Maximizing waste prevention will benefit the environment of New York City and elsewhere. By reducing the collection of unnecessary waste, air pollution and traffic congestion is lessened. By reducing the need to process and manufacture new products from discarded disposable products and packaging, and by reducing unnecessary incineration and landfilling of ash and raw garbage, the City avoids considerable air and water pollution. By reducing our waste generation rate, we also reduce the production of unnecessary packaging and nondurable products, thus lessening depletion of natural resources, as well as the impacts of mining, logging, transportation and manufacturing.

Not only does waste prevention top the NYSDEC and USEPA waste management hierarchy because it avoids the most environmental impacts, but it also is, by far, the most inexpensive means of dealing with solid waste. As tons of waste are prevented, the collection trucks, personnel, and eventually even garages, processing and disposal facilities, can be stretched farther. Processing, treatment, and disposal costs associated with the construction and operation of solid waste management facilities can also be reduced if the City moves aggressively to implement waste prevention. Since one aspect of waste prevention, reuse, depends on small businesses that promote product longevity (i.e., repair businesses, rental shops, thrift and other resale stores, cleaning establishments, spare parts manufacturing, etc...), anything the City could do to foster reuse will promote economic development in these industries. The Solid Waste Management Plan suggests that waste prevention costs roughly one-tenth as much as an integrated program of collection and other management methods. This makes prevention a great investment, returning as much as ten-fold the amount spent on it in the first year, and provides continuing dividends in subsequent years. But the City is spending only $1.5 million for waste prevention in each of the next four years vs. 30 to 40 times that amount for each of the other waste management methods. The City's own Plan shows funds needed to achieve the 9% goal escalate from over $3 million in 1992 to over $12 million in 1997, the year 9% is first achieved. We need to do more to take best advantage of the enormous savings achievable from a comprehensive waste prevention strategy.

1. Revise the Solid Waste Plan to include a comprehensive strategy to research, plan, and implement waste prevention for each of the next 10 years. Most of the Plan's limited program for waste prevention is largely completed in the first 2 years. The rest of the specified time frame is silent on waste prevention, but the opportunities to reduce and reuse waste are enormous and largely unexplored.

2. Implement, more aggressively, the pilots, research, educational, and grant/loan programs, and infrastructure enhancements which are described in more detail in Volume 2 of this report, many of which have already been identified by the Manhattan SWAB Waste Prevention Committee and by DOS' own Solid Waste Management Plan consultants as beneficial investments in waste prevention.

3. Vigorously develop and pursue economic incentives and disincentives and legislative requirements, including residential and agency quantity-based user fees, advance disposal fees, and tax incentives among other fiscal measures to promote more durable, reusable, and less toxic products and reduced and reusable packaging, as previously recommended by the Waste Prevention Committee.

4. Expedite the development of methods to monitor and measure the success of waste prevention efforts, including the capability to determine the tons prevented by each program or fiscal initiative on an annual basis, as well as the costs of each and economic and environmental costs avoided. Implement these methods as soon as possible, and report the results to the public.

5. Support procurement legislation to institute an ongoing review process to maximize City purchases of products and packaging which reduce the volume and toxicity of waste. DGS should establish mechanisms to acquire such information about products in the bidding process. Establish computer bulletin boards and other systems to increase maintenance, reuse, and resale of products within the City.

6. Commence immediately, the design and implementation of studies to characterize the City's waste streams, as previously recommended by the Waste Prevention Committee, to itemize for many subcategories of products and packaging, the volume, weight, toxics content, and in the case of durable products, the condition. Repeat these studies every few years in order to refine the comprehensive waste prevention strategy.

7. Pursue, more vigorously, a major lobbying campaign for packaging, disposables and toxicity reduction legislation at the state and federal levels in coordination with other cities, environmental groups, and the SWABs.

8. Fund waste prevention as a top priority item in the DOS budget. DOS needs a larger staff of knowledgeable experts in the many aspects of volume and toxicity waste prevention in order to achieve a serious, long-term commitment to maximizing prevention. A mere $1.5 million is not a serious commitment, when viewed in light of the tens of millions given to each of the other management components, and will hinder the City's progress in achieving its goals.