BURY OR BURN THEN BURY- THE CURRENT STATE OF SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT USING THE 2019 BALTIMORE CLEAN AIR ACT AS A CASE STUDY
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Date
2020-01-01
Type of Work
Department
School of Public Policy
Program
Public Policy
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Access limited to the UMBC community. Item may possibly be obtained via Interlibrary Loan through a local library, pending author/copyright holder's permission.
This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php or contact Special Collections at speccoll(at)umbc.edu
This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php or contact Special Collections at speccoll(at)umbc.edu
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Abstract
Why did Baltimore, Maryland choose to bury their Municipal Solid Waste instead of burning it? In this dissertations, I review the current state of solid waste management choices being made nationally and locally using the 2019 Baltimore Clean Air Act as a case study. I examine which factors led to the Baltimore City Council passing this law. How important were community, economic efficiency, equity, justice, liberty, and security in their decision? Is this decision in line with other decisions made by other governmental groups?The U.S. has a serious trash problem. We produce 262 million tons of it annually. State and local governments are tasked with deciding how to properly dispose of the municipal solid waste that they produce and they struggle with choosing the best method for disposing this waste. Whether to bury it in landfills or burn it in waste-to-energy plants has been debated since the 1970's. Baltimore is a good example of a municipality that is currently in the midst of this struggle.
The policy making process has been studied by many scholars using various fields of study, common criteria, and theoretical frameworks to explain how policy changes take place. Fields of study include political science, economics, and sociology. Political scientists and public policy analysts use theoretical frameworks to help determine why political actors choose some policy options over other ones. I use the Multiple Streams Framework and the Advocacy Coalition Framework to understand if the Baltimore City decision-makers chose to listen to advocacy groups instead of the EPA and other professional and academic groups.
I use the Qualitative Descriptive Analysis Methodology with a single Case Study to investigate the decision. A Qualitative Descriptive study uses in-depth interviews to get to the underlying thematic issues along with other types of data sources. This type of design is useful for this study because relatively few numbers of people were involved with the decision-making process.
Hopefully, by understanding why Baltimore made this decision will help other municipalities make their choice whether to bury or burn, then bury. I hope that this will be my contribution to the academic literature.