EPA Spends $220M on Recycling & Waste Management
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its 2008 fiscal year Performance and Accountability Report. The report covers the EPA’s spending and program success within all of its sectors, including recycling and waste management.
Over $220 million was spent during the 2008 fiscal year in support of the EPA’s goals to preserve land through waste reduction, increase recycling and properly manage waste and petroleum products. According to the report, the EPA is “on track for meeting its recycling and waste reduction goals through the successes of partnership programs such as the Coal Combustion Partnership program, WasteWise and Plug-In to eCycling.”
While not all recycling data has been collected for the 2008 fiscal year, the EPA expects to meet its goal of diverting over 20 billion pounds of waste from landfills. To help increase the amount of waste diverted, the EPA sought to:
- Connect with local governments, organizations and businesses
- Create new recycling and reuse tool kits
- Demonstrate the significant energy savings and greenhouse gas reduction benefits of recycling municipal solid waste and industrial materials
The Plug-In to eCycling program was noted as especially successful, as data from 2007 were now available for review. Plug-In partners collected over 47 million pounds of electronics such as computers, televisions and cell phones for recycling in 2007.
