By Susan Jarvis
May 12, 2003

The Environmental Protection Agency's Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste and Emergency Response Marianne Horinko briefed members of the Municipal Waste Management Association, via conference call on April 24 regarding some of EPA's new initiatives, including the One Clean Up Program, "Plug into E-Cycling" campaign and its- Resource Conservation Challenge.

"The One Clean Up Program is designed to better manage complicated environmental programs," said Horinko. Goals include focusing on the end of use of clean up sites, assuring more consistency and efficiency in clean ups and making information about cleanups more accessible to the public. Horinko said that it was their hope that the One Clean Up program would encourage more development activities to occur because the sites would be cleaned up to the level needed for a future use.

Call participants also received an update on EPA's E-recycling program, "Plug into Ecycling." "The campaign is designed to raise public awareness about electronics recycling," said Horinko. Many MWMA members and their cities already participate in their own e-cycling programs. The EPA program has been designed to maximize awareness for these types of programs and to possibly assist in those efforts.

Finally, EPA announced its- Resource Conservation Challenge, a major national effort to conserve national resources. Horinko challenged call participants to help EPA increase recycling rates to 35 percent and cut the generation of 30 priority chemicals in hazardous waste by half by the year 2005.

The Municipal Waste Management Association (MWMA) is an environmental affiliate of the Conference of Mayors, providing information and professional development for urban environmental professionals. For more information about MWMA or these programs, log onto usmayors.org/mwma or contact Susan Jarvis at 202-861-6760, or by email to sjarvis@usmayors.org.