NOVEMBER 2019
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Harvey Gershman Presented with SWANA’s Lawrence Lecturer AwardThe Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) awarded Harvey Gershman, GBB Founder Owner Associate and Co-Founder, the prestigious 2019 Lawrence Lecture Award at WASTECON 2019, in Phoenix, AZ. The award is presented annually to an individual recognized as a leader and expert with a substantial, significant, and sustained contribution to the field of solid waste management / environmental protection.
As the 2019 Lawrence Lecture Award winner, Harvey was part of the line-up of keynote speakers at WASTECON as part of the Pathway to Innovation conference theme. He provided his firsthand take into the evolution of solid waste management since the ‘70s; lessons learned along the way; insight into key projects that have resulted in sustainable, efficient integrated waste management systems and accepted by their communities and leadership; and words of wisdom along with some interesting anecdotes based on his extensive industry experience!
See the 42-minute video of his keynote presentation:
In this 3-minute video, Harvey talks about his career, SWANA, and the Lawrence Lecture Award:
City of Huntsville, AL Launches New and Efficient Curbside Recycling ProgramEarly this past summer, the Recycling Alliance of North Alabama (RANA), a newly formed division of the Solid Waste Disposal Authority of the City of Huntsville (SWDA), launched a new free, opt-in curbside recycling program. As SWDA outgrew its previous recycling collection program, RANA was designed to be an ever-evolving program to fit the needs of residents and be more efficient, cost-effective and user-friendly.
Available to all residents of the City of Huntsville and Madison County, representing approximately 125,000 households ,the program’s most noticeable improvements are the expansion of recycling collection service to about 20,000 households previously unserved, and the replacement of 18-gallon bins with much larger 95-gallon rolling carts, allowing both less frequent servicing and automated collection, which is much less labor-intensive than the manual collection of the smaller bins.
GBB assisted SWDA’s decision-making process with the initial analysis of residential collection services and the development of strategies/options to improve the waste and recycling management infrastructure, leading to a new innovative once-a-month collection program. GBB was then tasked with leading the planning, procurement, stakeholders and community outreach, public education, and implementation assistance efforts, in partnership with McNeely Brockman Public Relations, to establish RANA and launch the new program.
Off to a Good StartThe new program has seen much success and participation over its first three months of operations. In June, residents were able to start registering for the program, and it had approximately 64,500 households participating in the first three months, up about 25,000 households from the previous program participation, with a set out rate over 80%.
Taunton, MA Moving Towards Sustainable Solution Blending Environmental Responsibility and Economic Viability
With a landfill expected to cease operations in the spring of 2020, the City of Taunton, MA has been evaluating short- and long-term alternatives for the disposable of its residential waste and processing of recyclables with GBB’s guidance. In early 2019, GBB began a two-prong strategy: a procurement to engage a contractor for interim disposal/processing in the short-term, and another parallel procurement process for waste conversion or other technologies to provide a long-term, permanent sustainable solid waste management system.
At an early September meeting, after review, evaluation and financial analysis of multiple alternatives, the Council moved to advance the most cost‐effective and risk‐aversive option: negotiations with the contractor recommended by the evaluation committee, out of 4 proposals received, for the short-term solution covering 12,000 tons of MSW and 5,000 tons of recyclables annually.
The request for information/qualifications for innovative long-term solutions yielded 7 responses ranging from various technologies to long-haul transport and disposal. The GBB Project team is evaluating the responses and moving along the multi-step procurement process towards the selection and implementation of a sustainable solution that is both responsible environmentally and economically viable. Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County Solid Waste Authority Measuring Impact of Recycling Policy ChangesIn the summer of 2018, shortly after changing the requirements for curbside recycling to only allow the “big four” recyclables (flattened cardboard, plastic bottles and jugs with narrow neck openings, metal food and beverage cans, and glass jars and bottles) -- a major departure from the previous recycling requirements -- the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA) tasked GBB with performing an initial characterization study on the collected recycling stream. About a year later, this past August, GBB performed a nearly identical study to compare the results, help measure the effectiveness of the policy and education efforts and adjust – if necessary -- education programs and enforcement going forward.
The final statistical comparison analysis has not been finalized, but some initial observations from the waste sort are as follows:
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