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The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been a leader in solid waste disposal for 30 years. Pennsylvania passed its first law regulating solid waste in 1968. It was the Solid Waste Management Act (Act 241 of 1968). Before 1968, solid waste was unregulated, on both the federal level and in Pennsylvania.
The industrial revolution and the post-World War I and post-World War II waste-disposal practices by government at all levels, individuals, and businesses led to significant environmental problems. These unregulated land disposal practices led to Superfund nightmares like Love Canal in New York and hundreds of contaminated sites throughout Pennsylvania. All of this activity was legal at the time. There were no laws. There was no “waste management industry.” What Pennsylvania had in 1968 were more than 1,100 landfills, hundreds of hazardous waste facilities, and countless “brownfields.”
The Solid Waste Management Act mandated an inventory of all operating sites through a registration program administered by the Board of Health, the predecessor to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the preparation of a statewide solid waste management plan. This inventory and the early efforts of the Board of Health and DEP led to the 1980 amendments to the Solid Waste Management Act (Act 97 of 1980).
The 1980 amendments were a watershed, creating the basic framework of solid waste management as it exists today. They created a permit scheme for all sites accepting solid waste in Pennsylvania, including transfer stations, processing facilities, resource recovery facilities, and disposal facilities. They implemented the “cradle to grave” approach to hazardous waste management legislated by Congress in 1976 (the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act). They included a first of its kind “bad actor” provision requiring full disclosure of environmental violations, vesting in DEP the authority to deny repeat violators the right to do business in Pennsylvania. Finally, they provided DEP with an array of new enforcement options, including the power to issue administrative orders, the right to deny permits, and the ability to impose civil penalties up to $25,000 per day per violation and criminal penalties.
The result: 1,100 landfills dwindled to fewer than 100 over eight years.
This period witnessed the birth of the solid waste industry. Town dumps were closed either voluntarily or involuntarily. Antiquated city-run incinerators were shut down because they were unable to meet Clean Air Act requirements. The “bad actors”—those who refused to follow the new law and regulations—were denied permits and forced out of Pennsylvania.
In their place arose highly capitalized companies. In Pennsylvania and nationally, waste businesses underwent consolidation, both vertically (collection and disposal) and horizontally (multiple sites). Public companies and professional staffs became the norm.
So, in eight short years, solid waste disposal in Pennsylvania was transformed — from an unskilled trade to a highly skilled profession.
Today, the industry consists of skilled corporate and professional staffs, scientists, geologists, hydrogeologists, biologists, engineers, and physicists. The subspecialties are too numerous to list.
The Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association (PWIA) represents the private-sector disposal site operators and waste haulers in Pennsylvania. In 2000, our industry handled and disposed of approximately 13 million tons of non-hazardous waste generated by Pennsylvania households and businesses.
This new industry of professionals has worked cooperatively with DEP since the 1980s. Together they focused their energies on the science and technology of waste disposal. The leadership of DEP and the technological and engineering advances of companies and individuals in the waste industry brought about Pennsylvania’s municipal waste regulations of 1988. These regulations were recognized then, and still are recognized now, as the nation’s most advanced and protective requirements governing the design and siting of landfills.
These regulations created an environmental assessment process for both new sites and expansions. They addressed such considerations as liner systems, leachate management, gas management, and insurance and financial-assurance mechanisms.
All landfills in Pennsylvania were compelled to meet these new, stringent requirements — or close.
Rapid growth and change are often accompanied by growing pains. Pennsylvania learned this during the eight-year transformation of the waste industry. By 1988, the reduction of disposal sites from 1,100 to fewer than 100 and the issuance of no new permits changed the balance of supply and demand. As landfill space disappeared, prices for disposal rose from $15 per ton to $120 per ton in some parts of the state. This created a solid waste crisis. The solution was the Commonwealth’s adoption of the Municipal Waste Planning, Recycling and Waste Reduction Act (Act 101 of 1988).
Act 101 required all counties to plan for solid waste management and to contract for 10 years of available disposal capacity. It also set forth aggressive recycling goals and incentives and mandated curbside recycling in certain municipalities. It set up a $2 per ton recycling fee to subsidize curbside collection and a $1 per ton host municipality benefit fee to provide a financial benefit to municipalities that host disposal sites.
Today, Pennsylvania’s solid waste industry, both public and private sectors, consists of 49 commercial solid waste landfills and six waste-to-energy (resource recovery) facilities. Today’s landfills are model sites that employ the best available technology.
- They are designed with redundant systems to prevent pollution.
- They are operated in a manner that prevents litter, noise, and odors.
- They employ rigorous quality control and quality-assurance procedures.
- They are scrutinized by perimeter groundwater monitoring wells and gas probes.
In all, these sites are closely regulated by multiple layers of governmental oversight, starting with the host municipality and extending through DEP to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The vast majority of these sites are viewed as good neighbors and benefactors to their host communities.
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