alternative policies for paper recycling

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Alternative Policies for Paper Recycling More Effective Policies for Paper and General Recycling at Residential Level Orhan Gurbuz 12/5/2011 The ecological footprint of paper at production and disposal levels increases the importance of recycling policies. Current recycling policies are not effective for household wastes. The purpose of this paper is to point out alternative policies for increase the rate of paper recycling for residents. The roles of stakeholders are also presented for the alternative polices and these policies are unit pricing and residential targeted rewarding policies.

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Alternative Policies for Paper Recycling

More Effective Policies for Paper and General Recycling at Residential Level

Orhan Gurbuz

12/5/2011

The ecological footprint of paper at production and disposal levels increases the importance

of recycling policies. Current recycling policies are not effective for household wastes. The

purpose of this paper is to point out alternative policies for increase the rate of paper recycling

for residents. The roles of stakeholders are also presented for the alternative polices and these

policies are unit pricing and residential targeted rewarding policies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4

2. Background Information ........................................................................................................................... 5

2.1. Environmental Impact of Paper and Paper Recycling ........................................................................ 5

2.2. Paper Recycling Policies ..................................................................................................................... 8

2.3. Challenges in Paper Recycling Policies ............................................................................................. 10

3. Stakeholder Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 11

3.1. Identification of Stakeholders and Their Positions .......................................................................... 12

3.2. Stakeholder Interests ....................................................................................................................... 13

4. Alternative Policies for Paper Recycling .................................................................................................. 15

4.1 Unit Pricing Policies ........................................................................................................................... 15

4.2. Household Rewarding Policies ......................................................................................................... 18

5. Summary of the Outcomes of Alternative Policies ................................................................................. 20

6. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................. 21

7. References .............................................................................................................................................. 23

1. Introduction

Paper is an indispensable product that can be used every day and anytime in daily life. Paper

is originated from wood and wood obtained from trees. Trees provide important ecosystem

services. In order toprotect trees andreduce the amount of paper wastes, recycling policies have

been implemented as a resource management model.

Paper has the larger portion among other municipal wastes due to the direct or complex

usages. Today, according to the recent survey of American Forest and Paper Association

(AF&PA), the recycling policies are efficient. The recycling rate of paper is at 63% in 2010.

However, current policies about recycling are not efficient for household levels because the

current policies about any recycling type do not directly target the collection of residential

wastes. This paper presents two alternative financial-based policies for this environmental policy

issue. The alternative policies, the unit pricing and residential rewarding, are presented with their

benefits, costs, and effectiveness.

Firstly, the environmental impact of the paper is discussed and the importances of the

recycling activities are presented. The recent data-sets, which show the historical increase in

paper recycling actives in the US, are obtained from AF&PA. The general characteristics of

these policies are promoting activities such as the big scale rewarding policies and the code

enforcements for local levels.

Second, the Starbucks’ paper-based coffee cups recycling issue analyzed in order to present

specific stakeholders for a paper recycling issue. The result of the studies of the Starbucks’ case

shows that the system and the technology portion of the recycling policies working effectively

for each stakeholder group, but the recycling is very inefficient at residential levels.

Finally, the paper presents two alternative solutions and the positions of the direct

stakeholders to eliminate the paper and general recycling issues at individual levels.The unit

pricing model has been used by local governments. The local level rewarding policy model is a

recent decision and more effective than the unit pricing model.

2. Background Information

2.1. Environmental Impact of Paper and Paper Recycling

Paper recycling is an environmental policy for resource management by providing raw

materials for paper manufactures. The efficient way to understand the importance of paper

recycling is evaluating the environmental impacts of the paper. First impact could occur because

of individual’s consumption patterns. Today, paper has been used by industry to compensate the

customers’ demands. After usage, paper products become wastes and they are collected for

burying in landfills orincineration. These methods are inefficient and cause new environmental

and economic problems. For example, incineration causes air quality issues and also causes the

elimination of reusable products from the market.

Second impact could occur during the production of the paper because of using dyes,

chemicals, and energy during the mechanical processes. Moreover, during the industrial

production of paper, the usage of wood causes resource depletion. Trees have irrevocable

ecosystem services such as trees can use the CO2 emissions for producing energy and they can

adjust the CO2 and O2 balance of the Earth.

The willingness to use paper and its environmental impacts are growing rapidly

throughout the history. %35 of the Earth’s trees has been cut down for paper production. In the

last 40 years, 4 billion trees have been cut down for the higher demands for paper products

(Martin, 2011). In Figure 1, the paper consumption patterns for one year are listed.

Figure 1 Paper Consumption Values Courtesy of (Martin, 2011)

Paper consumption causes solid wastes that to be sent to landfills and recycling is a type

of solid waste control by eliminating the waste with the phenomenon of reuse (Strong, 1997, p.

7). According to municipal solid waste generation data of USEPA, at the residential level, paper

wastes has higher values contribute to other non-hazardous waste types. Figure 2 shows the

percentages of total non-hazardous waste types in 2009(“Municipal Solid Waste Generation,

Recycling,and Disposal in the United States:Facts and Figures for 2009”, 2009, p. 3). Recycling

is a solid waste management strategy that has two main goals. The first goal is to reduce the

amount of resources that have been used and to provide new products. Second goal is to reduce

land usage for dumping activities (“Municipal Solid Wastes”, 2011).

Figure 2 Municipal Solid Wastes before Recycling in 2009 Courtesy of (“Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling,and Disposal in the United States:Facts and Figures for 2009”, 2009, p. 8)

Landfills and trash burning are not effective ways for paper waste management. Landfills

cause suspension of reusable papers from human usage and also paper markets. Also these

dumping areas are not efficient to decomposition of organic compounds such as paper.

According to a study for the researching the wastes in landfills show that even 30-year-old

newspapers can be read due to the anoxic conditions of landfills. Oxygen needed for

decomposition of organic wastes and dumping paper products in landfills is not an effective way

of treatment. Trash burning, another inefficient way of dealing with paper, causes air quality

degradation, energy consumption, and bring about ashes that is a new type of solid waste(Lyle,

2004, p. 166).

Due to the abundance usage of chemicals, solid wastes, and air emissions, the paper and

pulp mills are one of the dirtiest industries according to United States Environmental Protection

Agency (USEPA) (Martin, 2011). Paper manufacturers could buy recycled paper and could use

them in order to degrease water usage, chemical usage, and electricity usage by implementing

recovering processes for fiber and pulp(“Paper Making and Recycling”, 2011).Air emissions are

mostly generated at pulping process especially, while chemical methods are being used. The

usage of sulfate and sulfite can contribute to generation of sulfur dioxides (SO2) and nitrogen

dioxides (NO2). For water quality issues, Because of the organic composition of wood, the

effluent contains phosphor and nitrogen. And finally solid wastes could generate during the

separation of fiber processes (“The Paper Making Process”, p. 396).

As an ecosystem, in other words biome, forests offer a variety of services. The largest

portion of the forest ecosystem comprise of trees. Trees help the reduction of greenhouse gases

such as CO2 by photochemical reactions called photosynthesis and they are irrevocable sources

of O2. Trees can also manage the moisture in air by evaporation and aid the water cycle in

ecosystem. In spite of playing important environmental services, deforestation is still an

issue(Maczulak). Forests can also be used or water quality management. Trees can hold storm

water and reduce the run-off. Forests have also been used for waste water treatment systems. To

sum up, forests, as a whole system have priceless services and paper recycling could save forests

and their ecological services.

Today, many paper making industries have tree farms in order to supply paper and pulp

that are needed. Trees are a type of renewable resources but these farms could not be same as

natural forests. The reason is the lack of biodiversity, therefore these tree farms does not have the

same features and same quality of ecosystem service. Also, these farms are supplied for only

16% of paper production industries (Martin, 2011).

2.2. Paper Recycling Policies

Chronologically, the recycling activities were accelerated by public education in the U.S.

in 1990s. These educations basically told people how to recycle their own wastes and why

recycling is important. The year 1991 was one of the tipping points of the amount of recycled

municipal wastes in USA. The main reasons were globalization of industries and the demand of

waste disposal was equal to the demand of recycling(Strong, 1997, p. 14).

In the early 1990s recycling is harder for citizens. People who wanted to recycle should

have collected and separated their wastes and brought them to the facilities. In the later 1990s,

the curbside recycling implemented in order the increase the efficiency of recycling. This method

increased the amount of wastes that were recycled and provides easy transportation for hauler

firms with timely manners. Moreover, in the transfer station, manual separation was switched to

mechanical separation and sent to the industries as raw materials. (Strong, 1997, pp. 15,16).

Today, paper recycling policies are varied and can be categorized into two approaches;

mandatory, and promoting. However, there isn’t any national recycling regulation in USA at

mandatory level. Especially, EPA policies include starting paper recycling programs in small

offices and schools, at residential levels such as neighborhood and county, and at commercial

such as commodity producers(“Wastes - Resource Conservation - Common Wastes & Materials

- Paper Recycling”, 2011).

In a policy framework perspective, these promoting activities are followed by rewarding

policies. American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), which is a national trade association

for forest and paper industry, leads an award-giving contest for schools, communities, and

industries. Benefits of this rewarding policy are that the award winners achieve monetary prices

and promotion. For the paper recycling, the amount of paper recycled is growing annually and

new policy models can be comprised(AF&PA, 2011) .

Some states such as Rhode Island, New York,etc. have planned and implemented policies

and enactments for recycling for various materials(Strong, 1997, pp. 93,101). Financial

incentives have been used for some states in order to foster recycling practices. For instance,

New York enacted the New York City Recycling Law in 1989 that covers residents, agencies,

businesses, and institutions. The framework is established based on identification of recyclable

materials that includes paper, setting up the goals for the amount of recycled materials, and fines

for nonobservant concerned institutes and agencies(“NYC Recycling Law”).

Overall, the recycling paper policies in the U.S. are working. Figure 4 shows the linear

increase in recovery rates of paper since 1990. According to AF&PA, 81,209 papers are supplied

and 51,545 papers are recovered. And also AF&PA is planning to increase this rate as 70% by

2020(“Paper & Paperboard Recovery”, 2011).

Figure 2 Paper Recovery Rates Courtesy of (“Paper & Paperboard Recovery”, 2011)

2.3. Challenges in Paper Recycling Policies

Logistic systems for recycling policies are highly related to the individual participation.

Consumers are the generators of solid wastes and their disposal habits shape the quality of the

recycling policy and its frameworks. For example, the contamination is the main problem for

paper and paper-based products. Separation process mostly done by professional recyclers that

collect the wastes, separate them base on waste type, and find market for used paper or other

used products. Contaminated wastes are formed due to individual disposal habits(Johnson,

2011).

Why people recycle is the main question that can clear the challenges in paper recycling.

According to the sociologists, recycling is highly related to the individual behaviors. Basically,

people, who care more for environment, will probably recycle more. Because today, recycling is

a domain of morality(Thogersen, 1996, p. 2).

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40,00%

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60,00%

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1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Recovery Rate

Recovery Rate

On the other hand, in the era of Motivation Period of environmental policies, many

people consider environment as a win-win concept. In other words, people respond to

environmental policies to maximize their utilities (Thogersen, 1996, p. 1). In order to increase

the recycling rates, environmental policies about recycling should locate this concept.

Another problem could generate in separation process. Recycling is a costly policy to

implement and monitor (Lave, Hendrickson, Conway, & McMichael, 1999, p. 4). This challenge

is overcome in community buildings by providing recycling bins, therefore waste separation can

be done at the initial level. There are still challenges for wastes that have mixed products, other

products with paper, such as take-away coffee cups. An also, contamination of the waste due to

inappropriate recycling causes extra burden on separation processes (Johnson, 2011) .

Another issue could occur at the outcome level of a recycling policy. Remanufacturing of

recycled paper could not be used very often. Due to the reproduction, the paper fibers become

weaker.A regular paper can be used for five to seven times. Another approach to this issue is

thatthe usage featured mills that combine raw pulp with recycled fibers to produce enduring new

products (“Paper Making and Recycling”, 2011).

3. Stakeholder Analysis

Today’s recycling policies are statistically effective. However, some paper mixed

products and consumer’s recycling habits still exist as challenges for paper recycling. Therefore,

giving an example about how related stakeholders act towards this issue is important. Actually,

Starbucks coffee company have tried to overcome these challenges since 2008. The company

prefers to do negotiations and create a brainstorming platform by inviting relevant stakeholders

to find key solutions for this paper recycling issue. In this section the stakeholder analysis and

stakeholder interest will be presented by Starbucks Coffee Cup Summit case.

3.1. Identification of Stakeholders and Their Positions

There are many stakeholders involve in this paper recycling issue. The first important and

direct stakeholder is of course the Starbucks Company. Because this cooperation is responsible

for generation of the waste and it should reduce the amount of waste that will be sent to the

landfills. The role of the company for recycling is obvious. Company should come up with a

management plan for reduce its waste generation and use recyclable coffee cups.

Second important stakeholder is government agencies. Starbucks is a national and

international company and each community could have different policies such as focusing on

mixed recycling or one-type recycling. For example, New York State Department of

Environment role would be the promoting and regulating the progress of coffee cup

recycling(“Recycling & Composting”, 2011).

Third stakeholder is the firm that collects the recyclable material. In cup recycling case,

the firms who collect the recyclable materials, separate them, and find facilities to sell them. For

instance, Starbucks in New York have a deal with Action Carting Environmental Services, which

is a professional recycling firm, collects wastes and find customers such as pulp mills.

Professional recyclers’ main role is creating a bridge between company and

manufacturers(“2011 Starbucks Cup Summit”, 2011).

The fourth stakeholder is paper manufacturers. These utilities take the wastes and use

them as raw materials to produce new products. In our case, paper industries such as Paper Co.

or Mississippi River Pulp LLC are one of the important stakeholders. Their roles are producing

recyclable products due to compensate the demand, and reuse paper wastes to make

profit(Johnson, 2011).

The fifth and may be the most important stakeholders are the individuals. As it is

discusses earlier, individuals have a significant role for recycling. Their attitudes are linked with

the amount of recycled products and their quality. Also these individuals could create customer

groups to warn the company to use recyclable products.

Finally, there are a wide variety of indirect stakeholders that are present especially in the

case of paper cups. These stakeholders could be university researchers to help identify the issues

and help to visualize scenarios. Furthermore, non-governmental organizations could be included

to create a communication atmosphere and come up with objective commends about polices. On

the other hand, other coffee retailers could be involved to present their policies toward the issue.

3.2. Stakeholder Interests

For the recycling paper-based coffee cup recycling issue, why Starbucks have a desire to

make their coffee cups fully recyclable. As a company policy, Starbucks wants to be greener to

locate the requests from their customers. And also Starbucks wants to be more environmentally

responsible. Moreover, local governments could have mandatory regulations for forcing

companies to implement a mixed recycling policy. These mandatory acts could pressure the

organization for penalties. Such legislations are implemented in New York State in Solid Waste

Management Act(“Recycling & Composting”, 2011). In an economic perspective, as an outcome

of recycling, company will achieve cheaper products such as recycled napkins or recycled cups

from retailers. For all these benefits and mandatory sanctions, Starbucks have a leader position in

the policy debate.

Local governments request coffee companies to carry the waste burden to solve the

landfill problem to create more sustainable communities. Their interest is to reduce paper-based

wastes via enacting or promoting the relevant companies. After implementing these rules or

guides, local communities can achieve new markets and job opportunities to robust the local

market.

The transporting firms and paper industries interests are profit-making interests. The

professional recyclers want low contaminated wastes in order to sell them with higher prices to

paper mills. Therefore, in the policy debate they want appropriate recycling from individuals.

And also paper mills want high quality wastes due to the easy separation of fibers and efficient

production. For easy separation, in the policy debate, their policy frame is based on focusing on

eliminating polyethylene from paper cups(“2011 Starbucks Cup Summit”, 2011).

Individual’s interest could be varied based on personal perspective to recycling and

environmental views. Their ability to recycle is an important indicator to monitor the recycling

infrastructure systematically(“2011 Starbucks Cup Summit”, 2011). The interests of individuals

are neither economic, nor political. Their view of environmental issues is the key factor that

nudges people recycle.

The indirect stakeholders could have distinct interest. NGOs could present political

interests by rising questions or arguments to make policy clear. Firms could seek economic

interests. They can present their processes and technologies for this issue.

Overall, there are alternative policies to increase the quality of the recycling material

from household levels. These policies could be based on market incentives with or without

government controls. The main purpose of these policies should be target the individual

behaviors towards recycling.

4. Alternative Policies for Paper Recycling

Although the paper recycling policies are efficient and in 2010 the recycling rate was the

highest, there are still issues are present. The main problem of the recycling is not in the

technological portion of the policy. The problems are generated due to the consumers recycling

behaviors. In order to nudge people to recycle, market incentives have been using. These policies

are implemented for general municipal solid waste management. The indirect results of these

policies could increase recycling activities in households such as pay-as-you-throw policies.

Secondly, in order to increase individual participation for recycling is scaling down the

rewarding policies toward individual levels.

4.1 Unit Pricing Policies

Economic burden for solid wastes based on the waste volumes could attract individuals to

recycle. The underlying idea of this policy is to make people pay for their wastes that cause

externalities. By implementing this cost-effective method, people carry the responsibility to

generate waste. If they have more waste, they will pay more to the government to compensate

the disposal costs. Therefore, people are willing to recycle more in order to avoid paying extra

fees. The main objective of this policy is providing solid waste reduction at the initial levels and

improves recycling activities by individuals (Reschovsky & Stone, 1994, p. 121).

Unit pricing or also known as pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) type of policies is implemented

by small scale local governments, when the local government cannot compensate the costs of

disposing or transporting wastes. The methodology of the policies could vary. Today, bag

programs, tag programs, hybrid programs, and weight-based systems for PAYT policies are

existed. Basically, the bag programs force the residents buy garbage bags under the conditions of

extra garbage production. The cost of the bags includes the price for disposal and transportation.

The tag program has the same underlying idea. The hybrid program includes the traditional

collection system with an option of fees for the amount of the waste on different selected dates.

The weight-based systems include billing activities by monitoring the household weight.

Technologically advance tags have been using for collection of the weight data and the property

owner pays based on his or her garbage weight (Skumaz, 2002, p. 2).

As outcomes of this political implementation, reduction of the amount of the collected

municipal wastes and increase in the rate of the household recycling practices are expected. A

study done by Gannett Fleming, Inc. for Parkesburg Borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania

noticed that as a future outcome of implementing a PAYT policy will increase the municipal

recycling at the rate between 8% and 12%. In depth, if the borough reaches 10% increase in

recycling, the 140 tons of waste will be separated from disposal actives for reuse actives (“Pay-

As-You-Throw Waste Collection and Recycling Program Implementation”, 2007, p. 14).

According to Figure 2, collecting paper wastes more than other waste types will be a correct

expectation.

PAYT policies can increase the recycling market and can greater new job opportunities

because people will intent to recycle more in order to reduce their solid wastes. The costs PAYT

action will burden the home owners with higher trends of solid waste disposal and lower income

levels. Also implementation cost will consider the local governments.

Unintended consequences could occur after the implementation of a PAYT policy. These

consequences could be varied. Due to the financial burden, the garbage burning and the illegal

dumping could be seen in communities especially in vacant lots. Another problem could occur

for low income households. In order to overcome these problems, code enforcements for illegal

actives must be developed. Identification of low income families is also important and discounts

can be applied for these homeowners (“Pay-As-You-Throw Waste Collection and Recycling

Program Implementation, 2007”, p. 11).

The stakeholders for a PAYT policy are residents, elected officials, municipal staff, and

private sector. Residents are the targeted waste producers and their first attitude can be an

opposition to any PAYT policy. The main reasons of the objections are framed by economic

burdens and resistance to the new techniques for collection waste. After implementation, many

residents are intent to recycle more in order to avoid financial penalties(“Consensus Building”,

2011).

The second stakeholder is the elected officials such as majors. Before implementation of

a PAYT policy, this stakeholder group could have a skeptical attitude due to financial burden to

the residents. For example, majors could fell anxious about authority lost over residents. During

implementation, this stakeholder group has an important role for enacting necessary ordinances

for illegal actions. The third important group of stakeholders is the staff of municipal works. The

convincement of these workers about the policy will increase the efficiency of the outcomes

(“Consensus Building”, 2011).

The final stakeholder group is the private sector such as professional recyclers. The

expectation of increase in recycling activities, the recycling sector takes a supporting stage for

the policy implementation. Another sector could be included such as tag or bag producers to

compensate the demand and the methodology of the policy action(“Consensus Building”, 2011).

4.2. Household Rewarding Policies

The local governments can robust the recycling activities with the help of private sector

by generating rewarding policies for individual levels. Today, the promoting actives about

recycling cause rewarding policies for community buildings, businesses, and neighborhoods.

However, scaling down this activity towards individual household levels could provide the

distributions of benefits equally. For example, in a pilot area in the United Kingdom, residents

could earn approximately $200 in one year by selling their recyclable wastes. In the same pilot

area the recycling rate increased at the rate of 35%(Pickles, 2010).

The UK’s political frame has an easy-to-apply action plan. The residents collect and

separate their wastes and basically sell them to a company or a professional recycler. The

background philosophy of the policy is make people volunteer to the environmental activity and

create a zero waste generation for a future goal (Pickles, 2010).

In depth, first, local governments should provide recycling bins with technologically

advanced tags that measure the weight of the bins. The bins can be various according the type of

the waste such as paper recycling bins. Technologically advance tags can be used to identify the

weight of these bins. The data about the recycling effort are monitored and saved by recycling

banks as recycling points. The residents can turn their points to money with these recycling

banks (“RecycleBank”, 2011).

The distributions of costs are very low because there aren’t any financial burdens or

mandatory powers. The supply for equipment and the education of the residents and staffs could

be the costs of the whole policy. The policy is beneficial for all stakeholders. Residents can earn

money for recycling, local government can save money reduce the usage of landfills, and also

private firms also make profit due to the increasing recycling market.

During the policy implementation, an important unintended consequences, the

oversupply of recycled material that local governments can experience. However, government

can overcome with this problem by trading the recycled materials with other markets in other

regions. For example, they can sell the paper products to international paper manufacturers to

make profit and local economy will be increase.

The most important key political actors for rewarding policy are the local government

and recycling banks. Local governments have a supportive stage for this alternative recycling

policy because the unintended consequences of other policy alternatives will not be generated.

By the willing participation of the residents, there will not be any political stress for the authority

of the local government. Recycle bank is the professional collectors of the recyclable products

from residents and sells them to the local businesses. Also these companies pay residents for

their recyclable materials.

Local manufacturers are the third important stakeholder group that can buy the materials

from the recycle bank. In terms of paper, local paper manufacturers could use these recycled

papers from these recycle banks. Therefore, local businesses have a supporting position for the

residential level rewarding policies.

5. Summary of the Outcomes of Alternative Policies

The outcomes for the stakeholders that are in the market level are same and based on

profit-making and economic advantages for the two alternative policies. Local businesses and

professional recyclers could have a possible supporting side at the implementation step.

The outcomes of the unit pricing model not profitable for each stakeholder group. The

outcomes could be beneficial for local governments because they transfer the burden of handling

the municipal solid wastes by encoding the fees. On the other hand, the residents could

inefficient actions such as illegal dumping. Therefore, rewarding policies and recycle banks are

the most efficient municipal recycling policy for both governments and local residents.

Today, paper recycling policies are efficient and yearly increasing. However, in order to

attain future goals, governments or companies must target their policy frameworks towards

residential collection of paper. These recycled papers should be used in local markets for

enhance the local economy and create a more sustainable community. In a holistic perspective,

people should spend their money that they had earned from recycling in local markets(Pickles,

2010). More specifically they should spent their money for local recycled paper products.

Paper is one of the most collected wastes from the households. Individual targeted or

voluntaristic involvement approaches towards paper recycling could reduce the environmental

impact of paper production and could reduce the amount of paper that is sent to the landfill

operations. The presented financial approaches as environmental policies are the cost effective

ways that can build a sustainable resource management.

6. Conclusions

Paper causes environmental stress. The paper production is one of the dirtiest industries

and regulations that target the point sources control the impact at the production level of paper.

Moreover, wood have been using for produce paper products. Trees have important ecosystem

services and to protect inestimable benefits of trees, the recycling policies are crucial. The other

perspective is to prevent the increase in land fill areas.

Today, recycling policies are efficient, especially in businesses and community buildings

such as schools. The efficiency rate could be increased by providing the participation of

households. For example, Starbucks Co. has the technology and systemic approach to collect

their paper-based coffee cups. However, the rate of recycling these cups is at the lower levels for

residential collection.

In order to increase the rate of paper recycling at household levels, two alternative and

innovative policies have been recommended. The unit pricing policy could increase the recycling

rates and also paper recycling. On the other hand this framework could cause new problems such

as illegal dumping.

For implementation of a rewarding policy that targets the households, government

participation for code enforcements is not needed. Local governments could establish a recycle

banks or they can compromise with a privately own recycle banks. The framework of the policy

is an easy-to-apply and easy-to-control type. Firstly, the home owners should be informed and

educated by explaining how they can make money by doing recycling activities. Then the

recycle banks place the recycling bins with special tags that can measure the amount of the

recyclables. Next, individual recyclers can take their money from these banks for their recycling

activity. More recycling brings about more money and this attractive solution to individual

recycling problem can generate a growing recycling market at local or interstate level. Finally

with less unintended consequences the recycling rate could be increased approximately 30% at.

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