Welcome to the PWIA Newsroom

The PWIA represents private-sector waste haulers, landfill operators, and recyclers in Pennsylvania and is affiliated with the National Solid Wastes Management Association. As such, it is the principal voice of the waste industry in Pennsylvania.

If you are a member of the news media, please feel free to use the information on our Web site as a resource. If you are in need of further information or would like to arrange an interview, please call Don Sarvey at (717) 236-7716 or send an email to dsarvey@pposinc.com.

We archive news releases and other related editorial materials on this site for approximately a year and a half. Please contact Mr. Sarvey if you are searching for material you believe may have been cycled off the site.

News Releases

 

WM’s Judy Archibald ReceivesPennsylvania Resources Council Education Award

Newtown, Pa., Nov. 21, 2011 – Judy Archibald, Waste Management’s director of public affairs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, has received Pennsylvania Resources Council’s 2011 Leader in Environmental Education Award for her and Waste Management’s commitment to education.

Mrs. Archibald received the award during the Pennsylvania Resources Council’s (PRC) recent awards dinner at the Desmond Hotel in Malvern.

Click here to read the full story. (pdf 82kb)


Telling the ‘whole story’ of recycling at the Philadelphia Recycling Industries Congress on April 14

PHILADELPHIA—One of the accomplishments of the recent Philadelphia Recycling Industries Congress was to present a complete picture of how both sides of the private-sector recycling industry have come together to forge a mature business model that is making economic contributions to the city and the state as a whole.

“In the past, the supply and demand sides of the industry went their own ways and told their own stories separately. We didn’t always do a good job presenting the complete picture, the whole story,” said Tim O’Donnell, president of the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association (PWIA).

Click here to read the full story. (pdf 205kb)

 

Economic importance of recycling to PA on display in Capitol East Wing

HARRISBURG - Private-sector recyclers and companies that use recycled materials to make new products will showcase their contributions to Pennsylvania’s economy at the 2011 Pennsylvania Recycling Industries Congress on Feb. 15 in the Capitol’s East Wing Rotunda.

The first-ever event is being sponsored by the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association (PWIA) and the Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center (RMC).

Click here to read the full story. (pdf 29 Kb)

 
County Waste Taxes To Fund Recycling: An Unproductive Approach?

Recent history suggests that giving counties authorization to impose a tax of up to $4 per ton on municipal waste to support local recycling won’t accomplish anything other than enacting a new tax for the sake of a new tax.

An analysis by the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association of recycling in Pennsylvania from 1989 to 2005 (the most recent year for which statistics are available) strongly suggests that there is no positive correlation between “county fees” and the health of recycling.

Click here to read the full story. (pdf 47 Kb)
Chart 1

County Recycling Trends (pdf 551 Kb)
Chart 2

County Recycling Trends Per Capita (pdf 555 Kb)

 

Op-Ed Articles & Letters to the Editor
The New Economic Reality of Recycling

By Tim O’Donnell and Michele Nestor
The Recycling Industries Congress 2011 that takes place Tuesday, Feb. 15, in the Capitol East Wing Rotunda in Harrisburg is a first—the first time that the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association (PWIA) and the Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center (RMC) have joined forces to put a spotlight on the economic importance of recycling to Pennsylvania.

But it probably won’t be the last time.

Click here to read the full story. (pdf 29 Kb)
An Industry Moving to a New Culture

By Tim O’Donnell
As we enter the final year of the first decade of the 21st century, much around us is changing. Even the waste industry is changing. Perhaps considered an industry delivering a necessary but routine service by some - if considered at all - it is in reality on the cutting edge of environmental and energy technology.

A lot of people still think of landfills as "dumps". Dumps that really were dumps were common in Pennsylvania before 1968. They were unprotected holes in the ground where all kinds of waste were thrown away without a second thought. Dumps began disappearing in 1968 with the passage of the Solid Waste Management Act. Since then, the landfills that replaced dumps have evolved into highly engineered and closely regulated systems designed to protect the environment - and now even to create energy.

Click here to read the full story. (pdf 16 Kb)

Studies

RADIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION RESULTS FOR PENNSYLVANIA
LANDFILL LEACHATE:

2009 TRITIUM UPDATE
Prepared for the Environmental Research and Education Foundation,
March 31, 2010

http://erefdn.org/index.php/grants/fundedresearchinfo/2009_Tritium_Update/