Beginning a couple of decades ago, the push to invest in clean energy resulted in a common-sense, win-win opportunity that drove economic and environmental gains for Washington cities—and continues to pay dividends. Building on the success of this model and applying it to a new sector, the Center for Sustainable Infrastructure (CSI) suggests that we can make similar gains by focusing on the development of a “clean materials” economy.

CSI’s newly released report, “From Waste Management to Clean Materials,” shows how this can be achieved. The report focuses on reinventing our waste and recycling systems and transforming them into a clean materials system with the potential to create tens of thousands of jobs, solve our recycling woes, create hundreds of new businesses, and generate local revenues and billions of dollars in new investment. Along the way, we can cut emissions that are driving climate change and reduce toxic pollution at the front end.

The clean materials opportunity is analogous to Washington’s pioneering clean energy approach in that it connects job creation and environmental progress. While the vision for clean energy seemed radical just a little over 20 years ago, many people across the state began to reimagine clean energy solutions to reduce costs, pivot from carbon-intensive energy, and create new jobs.

This strong leadership and vision, partially led by cities and counties, resulted in important environmental wins and economic growth that continues. According to the 2019 Clean Jobs Washington report (by E2, a national, nonpartisan, environmentally minded business group), more than 5 out of every 10 jobs in our state’s energy economy are now in clean energy industries, accounting for over 83,000 jobs. The benefits aren’t restricted to urban areas, either: 45 percent of Washington’s clean energy jobs are based outside the Seattle metro area, and of the top 10 counties by clean energy jobs per capita, five have populations under 100,000.

As with clean energy, a new clean materials system isn’t just about opportunity. It’s also about necessity.

Washingtonians have been enthusiastic recyclers for decades. But the system received a shock in 2017, when overseas markets began closing to US recyclables, causing revenues for local recycling programs to plummet. As governments search for new solutions to the crisis, recycling costs are rising, and more recyclable material is being landfilled. Other challenges include changes in packaging that make recycling more difficult, as well as the failure of waste prevention strategies to actually reduce waste streams. And we now know that the most harm to the planet and people’s health from the stuff we throw away comes before the waste stage, when materials are extracted, processed, manufactured, transported, and used. All of these stages in a material’s life cycle can cause pollution, waste valuable resources, or lead to toxic exposures.

With the right vision and leadership, we can embark on our next adventure and claim the same leadership role on clean materials that we’ve claimed in clean energy.

The clean materials vision is based on four fundamental strategies we call “diamond solutions” that work together, rather than being ranked one above the other. They are:

• Develop clean production and processing hubs where businesses co-locate to: enable one’s “waste” to become another’s resource, generating economic value while reducing waste and costs; process recycled and organic materials; give materials new life through reuse and repair enterprises; and build bio-refineries and the growing bio-economy.
• Prevent waste at all stages by incentivizing redesign of products and supply chains to minimize waste and pollution, eliminate unneeded toxic materials, and waste less food.
• Get longer life and more use from products through greater reuse, repair, and sharing of products.
• Optimize recycling by cleaning up recycled material streams, redesigning collection and processing of recyclables, and measuring success based on actual recycling.

Across Washington and the Pacific Northwest, we are already seeing successes that show what the clean materials future can look like and how it can benefit cities (for examples, see “Clean Scene” at left). And with Covid-19 hammering local jobs and revenues, there’s more reason than ever to pivot to smart strategies that create tens of thousands of jobs, turn waste into value, grow local revenues, and fashion a cleaner, more efficient system that drives economic gains instead of costs borne by the public. Building excellence at clean materials solutions at home will position Pacific Northwest companies to export expertise, proven here, to other regions and the world, establishing our region as a national and international leader in the clean materials economy.

We are blessed to live in a state with a history of pragmatic innovation. With the right vision and leadership, we can embark on our next adventure and claim the same leadership role on clean materials that we’ve claimed in clean energy—and have a similar impact on the environment and the economy.

The Center for Sustainable Infrastructure is a Pacific Northwest–based nonprofit dedicated to building a positive, brighter future for our communities that is prosperous, inclusive, sustainable, and resilient.