Pollution Prevention and Rethinking 'Waste

• Date: 01 June 2019

6-2019 NEWS & ANALYSIS 49 ELR 10515

DIALOGUE

Pollution Prevention and

Rethinking “Waste”

Summary

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is the call to arms of the

mainstream environmental movement. While these

actions may seem simple for households, decisions

to reduce, reuse, and recycle in the commercial and

industrial spheres require innovation, creativity, and

risk. New practices in the organic waste and haz ardous

waste sectors have revolutionized our perspectives on

waste and resource use, and contributed to reductions

in pollution. On January 31, 2019, the Environmen-

tal Law Institute hosted an expert panel that explored

how industrial and commercial institutions are nd-

ing sustainable, economic, and innovative solutions

for recycling undesirable materials. Below, we present

a transcript of the discussion, which has been edited

for style, clarity, and space considerations.

Jim McElsh (moderator) is a Senior Attorney and

Director of the Sustainable Use of Land Program at the

Environmental Law Institute (ELI).

Linda Breggin is a Senior Attorney and Co-Lead of the

Food Waste Initiative at ELI.

Byron R. Brown is a Senior Counsel at Crowell &

Mo ring L LP.

Carol Adai re Jones is a Visiting Scholar and Co-Lead of

the Food Waste Initiative at ELI.

Anna Vinogradova is the Director of Sustainability at

Wal ma r t.

Jim McElsh: ank you for joining us for this webinar

on Pollution Prevention and Ret hinking “Waste.” It’s a

broad and interesting topic. It covers the elements of what

we used to think of as waste streams, but that I believe we

should think of as material ows.

When we think of material ows, we’re harking back

to a time that predates the Environmental Law Institute’s

(ELI’s) 50 years of operation. I think of the Odum broth-

ers, Eugene and Howard, who focused on material and

energy ows as ways of thinking about ecology.1 Or we

can hark back to the National Environmental Policy Act

(N EPA ), 2 which is also approaching its 50th anniversary.

NEPA §101(b) set a national goal to enhance the quality

of renewable resources and approach the maximum att ain-

able recycling of depletable resources. So, these are old

ideas, but with new solutions and new approaches. I’d like

to think of this perhaps as the “sustainability of stu.”

We have an excellent panel covering a wide variety of top-

ics today. But as we will see, there are relationships among

these topics. We’ll be talking about food and food waste.

We’ll be talking about water and wastewater management,

and the energy and nutrient resources that are now being

recovered from wastewater processing and turned into

valuable products. We’ll be talking about electronic waste

in all of its many permutations and values. We’ll be ta lking

about packaging and the circu lar economy, and manag-

ing product lines and product supply chains in the retail

environment. Each panelist is an expert not only in one of

the areas, but, in many cases, in multiple areas that we’ll

be talking about.

Our rst panelist will be Linda Breggin. She’s a senior

attorney at ELI, and has been with the Institute for more

than 15 years. Before that, she had a career in federa l gov-

ernment, on the Hill and with the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA), and in private practice. Linda

is located in Nashville, where she also assists ELI with

our ongoing collaboration with Vanderbilt University

Law School.

After Linda, who wi ll primarily be addressing food and

food waste issues, we’ll hea r from Dr. Carol Jones, a visit-

ing scholar at ELI for the past ve year s. She ha s had a long

1. See, e.g., Eugene P. Odum, Energy Flow in Ecosystems: A Historical Review, 8

A. Z 11 (1968).

2. 42 U.S.C. §§4321-4370h, ELR S. NEPA §§2-209.

Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.