Tim Kramer

Tim Kramer

Yale University, MS
Stearns/SCS Scholar 2008

How Improved Waste Management Practices Can Tie into Carbon Markets and Create Emission Reductions

Project Description (while EREF Scholar):
I am conducting research on how landfills, functioning as storages sites for carbon, can be accounted for in future cap and trade policies.  As paper and wood products become buried in a landfill they are removed from the carbon cycle thus making landfills a “carbon sink”.  I have begun working with several forestry and industrial ecology professors to develop waste management accounting metrics that can be adjusted to account for the carbon reductions found in the waste cycle.  By improving accounting metrics, this may lead to improved waste management procedures an also possibly provide an additional revenue source for landfills.  These reductions will be and are an integral part of the carbon cycle and should be included in efforts to address the ever-growing problems of climate change.

Biography:
Tim worked for 4 years as the Waste Management Specialist for the United States Antarctic Program on a research station on the Antarctic Peninsula.  Working to solve waste management issues for this small and isolated community has since inspired him to strive towards the development of waste management policies that balance the needs of the environment and society.  His growing interest in waste management policy brought him to Yale’s Master of Environmental Management Program where he is conducting his current research.