How Optimism Mixed with Waste & Recycling Makes A Storied Career with Susan Robinson

Great, thank you.

Certainly wasn't something I anticipated when I went to college, but started out working for an environmental organization. I thought I would do more water quality sort of issues and spent some time on the water and really enjoyed that. And then though, as part of that work with the Washington Environmental Council, it was during the time when the City of Seattle was looking at what they were going to do with their waste in the long run. I participated on a couple of committees and was smitten by it and really found it very interesting. And ultimately ended up working for the City of Seattle for several years. From there, my career really moved towards a nice rounding of different topics from recycling, marketed recyclables, and did some market studies for recycling, and did some compost work for a consulting company as well. And ultimately landed at Waste Management, working with municipal customers for the most part for the first decade of my career. And then over the last several years, have been doing Public Affairs, which more recently actually has evolved to a new position at Waste Management where I'm leading our sustainability team. So we're actually now, I'm Senior Director of Sustainability and Policy for Waste Management, which has been a really fun transition and kind of I think pulling together those 30 years in my career to be able to now really shape the sustainability culture and effort of Waste Management. So it's pretty exciting.

Thank you.

You know, I will say I don't, I won't say I make a conscious effort to engage, but I will say I do make a conscious effort to respond, if that makes sense. I'm just so thrilled at some of the young professionals who are so passionate about the environment and about making a difference and finding ways to connect what they see we as a company or as an industry are doing. And so just have been so grateful for the opportunity to think about what the future holds and help if I can. You know, anything I can do to mentor and offer thoughts for folks, you know, I always say they're way smarter than I am. So if I can listen to them and if there's anything just in my years of experience I can offer them, great. And if it can be helpful, I'm so happy to be able to do that.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's a really great question. So when I think about when I first started at Waste Management, boy, did it look different than it does today. And I will also say I feel like there's always been a conscious effort to be inclusive at the company, and I have been so grateful for that. I've never taken that for granted, that inclusivity has really been, I think, very conscious. I've had some wonderful mentors at Waste Management, quite frankly, both women and men. We had a senior vice president for several years who made a point to really help women grow at the company. He was just a wonderful mentor to many of us, and I always look for the opportunity to thank him for what he's done, as well as women who've come before me. So I would say especially as our industry has become more diverse in what we do, we also are seeing more diversity in who is participating, if that makes sense. We no longer are in the waste industry, we are in a materials management industry. And if you think about all the different places that gives us the ability to engage in different interests and different skill sets, from energy, I mean that's a really interesting one in and of itself, you know, organics, technology, huge investments in technology and things that we're doing, and the concepts of sustainability and really the evolution of those concepts of sustainability as they include more of the social aspects of what we do, that naturally then I think lends itself to being more inclusive of a broader skill set, a broader interest by the type of folks at the company and in the industry.

You know, we actually started on this path well over a decade ago. We looked to what was happening with the times going to landfills, and we paid attention and listened to our customers. And we heard loud and clear and started to see in some parts of the country that there was a change taking place. And so we've been very conscious and very deliberate about investing in technologies and programs and research to be able to anticipate that change. So I've been fortunate to be able to be part of that dialogue now for over a decade. And what I've learned over that decade is we are a reflection of our customers, and customers across the country are very, very different. From different pockets of the country and different areas even within states, there's a lot of variability. And so one of the things that we always are balancing is what are our customers ready for, what are they looking for, what are the services that are technically available to our customers, and how could we help really meet the needs of our customers and meet them where they are, looking to the future.

Yes, Rob Hallenbeck is really a gem. We always say he's the smartest guy at Waste Management. He's pretty dang smart. So he's really devoted. We worked together to kind of create the model several years ago. Our CEO came to us and he basically said, you know, I'm kind of curious, there's a lot of stress on recycling right now. I'd love to know, you know, we can certainly recycle anything, give us enough money and we can recycle anything. What's the spectrum of choices that we have and what's the cost for that spectrum of choices of how we manage material and what's the actual impact? And really, are we looking at it in the right perspective? So we basically took the whole US waste stream, then we looked at the services we provide, from if we were to just collect everything and put it in the landfill, what's the cost, then what's the environmental impact, all the way through residential collection of recyclables, commercial collection of recyclables, yard waste, food waste, more processing. What if we then put in a lot of expensive technologies to gasify that material and see what kind of energy we get out of it, and then what's left over after that? And we really found a couple of key points. One, that sweet spot, which is if we recycle the right things, which is your traditional paper, cans, bottles, cardboard, we get about 80% of the environmental impact and really at the lowest cost overall. From there, we start to add more materials that have an incremental environmental benefit, but sometimes that cost goes up really high. So it was a really interesting kind of aha moment for me that said, hmm, maybe we're not really... I have to say it really did change a lot of how I do my job, which is to think more about the environmental impacts of what we're doing and not just take for granted that what we've been doing for the last 30 years is the best way to do it for the next 30 years. But let's use that data and that science and let's make decisions that really will have the best overall environmental impact.

You know, I feel like we are, but boy, is it slow. You know, I have to say, human behavior is really hard. It's hard to change. I always think people like me with gray hair, we kind of need to retire so that we kind of allow for this new, you know, these new young folks that we talked about earlier to come in and think differently about how we manage material. Because I think we sometimes are so ingrained in 20 and 30 years of doing it one way, it's very hard to shift our thinking. So I've been surprised at that. I will say though, I think with current market conditions the way they are, we're almost being forced to step back and to think differently. It's not all bad. Sometimes, as you know, we always say, maybe overuse, crisis creates opportunity. But you know, as we are in this really tough market condition, I do think it is forcing us to look at everything a little bit differently. And indeed, we are finding some communities that are really having to reflect upon what is the right decision for us as we look forward.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We actually just had this conversation yesterday because markets have continued to fall. Cardboard in some parts of the country is 85% of the value of what it was a couple years ago. The commodity pricing is the lowest it's been in a decade. And so we talked internally, like, okay, how do you feel about this? And again, I'm going to really revisit the emphasis on the long run. Then, although this is a prolonged market downturn, we're investing probably more than we've ever invested in our programs and our infrastructure. And we are really looking to the long run. We've got $110 million in investment last year, probably that much this year, and anticipated for next year. Markets, you know, we can see where the mills are building and expanding, and we can see where demand is going to start pulling its weight again for paper. So we are maintaining that optimism. We're moving material even at a cost. We're moving material to market, and by golly, we're staying optimistic and we're going to just forge ahead with new facilities. We're building new facilities this year and really looking to the future of a successful recycling program. It does though, you know, make us I think much more pragmatic about what we do and how we do it, and I think a little bit more firm about making sure that we're recycling the right things and that we're really focusing on that quality aspect of recycling.

I think they're changing a lot. In fact, I think a couple things are happening. I think MRFs are being certainly a lot more careful about what they accept on the inbound stream, and they're developing more protocols and procedures for ensuring that it's a cleaner stream coming in the door. A lot of MRFs are also investing in more technology to be able to become more efficient. Our costs have skyrocketed as we've had to increase our quality out the back end. So to do that, we've invested in a lot more technologies to become more efficient and do a better job of producing a higher quality material at the back end. And all of that happens as we continue to see a change in that waste stream. And it's funny, you know, we started talking about it a couple of years ago, the changing waste stream, and boy, are we seeing it. You know, it's really a lot of shifts. Even though we still see about 80% of the material that we manage is paper in our single stream, or about 65% of the material that we manage is paper. So there's still a lot of paper in the stream, and that's fundamentally the biggest commodity that we're handling. But we have a lot more technology to be able to make sure that we're getting all the right materials in the right places and making sure that it's clean for our end markets.

So we get asked that question a lot, and I keep revisiting it because I do know that there are some communities that have decided to either stay with the dual stream or even revert to a dual stream. But I would say for a couple of reasons, we do not anticipate much of a change in programs. One, the huge amount of investments in single stream programs between trucks and processing capacity. And one of the reasons is because it's a lot less expensive. Over 60% of the cost of recycling programs is in the collection, and so single stream keeps that cost down by making the trucks more efficient on the route. And kind of part and parcel with that is they require less drivers, and we have a driver shortage. And so that concept of more labor is something that really I think at the end of the day will play a huge role. And then I think finally, well, there's kind of two more things. There's a lot of reasons here. Safety. Single stream collection is much more safe for our customers, for our drivers, in that we can have automated collection. And then for the customer perspective, our customers like it. They love it. It's convenient. More people recycle and they recycle more. And I think as we focus more on education around quality, we'll start to see that we can overcome some of the challenges of the quality of material in single stream programs and take much more advantage of all those benefits that you see with single stream.

I think we're trying to catch up, quite frankly. I wouldn't say keeping up. I think we're working hard to use this opportunity to catch up. You know, I think about it a lot, and policy is everything in our business. Whether it's creating the demand for recyclables, whether it's creating the economic drivers for recycling, which ultimately then you can create the kind of social economic investment in our recycling programs. I think we have a huge opportunity to catch up. And in some parts of the country, I think that's driven a complete culture change around how we consider not just recycling but more around the environment. And then we have some places that I think we really have a lot of opportunity to do a lot more.

Well, I mean, when I think about local governments, I think, you know, there's a lot of issues that local politicians have to deal with. Recycling, waste management issues are one issue. And sometimes I think we need to do a better job of recognizing kind of the suite of pressures that many local communities have. So I kind of have two thoughts on that. I think in some places, perhaps state policy creating umbrella policies will help, I'll use the word, give cover to those local elected officials to help them implement programs and perhaps kind of rise above some of the local pressure they compete with. At the same time, I'll say I just think we need to recognize that there are a lot of things out there competing for folks' attention, and we need to be very mindful of that and meet people where they are, help them to do the best that they can, and be realistic about our expectations at the same time.

Yeah, and sometimes we can get pretty deep into the weeds on how to recycle right and what to recycle. And if we can't keep it straight, how in the world can we expect folks who have a million other things on their mind to even try to keep it straight? So it's a challenge I think that we will probably always struggle with. I don't think there's a simple, easy answer to that.

Yes, and that's certainly an area of focus that we've had. As you know, we have our Recycle Often, Recycle Right education program and have spent a lot of time and research making sure that we are understanding what those best ways are to communicate simply to our customers.

Yeah, I think about the circular economy much the way I think about zero waste. And I also think about circular economy as a partnership or a complement to life cycle thinking. So I'm a big fan of life cycle thinking, the concept of using science, using what we know, the emissions analysis for different activities, materials, and products, and trying to use that to shape how we manage material. So my kind of philosophy I've been evolving towards is if we can, not all of a sudden always think about the circular economy, because I'm not sure that's going to drive us to make the right decisions. If all you're thinking about is circularity, you may not make decisions that actually drive the best environmental results. But if we use life cycle thinking to create programs and processes that have the best environmental results, pretty soon we start to evolve towards the circular economy. So I see much more of an incremental, evolutionary effort to get us where we're going as opposed to trying to look at the end run and not contemplate really what those steps are along the way. So it may be just terminology, I'm not sure, but I think I do worry that circularity sounds so good, it's such a great soundbite and such a great visual. You know, life is more complicated than that. And I think we need to be much more thoughtful about the details of what we're doing in order to drive us towards that best environmental solution. Because in some cases we may not have made decisions that really ultimately were the best in the short run, but we can actually use our knowledge now to kind of work our way towards those better environmental solutions.

I think there are some places where we can look towards. Well, I'll provide a broader scale. Say the first thing, technology for our fleet. You think about historically, one of our biggest impacts is our fleet, right? We're on the trucks, on the road in neighborhoods and communities every single day across the country. And we now have changed to a natural gas fleet. By the end of this year, 60% of all of our route trucks will be running on compressed natural gas, and we're also using renewable natural gas in those trucks. So those are getting close to being a near-zero emissions fleet for us as we move towards renewable natural gas in our trucks. So that's one piece of the story. That's a pretty exciting evolution of a big part of the services that we provide. So there's an example in 10 years' time, really, which we started that process in the early 90s, but really about 10 years ago made that commitment to that fleet. And then as we move towards renewable natural gas, that's pretty exciting. Then what we're doing is we're doing more with the fleet, and we're using more cameras on trucks, both for safety reasons and for customer communication. And one of the things I get excited about is how do we use technology, let's say on a truck, to be able to change behavior with our customers for recycling. Now, there's where I've always said for the time I've worked for Waste Management, is we have really tried to find equipment to solve human behavior problems or issues, challenges. And sometimes it just takes more change of behavior, you can't do it all with the equipment or technology. But here we are with an opportunity to change behavior using technology. If we use cameras on trucks to help identify where we have contamination and we can communicate with customers to help them have immediate feedback to be able to improve the quality of their material, that's a win-win all the way around. We can be more efficient in how we have that communication and we can help drive that behavior change. So I think that's one simple place that I'm seeing an enormous opportunity to use that evolution of technology to really drive a lot of positive change in our industry.

Yeah, and then we've certainly, at the recycling facilities themselves, you see a lot of technology evolutions. So when I first started, I was so excited about an eddy current that separated aluminum. I mean, that was pretty good. And then over time we put in optical sorters. And so we've got now many, many optical sorters used for many different kinds of materials. They're probably one of the staple technologies in our facilities. And as we use robots, with robotics, we have, I think, several that we're trying to see which one. We've got, I think, four that are in use right now, so that's exciting. And then we're actually using AI at one of our landfills. We have a pilot, we're actually using AI for the equipment on the face of the landfill. So it's a really great pilot that is one that we think has some great opportunities. So a lot of different places for us to really find ways to optimize the services that we provide.

Yeah, it is exciting. You're right. And it actually, again, while it's challenging, it's really forced sometimes. You know, when things are challenging or when things are going really well, you can be complacent. And I think that for us, this is an opportunity to really go to the next step, take advantage of the attention and the focus, and really drive towards better solutions.

I think there's certainly a lot more dialogue around it, probably a couple of years, and I think it's getting a little bit more granular, I would say. So I look at producer responsibility more broadly around producers taking responsibility, and we see a lot of that happening in the United States. I mean, it's pretty impressive the amount of energy that producers and manufacturers and brands are putting into trying to really make their products and their packages a lot better. As it comes to extended producer responsibility, there's a lot of activity in hard-to-handle materials, and we're seeing certainly an elevated discussion around some sorts of packaging as well. So one of the things we've talked about is, you know, what does it look like in the US? Does it need to look like it does in other countries? And how can we have a broader dialogue around extended producer responsibility, make sure that folks really understand what it is? Because honestly, when you look at extended producer responsibility, the results aren't, in many ways, you know, there's a whole suite of policies that one can use to drive behaviors. And for example, I look at where I live in the Pacific Northwest, we've got the policies in place that really make many areas as good as any place in the world. It doesn't require extended producer responsibility. It's just a set of policies that drive that behavior. So I think we are becoming more comprehensive in our discussions to make sure that we're evaluating really what do you give up, what do you gain, what are the pros and the cons, and let's be smart about having that dialogue.

Well, I think we need to be paying attention to a couple of things. One is demand, the demand for material, and that applies to not only recyclables but it applies to organics. And I worry that we don't think carefully enough about creating the sufficient demand to pull material through, that creates that manufacturing of that feedstock for other materials. We're still having a hard time adjusting from thinking of a supply-side focus and a diversion focus. So one of the things I've been thinking about is 30 years ago when we started curbside programs, we had a lot of recycling before then, right? Recycling is as old as time, but we recycled to create feedstocks to make other things, and it was done for a very deliberate reason. And it only happened when you were going to use a material to make something. When we shifted to curbside recycling programs, we really, to get people to participate, we changed the narrative to a diversion focus away from a feedstock for a product focus, and we lost sight of why we're recycling. So I think we have an opportunity now to hopefully change that narrative back to recycling as a manufacturing feedstock and organics as a feedstock for something else. It's not about a diversion to get your numbers up, it's about the environmental benefits of offsetting the use of virgin resources. And so by doing that, then we can focus more on reduction and we can focus on making sure that we're recycling the right things well, so that we truly have a feedstock for new materials. If we aren't making things into new products, we've wasted a lot of time and energy for something that really has no environmental value. And I don't think we've done a good enough job yet of recognizing how important that demand-side pull is and that manufacturing process really is.

Yes, it really has. It really has. It's unfortunately changed pretty deeply, and so it's a big swing and it's a very tough one then to switch that pendulum back and be a little more thoughtful on how we really consider the approach that we take to how we manage material.

Oh, it's an exciting one. Come in with open eyes and come with a mind that's open to thinking about things really differently. Don't get too ingrained in those age-old paradigms that we've had. Come in and challenge us folks with gray hair to do things differently and to think beyond recycling and think to the environment. I think if I could say nothing else, it's don't think of it in a myopic way, but think about really why we're doing this, the many opportunities we have to think differently in the future and to do things differently. The way we're managing materials today sure as heck better look different in 30 years. It looks different than it did 30 years ago, and it needs to continue to evolve. The materials that we're using and how we live, it's going to change dramatically, which means we can't do things the same way looking to the future. We need to really look ahead and recognize that we need to be open and willing to embrace technology, embrace education and outreach, and different kinds of thinking to meet our customers where they are and to make that change for the environment in the future.

I am in beautiful Seattle. I'm a big hiker, and I happen to have my family here this weekend. My baby grandson here on the East Coast, so I get to play and be grandma for the weekend, which is pretty exciting.

Thank you, I can tell.

Well, hopefully opportunities like this will continue to arise, and I certainly am always happy to respond when people reach out to me. And I think there are just so many great opportunities across the country to do good things and to think differently and to look to the future and remember that this is a cycle. Stay in it for the long run. We're going to come out, be smart in how we do it, be smart with our programs, and we'll work through it and really keep the long term in mind.

Great, thank you so much.