the waste. (Transfer

In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans generated 250 million tons of municipal solid waste, MSW1, of which only 87 million tons were recycled or composted (“Municipal Solid Waste”, 1). This value, however, does not represent the total amount waste generated by the United States since MSW only accounts for 2 percent of total waste generated. As more trash is generated, space to construct more landfills becomes an issue. In order to reduce the amount of solid waste produced, the federal government must implement and enforce a new waste disposal method that emphasizes composting food waste.

For WM the fuel, environmental charge included on a customer’s invoice is determined by first putting in the percentage of the WM Collection Fuel Surcharge Table or WM Disposal Fuel Surcharge Table into the overall invoice charges (excluding taxes). Next the environmental percentage is put in the sum of the total invoice charges and fuel surcharge calculation (excluding tax). Landfills produce harmful gases that if breathed in by people can cause serious health issues. The gases they let off also can ignite huge fires. If the water gets contaminated, then there is a long process to get to clean again and it cost 10 million dollars. Landfills also create a toxic soup of industrial and home-cleaning chemicals. These are just some of the impacts that solid waste management has on people and environments. My group has come up with different ways to solve these

This committee is functioning as substantive in terms of environmental safety and monitoring of the agencies and program under the committee jurisdiction (The Texas State Senate-Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Economic). 3 In addition to that, they study the permitting and compliance for waste disposal and processing, including the evaluation of the criteria for approval, denial and application return. They are concern with making recommendations regarding the collection and use of hotel occupancy taxes to increase transparency to uplift economic development. The effectiveness of implementation of this kind of relevant legislation will allows my district grow beautifully. By serving this committee, I can help my district with proper waste disposal methods in appropriate fees within the existing

While driving by Interstate Waste Services facility at 375 US Highway 1 and 9 in Jersey city, New Jersey, I immediately noticed the poverty surrounding the facility. From my observation I would say the yearly median income in that neighborhood is anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five thousand dollars. With such a low income, it is quickly identified that this was a lower class neighborhood. I also noticed many Hispanics or African Americans outside their homes. In my opinion, I believe the facility is located in a lower class neighborhood because with not much money coming from the people who live near the facility, they know that they wouldn’t be able to do much even if they did not want it there. It also allows them to rent/sell the houses for much lower prices so families who are limited with their spending to buy or rent a house will be able to do so on a budget.

Many if not most of the products we use on a daily basis are made of recyclable materials, including glass, aluminum, paper, steel, plastic, scrap tires and used oil. And the demand for goods made from recycled products, despite a lot of ups and downs during the 1980s, has never been higher thanks to a combination of well-conceived industrial/commercial applications and much needed government purchasing mandates. Indeed, the existence of markets for recyclables has contributed significantly to recycling's success as a waste disposal alternative. What makes recycling especially unique is its implementation by local people for local people. In regards to MSW management, the federal government is relatively hands-off, and state governments have focused more of their attention on landfill and incineration options.

The average resident produces seven and a half pounds of garbage every day that is buried down in landfills and litters lands costing a great amount of money. Nowadays, people face no more critical trouble than the need to save the weakening environment, mainly in urban areas, where solid wastes are uselessly dumped. It has been observed that cities have no controlled structure for garbage disposal. Each year, millions of dollars are spent picking up litter and more is thrown away in valuable materials that could be recycled. As humanity develops new technology and equipment, the level of waste increases every day. Due to the fact that there is a huge problem with garbage disposal, government representatives must contribute to resolving

The southern end of the city is very congested due to traffic conditions during daytime. A single refuse truck is in charge to disposal site and due to this a very huge amount of waste is carried in this shift. The reason is due to lack of economy. Small vehicles are used to collect waste within the city and then transferred to the bulk vehicles which take to disposal site.

My main concern about waste disposal is toward poverty. In every society, for it to work effectively the waste disposal has to be handled properly. The lack of proper waste disposal can contribute for the underdevelopment of the community. For instance, in poorer community that does not have resources to dispose of the trash properly create a series of problems. For example, when there are a lot of trashes in a community, it will prevent investors to invest in a community, the housing market, schools and stores will decline, in consequence the houses will loose its value. This will create a ripple effect because people will start immigrating toward a better place where it is much cleaner. Families will try to move to a better place where their kids can have a better future. I ask myself who wants to live in a dirty environment? I hope nobody. That’s why I believe that the government should help the poorest communities about the ways to handle waste disposal, and better educate them about recycling.

Recycling is an essential part of reducing the amount of waste filling up landfills. Recycling materials cannot only reduce waste but pollution as well. Unfortunately the typical recycling programs such as curbside pick-up and recycling centers require significant commitment from the public to be successful which generally leads to low participation. However there may be a solution to the problem. The pollution prevention and reduction program suggests the use of materials recovery facilities. Materials recovery facilities sort out recyclable materials from other waste products such as compostable items. By sorting out the waste at one central location more items get recycled and waste is reduced without public participation. A recent article by Wang (2010) suggests, “The installation of materials recovery facilities (MRFs) can be an alternative solution to the problem of low participation of voluntary household and curbside recycling in fast-growing cities.” Materials recovery facilities can be a viable solution for waste management problems where public participation is an obstacle. This solution also provides less societal impact because lifestyle change is not as critical.

As discussed earlier, the two groups i.e. intervention and control group used in the present study provided data from 100 and 279 households, respectively with the aim to estimate not only residents’ mean willingness to pay (MWTP) for proposed improved solid waste management services, but also to understand determining factors for their WTP responses. Besides, it also aimed to compare findings from two groups and see whether the interventions made had any impact on residents’ WTP behaviour or not. An attempt had also been made to identify possible reasons for similarities and