Environmental Benefits Fact Sheet
Source Reducation, Reuse¹, & Recycling²
in the State of Delaware:
An Overview for 2009³

© December 2010

Introduction

Most people are aware that source reduction, reuse, and recycling decreases reliance on landfills, incinerators, and waste-to-energy facilities.  These waste reduction strategies are also critical for protecting the global environment.  By reducing the need for "virgin" resources extracted from forests, oil reserves, and mines, we use less energy, reduce greenhouse gases, water pollution, and conserve natural resources.

Using less energy decreases greenhouse gas emissions because the majority of consumed energy in the United States relies on fossil fuels (i.e., gasoline, diesel, natural gas, and coal).  Fossil fuels are the most significant source of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions.  Energy conservation also minimizes the need for energy development and production, which are also responsible for significant environmental impacts.

Source reduction, reuse, and recycling also keep materials out of landfills, incinerators and waste-to-energy facilities, where water and air contamination can result from leachate, air emissions, and ash residue.

By contrast, the steps required to supply recycled materials to industry (i.e., collection, processing, and transportation) uses less energy than the steps in supplying virgin materials (i.e., extraction, refining, processing, and transportation).  The majority of the energy savings associated with the use of recycled content materials in manufacturing is the result of avoided processing, because recycled materials have already been processed at least once.  

NERC’s Environmental Benefits Calculator generates estimates of the environmental benefits of State of Delaware, based on the tonnages of materials that were source reduced, reused, recycled, landfilled, or incinerated (includes waste-to-energy).  The Calculator is based on per ton figures of the estimated energy use and emissions from several lifecycle analysis studies.  The Calculator tailors the results to the amount of materials source reduced, reused, and recycled, as well as the current mix of landfilling, incineration/waste-to-energy in State of Delaware.  This Fact Sheet summarizes some of the results from the Calculator specific to State of Delaware.

State of Delaware 2009

• State of Delaware’s recycling provided industry with an environmentally preferable source of materials.

State of Delaware’s municipal and commercial recycling programs collected and supplied 323,637.0  tons of scrap commodities such as paper, glass, metals, plastics, wood, computers, and construction & demolition (C&D) materials for use in the production of new products.

• Greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by State of Delaware source reduction, reuse, and recycling.

• State of Delaware’s source reduction, reuse, and recycling saved energy.

State of Delaware’s source reduction, reuse, and recycling saved a total of 3,576,492.8 Million BTUs of energy, equal to 3.42% of all energy used by industry in Delaware.  This is equivalent to 28,787,408.5 gallons of gasoline.  It represents the amount of energy that would be required to power 34,960.83 homes for one year in the United States.  Curbside recycling alone saved 2,163,418.56 Million BTUs of energy.

• State of Delaware’s recycling conserved natural resources.

By recycling 22,375.0  tons of scrap metal and glass in 2009, State of Delaware’s recycling efforts reduced the need for virgin materials, including 1,723.53 tons of limestone, 24,305.0  tons of iron ore, 13,610.8  tons of coal, 1,905.15 tons of sand,  600.86 tons of soda ash, and  234.48 tons of feldspar. 

Recycling 81,434.0 tons of newspapers, phone books, office paper, textbooks, magazines and cardboard in 2009, resulted in forest carbon sequestration benefits equal to 5,717,920.0 tree seedlings grown for 10 years.  Recycling 81,434.0 tons of all types of paper saved 268,732.2 cubic yards of landfill space.

All data reported in this Fact Sheet were calculated by the NERC Environmental Benefits Calculator, 2009.  For more detail about the specific environmental benefits attributable to source reduction, reuse, and recycling in State of Delaware and for NERC’s free downloadable Calculator, go to http://www.nerc.org/topic_areas/environmental_benefits_calculator.html

1 Source reduction and reuse are defined as activities that reduce the need for the production of virgin materials.  Examples of source reduction and reuse are light-weighting (e.g. using 25 percent less aluminum to produce the same product), the reuse of a material (e.g. dismantling a building and reusing the 2x4 studs in a new structure).  Other examples include book swaps and computer donations (assumes that new books and new computers would have been needed without these actions).  For the purpose of measuring the environmental impacts of these activities, source reduction and reuse are used interchangeably.   

2 Recycling is defined as the use of scrap or waste material used in place of virgin inputs in the manufacturing process.  When a Calculator user indicates that they are “recycling” they are referring to the act of setting the scrap or waste material aside for use in the manufacturing process.  Furthermore, when Calculator users indicate that they are "recycling" materials like yard trimmings, food scraps, mixed organics, etc, U.S. EPA calculates the benefit of composting.   

3 The most recent data provided by the state environmental agency.

4 Metric tons of carbon equivalent (MTCE) is a unit of measurement that expresses the heat-trapping effects of various greenhouse gas emissions.  Another unit of measure sometimes used is metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2).  Source: U.S. EPA (2006) User’s Guide for WARM: Calculating Greenhouse Gas Emissions with the WAste Reduction Model.  Available at: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/calculators/Warm_UsersGuide.html.