Report to the General Assembly (Published)

Document Title

Promoting the Procurement and Use of Recycle Products by Agencies of the Commonwealth

Author

Department of Waste Management

Enabling Authority

HJR 158 (1990)

Executive Summary

In 1990, the General Assembly adopted House Joint Resolution 158 (HJR 158), which directed the Department of Waste Management to conduct a study of how the Commonwealth can most effectively promote the procurement and use of recycled products by state agencies. Specifically, HJR 158 requested the Department to identify the current barriers tot he procurement and use of recycled products by state agencies, and to develop recommendations for removing such barriers.

This report focuses on identifying the barriers that inhibit the public sector from increasing its procurement levels of recycled products and lists a variety of plausible solution alternatives for overcoming those barriers. Finally, specific recommendations are presented for increasing state agency procurement.

Throughout the course of its study, the Department repeatedly encountered barriers to the procurement of products made from recovered materials. These barriers are not unique to state agencies or even the public sector in general. While this report is specific to state agency procurement in Virginia, the ultimate success of large-scale recycling depends on wide spread consumer demand -- public sector and private citizens and businesses -- for recycled products.

A study of the procurement aspect of recycling is inseparable from the study of recycling as a whole. A discussion of recycling centers on two phenomena: the events that led the U.S. into becoming a "throw away society", and, the more recent intervention by governments into what was essentially a free market system.