"Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) is a relatively new concept. Some recycling professionals use it as a fresh way of describing the integrated waste management hierarchy... 'a systems approach to using and reusing materials more productively over their entire life cycles.'
What exactly does this mean? The state of Oregon has been an early adopter of SMM (as defined by the EPA), and a new generation of policy and programs taking hold in the Beaver State provides some ideas of what SMM could look like in practice." This Resource Recycling article by David Allaway and Shannon Davis "describes Oregon’s SMM framework and explores how the concept is starting to change Oregon’s approach to recycling, most notably through efforts that aim to achieve the same environmental benefits of recycling using a broader suite of approaches."