How does government deals with garbage?
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Answer:
influence solid waste management decisions. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates household, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial solid and hazardous wastes under the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
A critical issue in achieving sustainable production and consumption - and thus in eliminating waste in communities and industry -- is establishing the appropriate role for the various levels of government, but most notably for local government. That's because over a century ago in industrialized nations local governments were assigned responsibility for managing waste in their communities. That function continues today and is, we argue, a major barrier to making the transformation to a Zero Waste society. Even though waste management services are often contracted to private industry, local government still typically manages service providers and assumes ultimate responsibility for waste outcomes. Local governments, though skilled, creative, and well intentioned in their problem solving, are taking responsibility for problems caused by others, namely manufacturers. Government leadership is very much needed to make progress to sustainability, but a critical step is for local government to stop providing free disposal service for manufactured product wastes. Local government responsibility for waste was appropriate at a different time for a very different waste stream, but that it is no longer appropriate or effective in dealing with today's product wastes. We address four questions: (1) How did waste become a community responsibility and one of the core functions of local government? (2) How has the waste stream changed since that time? (3) Who should be responsible for which wastes? And (4) How can different levels of government most effectively advance Zero Waste?