Exploring the Connection Between Covid 19, Waste Management, Recycling and Sustainability

Good evening everyone and welcome to exploring the connection between COVID-19, waste management, recycling, and sustainability. My name is Richard Johnson, I'll be your host for this evening. I serve as the sustainability director at Rice University. I also co-chair the Rice University Environmental Studies Program. I want to begin by thanking the Rice Graduate Student Association and in particular David Valerio as well as the Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies for helping to put together tonight's program.

COVID-19 has changed everything everywhere. Besides the obvious economic and public health consequences of the pandemic, the novel coronavirus has also impacted consumption patterns and waste management processes and upended plans by some of the so-called circular economy. Add to this the volatility in oil prices, strong demand for plastic single-use food containers, personal protective equipment, disruptions in supply chains, COVID-19 outbreaks amongst sanitation workers, and on and on. This pandemic has truly hurled the waste management sector into a new normal that looks very different than what we considered normal as recently as six months ago.

So our panel of experts will discuss these impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular as they relate to our greater Houston region, which is known of course as the energy capital of the world, home of the world's largest medical center, the top-ranked port for export tonnage in the U.S., and the fourth largest municipal solid waste operation in the United States.

Tonight we are joined by three panelists. I will ask them to introduce themselves, but briefly we have Sarah Mason who is the City of Houston's division manager for recycling and environmental services. We have Rachel Middle who is the fellow in energy and environment at the Baker Institute here at Rice University, and Susan Robinson, senior director of sustainability at Waste Management, headquartered here in Houston.

Tonight's webinar will be an hour long. Each panelist will give a brief talk of about five or ten minutes, and then we will follow those presentations up with Q&A. I'll start with some pre-selected questions, but we invite your participation. So you can use the question and answer function that you see in the screen in front of you, and we will sort those questions and present them to our experts. So let's start with quick introductions. We'll start with Rachel and Sarah, and then Susan, and then we're going to ask Rachel to provide her talk. So first Rachel, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Hi, well thanks for the introduction Richard, and thanks everybody for joining us for our second in the series of waste management and energy. And I appreciate all of you participants who are tuning in. As Richard mentioned, I'm a fellow in energy and environment for the Center for Energy Studies at the Baker Institute, and waste management and plastics and sustainability is something that I focus on. And I have a long history and a long relationship in the waste management field, particularly hazardous waste. And so I've seen over the last 20 some years in this business just how complex and difficult it can be to manage waste, and especially when we're talking about the global scale of this and now facing the pandemic and the hurricane season that's upon us. So it shepherds in a whole lot of issues, and so I'm happy to be here this evening with you all to expound further on some of the connections between COVID-19, waste management, sustainability. So thanks for joining us.

Thank you Rachel. Sarah?

Sorry, good evening. Just unmuting, that's the new thing of 2020. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. I'm excited to talk about recycling and sustainability and some of the programs and goals we have at the City of Houston and also how we've been impacted by COVID. As Richard mentioned, I am the division manager for recycling and environmental services within the City of Houston Solid Waste Management Department. And so that includes overseeing our drop-off operations, strategic initiatives including our long-range plan, and working with public outreach and community outreach and public information on our recycling education campaigns and trying to improve residential recycling behavior. So I've worked for the city over 14 years, a large part of that focused on waste reduction and recycling specifically. So I'm excited to have the discussion.

Thank you so much Sarah. And Susan, can you tell us about yourself and your role at Waste Management?

Thank you so much. Rachel is going to begin the presentations with slides that will help to provide an overview, if you will, of some key data for today's discussion as well as some of the vocabulary that you'll probably be hearing throughout the hour. Rachel?

Okay, thank you. So let me see... Okay, well hold on a sec here, let me go to the beginning. Okay, sorry about that folks. Okay, all right, all right, oh my gosh, okay, hold on, here we go. Okay, here, oh my gosh, there's like a delay. All right, here we are. All right folks, so there's just a few issues that I wanted to introduce to offer some clarity and a starting point for our discussion today. And first I want to elucidate on what sustainability is and what it's not. Most people equate sustainability as solely having an environmental focus, you know, whether that means preserving future generations or attaining some type of ecological equilibrium. But sustainability as we know it, it's so much more than environmental preservation or choosing a presumed eco-friendly option or even switching to renewables. It's the systems level philosophy and it integrates the environmental, social, and economic aspects as you can see here. And aside from these, there's a whole lot of sub-domains in this, geopolitical and cultural and socio-technical. And so what it is, it's an assessment and an equilibrium of all of these key factors, and that's what leads to long-term balance and profit growth. And so this is what sustainability is, and it has to be assessed from a life cycle perspective, which I'll expound upon in just a moment here. But you know, as our economy globalizes, it's become even more critical to find ways to account for all of these different dimensions of what constitutes sustainability.

Okay, and so this is our current business model largely, and it's a linear economy where we take materials, you know, we make products, we use them, and we dispose of them. So ideally our goal is to gravitate from what is a linear economy, you know, such as this, to migrating towards circularity where we can design for durability and reuse and repair and design for dismantling. But we're not quite there yet. We're making small strides in that area, but this is really the desired state. So when we talk about sustainability solutions in this sense, when we talk about energy transition, it really revolves around this model. And this model is gaining a whole lot of popularity for achieving local, national, and international sustainability goals. And what this is, it's a business model that keeps materials at its highest value throughout its entire life. So an industrial system that's regenerative by design, where we replace the end-of-life concept with restoration, and we aim for elimination of waste through a superior and effective design of materials and products and systems. But more effort is really needed in responsible extraction and upfront design and re-engineering of materials so that the end of life can be reinserted back into the economy with a second, third, or you know, ideally infinite life.

And so this is what a life cycle flow diagram looks like. Very basically, it's used by decision makers in governments and in businesses, and it's used to confront some of the issues and challenges that we see as we search for sustainable solutions. And they help us inform decisions by looking at the environmental impacts across the entire life cycle from raw materials extraction all the way to final disposal. And due to its systemic and cradle-to-grave approach, life cycle assessments are considered fundamental to help provide the support we need to integrate sustainability into decision making. And I think this is, you know, I'll be having an entire webinar in the near future here talking about life cycle assessments and some of the challenges with the current ones that we have and the gaps in the system and what we need to move to to really get a bigger picture of full sustainability that accounts not just for the environmental impacts but also integrates the social impacts and the economic impacts as well.

All right, so this is the waste management hierarchy, and this has been the basis of waste management policy for the better part of 30 years. And it's a preferential order of waste treatment options that aims to reduce the environmental impacts by prioritizing prevention, reuse, and recycling and recovery over landfill. And the origins of this can be summarized as a desire to divert waste from a landfill. So in Europe it was in response to mounting volumes of waste coupled with a shortage in landfill space, and in the United States it resulted in the risks to landfilling of untreated hazardous waste and the risk to human health and the environment. Adherence to this waste hierarchy is oftentimes equated with the least environmental impact and saving of resources, which in practical reality for those of practitioners here, it doesn't always coincide with this hierarchy. And we can unpack some of that in this webinar. But you know, so the best environmental outcomes may not necessarily be guaranteed, nor is it certain that natural resources are saved or most effectively utilized by adhering to this hierarchy. So in some cases the most preferred option, and sometimes the only feasible option from a life cycle perspective and from a sustainability perspective, again incorporating the social, economic factors along with the environmental factors, may in fact be energy recovery or landfill. So there's many factors to consider in here. So this hierarchy, what it does, it communicates the relative desirability of waste management options, but it really doesn't give an indication with regards to trade-offs with activities outside of the waste management and the social, environmental, and the economic impact of a local economy.

And so what this slide represents, and we won't go into the details here, but it represents plastic waste only, and it doesn't include municipal solid waste, it doesn't include hazardous waste or military waste. Globally we generate over 2 billion tons of municipal solid waste, and that's every year. And very conservatively, with MSW, about 33% is mismanaged. Our global waste generation in general is expected to grow over 3.5 billion tons by 2050. And our daily per capita waste generation in high-income countries is projected to increase by about 20% compared to low- and middle-income countries, which will be about somewhere along 40%. So I wanted to highlight these recycling figures in here, and as you can see, the U.S. is around 9% of plastic waste management. You know, globally we're at 16%, so these are still some rather dire figures. And there's reasons why it's like this, but essentially we have a lot of mismanaged waste that's going on out there. And the figures for this are likely more so if you think about the materials that are recycled and our recycling systems and the technologies that we have with mechanical recycling and its limitations. You know, we end up downcycling many of the materials that we have. So those materials that we downcycle eventually end up as waste. So I mean, some of these figures may be actually more than what's represented here, but this is essentially a global picture of our plastic waste management at the moment.

And so what this is supposed to be, but the visualization is not working here. What it's supposed to be is a time-lapse visualization of world trade flows of plastic waste from the years 1988 to 2018. And so I show this slide and apologize for it not working because it's really pretty dramatic when you see it. I show this really to demonstrate the interconnectedness of our global economy. The pandemic has really highlighted that fact. You know, our supply chains are inextricably linked, which is why decisions at the local level and the regional level should also keep in mind the global context of things. And so with COVID and the other calamities in our system and China's import restrictions in 2018, it has really illustrated how connected our societies are. And if we want a more circular, sustainable future, we really have to be cognizant of the global picture.

Rachel, thank you so much for providing that context. And we're already getting compliments regarding your slides in the Q&A. People are hopeful that they will be made available. So Sarah, you're next.

Okay, sorry, there seems to be a little delay there. Great, thank you. Wonderful information Rachel, and I think really sets the stage nicely for our discussion this evening and thinking about that circular economy and the transition from a more linear, finite approach to things when there's more infinite options if you incorporate recoverability, recyclability, compostability. For my part, I wanted to give a little bit of background on exactly, you know, the role of the Solid Waste Management Department within the City of Houston and kind of what we do on a day-to-day basis. So Richard mentioned we have the fourth largest municipal solid waste operation in the country. We're the fourth largest city in the country, so that aligns nicely. We do provide solid waste services to the residents of Houston. So if you live within the City of Houston and you have a large green recycling cart and a large black trash can, you likely have City of Houston solid waste services. Our services include once a week garbage collection, once a week yard waste collection which is grass and leaves that we collect in compostable bags so those can be diverted to composting. We do every other week single-stream recycling collection, and then we also do bulky waste and tree waste collection. Those are in alternating months. So starting with the odd months, we do tree waste collection every month and that material is also diverted to compost and mulch. And then in the even-numbered months we do a heavy trash collection or bulky waste, which is like your old couch or your washing machine or a fence that you took down, something that's too large to fit inside of your garbage cart.

In addition to that, we operate 13 different drop-off locations. Six of those are neighborhood depository and recycling centers where you can take that bulky waste in between your collection day and also traditional recyclables, bottles, cans, paper, cardboard. But even from our neighborhood depositories, we also try to divert other materials as well. So we do concrete recycling, tire recycling, mattress recycling, and then like scrap metal recycling. So if it was say a chain-link fence that you took down and brought to us, then we're going to take that to a scrap metal recycler. So then after our drop-off locations, we also do a household hazardous waste collection, and then we have our West Park Consumer Recycling Center where we take recycling, and we also have our Building Materials Reuse Center where we collect reusable building materials from anyone and make them available to non-profit organizations for reuse at no cost. So that's sort of generally what we do on a day-to-day basis.

Of course on top of that, and what we're really unfortunately but fortunately experts at here in the Houston area, is we're first responders for debris collection after a natural disaster. You know, we've spent the past couple of days prepping as it is now. Hurricane Laura may or may not cause us an impact, but as soon as the storm stops, we're some of the very first people out on the street picking up whatever debris may have been left, whether that's tree debris like we saw from Hurricane Ike. We collected I think it was somewhere between five to six million cubic yards of vegetative debris from that storm, which we were able to divert almost 90% of that away from the landfill to other uses, composted mulch mostly. Or if it's an event like Hurricane Harvey where it's more flood debris, we're also out picking up that material. Those operations are very different. Vegetative debris is a little bit easier to load and a little quicker to handle. What we found after Hurricane Harvey, when you have like an entire house of material at the curb and a lot of that material is wet and waterlogged and smooshy, the loading is a little bit slower, and so that did take a little bit longer to clear that material.

We put out information in advance. I would be remiss if I don't give everyone who may be listening in the Houston area a reminder now that if you do find yourself with storm debris, there are six categories we ask that you separate that into: your regular household trash, any electronics, white goods which are appliances, household hazardous waste, vegetative debris, and other large heavy trash. That information is available on our website. So that's a big part of what we do as well, and a really important part of our operations on top of my mind today as we're in the middle of the heat of hurricane season. But more importantly, we've also been dealing with an unprecedented health pandemic disaster, which is something I don't think anyone had a lot of experience with, and that has certainly impacted us as well.

In the same as all of our peer communities across the state and across the nation, we've seen our residential volumes increase as people have switched to working from home, to doing school from home. The material that they may have generated at work or at school that normally goes in a collection container at those locations is now being generated at their house. And so they're putting that material into their garbage cart, into the recycling cart. Our department, like everyone else, we are first responders and we're absolutely essential. It's essential that we keep that collection going. That helps maintain a sense of normalcy and reduce panic in a time when folks are worried about all sorts of things. That's part of the role immediately after a natural disaster and that's been part of our role during this pandemic as well. But we are still people and we've also been impacted with absenteeism because we've had employees impacted or exposed to the virus, their family members have been sick. So it's certainly had an impact. We've had unexpected expenses by needing additional PPE, additional sanitizing of our trucks and of our work spaces that we've increased to protect our employees' health. So it has had an impact on what we've been doing.

You know, a lot of communities have had to cut back on some of their programs, of their operations, some of their education and outreach. We are fortunate, we've not had any service reductions to date. But you know, we have still felt the impact of that and are looking to utilize some of the CARES money from the federal government to help with some of those additional expenses. And then looking forward, we've been working on a long-range plan, a 20-year long-range plan looking at our operations and the waste generated that both we touch as the City of Houston, the tons we collect, but then also the tons that are generated in the city at large and how we plan adequately for solid waste infrastructure, funding of our services, increasing reuse, recycling, and waste reduction, and looking at how we continue to provide quality services, balancing the public health and environmental impact of what we do. So we've got some exciting things, you know, I think that will be coming out of that as well. There's some opportunities for us to improve and we also continue to focus on improving the quality of our single-stream program. That's an area where we have a pretty high contamination rate, and so we've been working to adapt some of our educational messaging. We're always having to think about what's current, most recently advising people to put their masks, their disposable mask and their gloves and their Clorox wipes in the trash, not in the recycling cart, and not on the ground. We're seeing a lot of litter of that type. So you know, it's an ever-changing environment trying to keep up with it. But I think there's a lot of exciting things happening. I'm excited by the partnerships and the synergies that have been happening recently amongst brand owners, product manufacturers, government about some policies that will come to help support that circular economy and have those commitments to driving demand for the recycled material as well. So you know, I think there's a lot to talk about tonight and I just wanted to give a little background on what we do on a day-to-day basis and some of the things we're looking forward on, and then I look forward to the discussion.

Sarah, thank you so much for setting the table with respect to what you're seeing in your role at the City of Houston. I think that does set up a lot of great lines for discussion in a moment. Susan, tell us a little bit about what you're seeing at Waste Management.

Yeah, and I'd like to add to that. Thank you for all of that information Susan. And I think we've all seen what the pandemic has done to our economy. But going through this, we know that it doesn't have to slow the pursuit of sustainability. And to the contrary, actually, it highlights the importance of sustainability, you know, which ultimately is really good for business. In fact, this pandemic could elevate sustainability factors as investors express more concerns about employee benefits and supply chain management and other ESG priorities. And so we've seen stocks of companies with really strong ESG credentials, and that's environmental, social, and governance, and those are data to help provide useful information for evaluating corporate commitment to sustainability. We've seen, you know, it's proven to be a safer haven in periods of market disruption. And in times of crisis, you know, it always represents a degree of opportunity. And as the global economy is starting to strengthen, or when it does, there is potential for investment in more sustainable business models that's going to be far more resilient against future global disruptions. And the other thing I want to add is from a consumer behavior perspective. I think one of the setbacks that we might see is an equally important consequence is that we are in the infancy of ingraining consumer behaviors and recycling practices. And you know, a large percentage of what could technically be recycled is landfilled or incinerated as you saw in the schematic. And that's due to a lot of different factors and some of it, a large portion of it being poor consumer education on what is recyclable and how to properly sort and segregate. And you know, disrupting this momentum from the pullback of the curbside and drop-off recycling programs that...

We've seen in the beginning of the pandemic where over the course of three months, 87,000 pounds were displaced. And so deviating from those learned practices could result in long-term backslide in consumer behavior and could be a temporary setback to national recycling, zero waste, and other sustainability goals. So it's really important to maintain the momentum and ensure that outreach and education is consistent and finding more sustainable business models and communicating that out to the public.

Rachel, I'd like to dive in. You specifically in your opening slides had a slide about plastics recycling. And when I was first approached about this event, the discussion was initially around the single-use plastics. And so I wanted to ask everyone here in particular if you can dive into that particular waste stream and try to characterize for me how that volume has changed and what you're doing with it for single-use plastics as well as PPE. And we already see in the question someone is asking does PPE need to be handled as a biohazard. So maybe if Sarah, if we can start with you and get a sense of what you're seeing with collections in the city of Houston. But then I'd like to scale it up and hear from what Waste Management is seeing and Rachel even more broadly and how you think policy can fit into this as well. But Sarah, let's start with you on this.

Sure. And so across all of our programs, we've seen increased in our tonnages that we've been collecting at least 20% over an average year. And that's in large part because it's not that people are generating more waste, they're just at home when they're doing it. So instead of throwing it away at school or at work, they're throwing it away when they're at home. Unfortunately, because of COVID, we've not been able to do quarterly composition audits of our single-stream recycling material. And the last one we did was in November. We were due in March right when all of this was starting up and so we delayed. And then we were due again in July when Houston's cases were skyrocketing. So we talked about it actually this week and we're hoping to do another one in October. But in general, the percentage of our single-stream recycling material, the plastics fraction is around 9 or 10%. So it's not the largest percentage. Largest percentage is by far in the fiber of OCC or sorry cardboard and mixed paper. That's about just over 40%. And then glass makes up a lot because it's by weight, so that's like 5 or 6% sometimes. And then unfortunately for us, our recycling stream, our contamination rate makes up a lot of it as well. But so I don't know about specific changes in the plastics volume was the reason I was mentioning all of that. I do know that we're able to sell. So as I mentioned, the city operates as a hauler meaning that we collect the material, we do not own the in-processing facilities for waste, compost, or recycling. And if we do, we lease the operations of those to a private company. So we're not in the business of operating landfills, transfer stations, or recycling facilities. But our contracted partner who does operate our MRF, you know, they're able to sell that material mostly to local companies. So our plastics, like I think our PET goes to a local Texas company that makes flake or pellets to be sold into new PET bottles. So the same with HDPE. And then the mixed plastics 3 through 7 are also sold locally within the US but not within Texas. So that's where the plastic is going. I think, and I'm sure that Susan has a lot more information on this, but for us at least within the city of Houston's program, in the changes in the Chinese national policy around importing of scrap material, our program was I would say less impacted than say some of my peer communities that are on the West Coast where the majority of their material was being exported because it was just very easy to send it back across to China. So our markets have been a little bit different in the Gulf Coast area that, you know, they've become more competitive as other communities have looked for new outlets as China has decreased and soon to cut off completely its import of scrap material I think next year. But you know, we've been able to fare a little bit better in that regard. So that's kind of where we are with the plastics. We are, I think if it didn't go out today it's going to go out this week, we did recently put together a PSA video regarding the litter of PPE. So gloves and masks, as far as I know, that's not a bio material. It can go in your regular household garbage, but it does need to go in the garbage, not in your recycling container.

Yeah, and I can speak to the question about whether or not it's managed as a biohazard. You know, I think Susan and Sarah said it's, you know, it should not be recycled, that you go in your regular trash. But on the hazmat side of things, COVID-19 is classified as a Category B infectious substance according to the International Dangerous Goods Regulations and it's regulated as a hazardous material. And that's because of its capability of posing an unreasonable risk to health and safety. And this classification, which is regulated by the Department of Transportation, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, it conveys strict requirements for virus test samples and biohazardous COVID-19 waste that's generated from hospitals and healthcare facilities and quarantine sites. And so this could be, you know, PPE that's generated at these sites, sharps, glassware, or any other materials that might have come in contact with the coronavirus. And so this very stringent handling, collection, separation, packaging, storage, transportation, treatment, and disposal specifications with that. So there has been an increase in regulated medical waste through the pandemic. That has to be shipped by qualified haulers and the waste managed at permitted hazardous waste facilities. And although there's a growing market for these types of plastics and glass and metal and other things, 85% of the medical waste is incinerated even though only 15% of it is considered biohazardous. And I think it's like 25% or so of healthcare waste that is generated from facilities, and this is just within the US, they're clean and non-infected infectious plastics. And that amounts to about 1 million tons per year of a potential opportunity for valuable polymers to re-enter the supply chain. But, you know, there are some efforts for some of these types of medical waste to be shredded and treated by an EPA-approved sterilization process and rendering it non-hazardous. And then it, you know, melted and extruded and converted into various grades and dimensions and colors of plastics that can be used for specific applications. But we are just, you know, not there yet. It's not quite scalable, but there is some work in this area. But I do want to mention some of them from a policy perspective, some critical success factors for, you know, recycling technology. And first of all, recycling, depending on what part of the world we're speaking in, it's very, very different. I mean, so here it requires a successful business case. Actually, you know, anywhere, I mean, it relates to factors such as cost of recyclables and treatment infrastructure, equipment, personnel, and transport and energy use. But we really have to overcome a lot of the technical challenges for recycling. And some of that is contamination of recyclable polymers. And Susan and Sarah touched on that. There's a whole lot of customization of materials, the design of products for particular applications or customers, and that inhibits collection and separation and dismantling and reuse. So we need material standardization policies. And then the complexity of the plastics, they're made from multiple polymers and there's additives and that inhibits its recyclability. And another way we can help the recycling market is by shortening and building redundancies into the supply chains. I think we're doing that now. The COVID has brought that into the forefront. But we need sufficient demand for some of these recyclers and it's got to be reflected in the level of market prices. And this represents a key factor for a business case. We have to create that demand. And so on that would be recycled content mandates. And that's a direct market-driven approach to encourage recycling and the industry growth. Then, you know, we can do government procurement processes and product redesign. And so there's a whole host of things that we can consider. But it's going to likely be a combination of a variety of fiscal instruments and government standards, some voluntary measures and regulation to increase the demand for recycled materials. But, you know, regardless of this configuration that we're looking at, it's going to require really informed and balanced policies that keep pace with technologies across the entire life cycle and accounts for the impacts along the global supply chain. And I think a good example of that is some of the bioplastics and compostables that we're introducing into the market. And we don't have end-of-life technologies to manage these. They're not scaled. And, you know, the ones that are there, they're located hundreds of miles away from where it's being generated. And, you know, there's a whole host of reasons why we have to be careful about that. But, you know, so if we want to grow the recycling market, it's my point here is that it's going to require a suite of solutions to drive process efficiencies across the entire supply chain. And we have to improve the cost structure throughout and enhance the waste overall value. And, you know, I mentioned that these approaches are going to vary across the globe. And I think, you know, from a policy perspective, in regions of the countries that lack the recycling infrastructure and advanced technologies and resources, you know, we're going to have to look to those life cycle analyses. And, you know, because the lowest carbon choice and perhaps the most economical choice may be to manage plastics in secured regulated landfills in the short term. And certainly this doesn't resonate well with a lot of folks and it might not be socially or politically palatable, but it could help prevent the migration of plastics in the waterways. And I say this because there really is a noticeable deficiency in infrastructure investment in recycling and solid waste management. And so as we look at emerging market countries build up their waste management capabilities, you know, the first step is going to have to be to look at the plastic waste or separate them from other wastes. And then maybe even consider things like pyrolysis or waste-to-energy. And that's going to provide or could provide the most efficient way to process it. And so, you know, we have to keep in mind that policies here and policies in certain regions of the world, you know, they may be economically and technologically and environmentally feasible here in the US or Europe, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be transposable in all other economies, you know, especially when we start factoring in those social and political dynamics.

A question that I see emerging in several ways in some of the comments from the audience has to do with legislation and laws. And rather than ask a specific question about one of those, I want to say more gently, we're on of course the verge of an election. Vote everybody. And I want to know if there are any particular policies or proposals that you're seeing from any candidate or any state or anything just across the US that you're keeping an eye on related to solid waste and recycling that you think would be of interest to our viewers tonight.

You know, well first let me just say that leadership, so there's for the first time in a long time, we're seeing legislation, bipartisan legislation that's being introduced in Congress. And this is going to provide the necessary federal funding for recycling infrastructure and public education and outreach. And it'll update a lot of the federal procurement processes to strengthen demand for recyclable materials. So this really indicates a growing trend and federal attention to waste management and recycling related issues. And so I think that's, you know, that's a great thing to see. I mean, leadership at the federal level, it's imperative to support the nation's recycling system. And I think congressional action sends a really strong message that the federal government prioritizes recycling. And I know that a lot of people question the role of federal government in a system that up until now has largely been left to the state and local officials. And some argue that it creates a patchwork of recycling programs that might be confusing for consumers because recycling and solid waste management is largely borne by local governments. But for recycling to remain sustainable in the US, the public needs to better understand their important role in reducing contamination and the federal government's role. So I think the acts that are floating out there now, the RECOVER Act, which will allocate money towards collection and processing of infrastructure, the RECYCLE Act which focuses on public education and outreach, and then we have our Save Our Seas Act 2.0. And this is the main federal legislation on marine plastics pollution. You know, all of these are important considerations to work to address the challenges in our nation's recycling system. And it's great to see that there is bipartisan support for all of these pieces of legislation regardless of which administration takes office.

Sarah, did you want to add anything or should I jump to the next question?

Yeah, I think it's been covered really well. You know, we are also following those bills at the federal level to see what happens. I would say it is very encouraging to see this sort of coalition and I guess support and interest in recycling programs and bringing in, I think, a lot of the relevant stakeholders. You know, in addition to those two regulatory acts, RECOVER and RECYCLE that Rachel mentioned, you know, there's also been some things that have happened voluntarily amongst, I think today there was a US Plastics Pact that's been announced that's in partnership, the Recycling Partnership is involved along with several brand manufacturers and even I think the city of Austin, their Austin Resource Recovery, that's their solid waste department is involved. So there's the marine debris, the issue of plastic, ocean plastic has become such a galvanizing issue that I think is really driving a lot of support and interest in recycling programs that I haven't really seen, you know, especially recently. I think Susan mentioned, you know, when I got into the industry and started looking at like what are the rules, what are the regulations, what are the goals, a lot of those bills and interest was from the early 90s when recycling programs really started to happen across the country in communities. And then whether it wasn't, whether the market fell out or whether maybe there were some issues with the way programs were set up, they kind of fell away. But I think that we have an opportunity now. We're seeing a resurgence and that interest in creating the demand and then helping to support their programs. In the Texas state legislature, which meets every other year, and the last legislative session passed a bill for a recycling market development study. And so that's what we're doing here in the state of Texas. It's being led by our state recycling organization, STAR, and just looking at all of the opportunity there is within the state. It's a very big dollar industry, recycling within the state of Texas, and there's a lot of material that's not being captured that could be captured. And then there's even additional opportunities as we see growth in alternative recycling methodologies that haven't, you know, besides mechanical, they're for energy recovery and other things that we haven't seen really take hold in some time. So I know that that's something that we're looking at at least at the state level as well. And the city follows those things to see, we have an interest in knowing what happens with them and what opportunities there are to help support our program.

So we are entering the lightning round now. We've got about five minutes left. So I have two quick things that I want to ask you. And the first is what opportunities do you see in this crisis? You've touched on some already, but quick answers, who wants to jump in? Because one never wants to waste a crisis.

That's right. I'll say that I think we might have people's attention a little bit more. I'll just jump in and say that quickly. People are at home, kind of bored sometimes, hopefully if they're staying safe and healthy and not going out and about. And so I do think at least we recognize, we were fortunate to receive some grant funding that we're going to be putting into play early next year to help some of our educational messaging. And I think maybe we've got folks' attention a little bit more than normal, less distraction if they're at home.

Any other opportunities anyone want to highlight?

Yeah, I'll jump in there. I mean, I see not just with the pandemic, but also what's happened with the China import restrictions and the challenges that we're seeing with all of this. I think there's a whole lot to be learned from this and a lot of opportunities. I really don't see any of these as a crippling force, but I think it's a great opportunity for us to reevaluate our supply chains and to invest in sustainability and resiliency plans. And, you know, we should continue to incentivize the reduction of primary production and opportunities to improve the scale of domestic infrastructure for waste management to generate some of these internal investments and to continue innovating circular materials and building out those redundancies in the supply chain and streamlining some of that. And also then lastly, creating more transparency around these supply chains for a more socially conscious and environmentally cognizant society.

If we had had more time, I wanted to get into a dialogue about the role that the millennial and Gen Z generations are playing in changing the marketplace. But I know since we do have a lot of students who are tuned in and students partnered in creating this webinar, as a final question, I would ask what advice would you give to those students who are interested in a career related to the waste management and recycling industries? Susan, since you are in the industry, maybe I'll start with you.

Thank you. Sarah, you're on the front lines in a green job at the city of Houston. How would you answer this?

Yeah, I would say that you should know that the waste and recycling industry is bigger and broader than you might think. When I first started at the city, I was doing broad-spectrum local environmental initiatives. I was doing air quality, urban forestry, and waste reduction and recycling was always a piece of what I did. But before I really got into it, I kind of thought there was a recycling fairy. A lot of people do. They don't realize that you put your soda can, your water bottle in your cart, you do your good job and there it goes. When in fact it's connected to this entire system of the materials economy. And it's really dense and there's a lot of levers and strings and things that are attached. And a lot of the solutions I think really lie upstream. And we're starting to see some conversation around that, around how the material is made, what it's made out of, is it designed to be recovered or recycled. And thinking about that and thinking about the entire life cycle. So there's a lot to get involved with and it's really very, very interesting. And so it does start with your personal decisions. If you are really concerned about what happens to something, maybe consider whether you need to buy it first. And then, you know, just know that it's all connected. And so I have a background in biology and, you know, looking at conservation biology and thinking, you know, John Muir and his one thing is all connected to another. It's kind of the same thing with the materials economy. It's just the stuff that we choose to produce and how we make it and how we use it. So it's a big, broad industry and there's a lot of good stuff to get involved with.

And I'll just add just very quickly from an academic perspective, and those of you that are looking to pursue a field in waste management and or the energy industry and recycling, the importance of close interdisciplinary collaboration. It's really important. It's highly desirable, an interdisciplinary collaboration between the natural, technical, and social and behavioral sciences to address these really complex issues. Because it's not just about the hard sciences. You know, as we introduced sustainability, being looking at the social factors, the economic factors, the environmental factors. So capacity building and training are really needed to form a new generation of scientists and folks that think on a very interdisciplinary level. Because we are a global economy, we are a global society, and it's really important to understand that bigger picture.

And so, Rachel, am I correct that we're scheduled to go through 6:00 and then that's the end? So we're at the end of our time.

That's right. And we are cataloging all of these questions for those of you that have sent in Q&As, and we'll be sure to address these in future webinars.

And Rachel, if you could take a moment to just recap this series of webinars and maybe give a hint about what's to come, I think that would be a good closing if you're willing to reveal that.

Yes, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm putting together a series of webinars and we're touching on a whole broad range of topics associated with waste management. And that could be waste management being hazardous waste and solid waste. You know, we're looking at what does the energy transition mean to the waste sector, are we prepared for it, are our policies prepared for that. We're looking at different circular economy frameworks. You know, what does that mean here in the US, in the developed world, what does it mean for non-OECD countries. And sustainability in general and drilling down to, you know, ESG and what that means for companies. And even talking about some life cycle assessments and what are needed to be done in various industries. So it's very broad, but largely it's all on topic of waste management and sustainability and circular economies. And it's really important as we try to migrate into the energy transition and interface with growing populations and creating more waste. So I'm excited about it and so look for our next series which I think is going to be in two weeks. And I look forward to seeing you all again.

So Rachel, Sarah, Susan, I want to thank you all so much for taking the time this evening to participate in the webinar. Again, thank you to the Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies as well as the Rice Graduate Student Association for helping to make tonight's webinar possible. And thank you to everyone who has tuned in. We really appreciate the questions. We could have gone on for two or three hours but for the fact that everyone needs to go eat and prepare for the hurricane. So stay safe, everyone. Thank you for tuning in. Good night.

Thank you. Bye bye.