Unit-based pricing, also known as pay as you throw (PAYT), disposal bans, and recycling mandates are the three top strategies for increasing recovery rates and sustaining financing for collection and recovery in waste management systems, according to a white paper by the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment (Ameripen).The white paper, Ameripen Analysis of Strategies and Financial Platforms to Increase the Recovery of Used Packaging, says these three strategies can collectively help shift consumer practices away from waste disposal and towards recycling and other recovery strategies.
Despite the complexities of local solid waste management decisions, implementing pay as you throw collection systems can have significant impact on driving increased recovery and waste reduction. These programs are self-sustaining in that the costs of programs implementation are borne by the rate payers, the white paper says.
Both mandatory recycling and disposal bans have shown proven increases in material recovery, despite the challenges of enforcement. Redeployment of avoided landfill tipping fees and increased income from material recovery streams can provide financing to support infrastructure needs.
PKRMs are web-based matrices of primarily publicly available data and report findings, designed to house data in an interactive way. One PRKM has been developed for each of the Ameripen Recovery Work Group’s three teams: Packaging Material Data, Collection and Processing Infrastructure, and Recovery Systems.
