Using ADC to get landfill diversion
Recology has been working to transform the landfill industry for over a decade. It’s not as simple as it sounds. Landfills are the place where we put all the things that cities and towns don’t recycle, the things that we don’t yet know how to recycle, and the things that were made without any thought given to their recoverability. Unfortunately, product designers are still slow to catch up on making recoverable products. Many municipal programs still don’t offer complete recycling and composting programs throughout the U.S. Many families, businesses and well-meaning people don’t understand composting. And then there are all the other quirky things, like ADC for example.
In California, 10% or nearly 3.5 million tons of the 34.9 million tons of material that were disposed of last year (including what was landfilled in California, imported and exported) was alternative daily cover, or ADC. According to CalRecycle, ADC is:
CalRecycle-approved materials other than soil used as a temporary overlay on an exposed landfill face. Generally, these materials must be processed so that they do not allow gaps in the face surface, which would provide breeding grounds for insects and vermin. Public Resources Code section 41781.3 stipulates this practice is recycling, not disposal, and authorizes Cal Recycle to adopt regulations, such as Title 27 California Code of Regulations, section 20690. Approved materials include processed green materials, sludge, ash and kiln residue, compost, construction and demolition debris, and special foams and fabrics.
In other words, ADC is material that actually goes to the landfill, and for all intents and purposes is landfilled, but ADC is counted as landfill diversion because it prevents clean soil from being imported and then contaminated at a landfill. That’s not so bad right? Instead of using clean soil to cover an exposed landfill on a day to day basis, why not use other materials that serve the same function? Well, a closer look at what was actually used as ADC may be enlightening.
Much of what was used for ADC in California in 2008 was auto shredder waste, sometimes called “auto shred” or “auto fluff.” According to the State of Washington’s Department of Ecology, “Auto fluff is waste left over from shredding old cars for scrap metal. It can contain heavy metals and poly-chlorinated biphenyls.” Although this material would probably have been landfilled anyway, it counts towards the diversion rate.
So, now that you know that ADC can be counted towards landfill diversion, how are the diversion leaders in California using ADC in 2008?
Oakland used 202 thousand tons of ADC that year. San Jose used 159 thousand. San Francisco used 63 thousand.
In 2008, city of Oakland reported a diversion rate of 66%, but nearly 25% of that was achieved through ADC. Without ADC, it’s diversion rate would have been 41%!
San Jose diverted 65% that year, and 10% of that diversion was through ADC. Without ADC, it’s diversion rate would have been 55%!
San Francisco achieved a 72% diversion rate, but only 3% was from ADC. Without ADC, it’s diversion rate would have been 69%.
The important point here is that many cities across California are getting diversion credit without doing the heavy lifting. There are many cities that do not really divert materials from landfills. They may not create programs to educate people about reducing their consumption, programs to make it possible to reuse materials, and certainly don’t work to create robust recycling and composting programs. It means that although cities are achieving relatively high diversion rates, they are still landfilling valuable materials but getting the credit for landfill diversion by abusing the leeway CalRecycle has given them to count ADC towards their diversion rate.
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Until there is a level playing field regarding what material can be used as alternative daily cover, and how landfill diversion is calculated, we will have to keep pounding the drum of resource recovery and insisting on the concept of WASTE ZERO. It is the only real and permanent way to make a positive impact on our natural world, our children’s future, and create the jobs that are so badly needed right now.
Upcycling beyond crafts
What does the future look like? We love this photo, which was part of the Super Crafty Costume Contest this past Halloween.
Crafty and creative people are always looking to repurpose the things around them, but for us here at Recology, upcycling holds a special place, and we are glad it is catching on. Sites like Etsy are helping. Through it, people can set up their own store fronts. Found*Ling, is one example of a store where new things are made from old things. Other examples of upcycled products range from table lamps made from recycled circuit boards to neckties made from cassette tapes. (See Mashable Tech for a full list).
This week, the Sierra Club Green Home reported on the Recologized Tote bag, a brainchild of a Recology San Francisco employee. The bag, made from the old or unused uniforms of Recology San Francisco employees, were created with the idea of utilizing landfill-bound items as “up-cycled” goods for sustainable living. The tote bag can be used as a shopping bag at your local farmers’ market, to run errands or for a day at the beach. The bag was made in collaboration with UPsicle, an SF-based designer who is a member of SFMade. UPsicle specializes in creating unique, water resistant, washable and reusable bags.
Recology has also been working with SFMade, which was founded in 2010, and has as its mission to build and support a vibrant manufacturing sector in San Francisco. It is the only organization of its kind focused on building San Francisco’s economic base through these means, and currently supports more than 200 local manufacturers who collectively sustain more than 2,500 jobs in San Francisco. This month, SFMade and the Banana Republic are launching the first SFMade Pop-Up shop at the Banana Republic’s flagship store on Grant St. Their collaboration supports independent, San Francisco-based apparel and accessories companies.
With our 90+ year roots in reusing and recycling what others have thought of as “garbage” we are excited to continue to recover everything we can from landfills. This is what we mean by WASTE ZERO.
Like this:
California is moving the needle on recycling
By now you may know that California has a new state goal of diverting 75% of “garbage” from landfills by 2020. 2020 is a big year for the state. San Francisco and Oakland have their own goal of reaching zero waste by that year. The city of Mountain View has set the goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by that year. Why is 2020 so important?
Over twenty years ago, the California legislature mandated that 50% of landfill-bound materials had to be diverted to other uses. San Francisco, with its growing population opted for the higher goal of 75% several years later. The year 2020 is the target year for proving what can be accomplished in three generations. The idea of zero waste has gained momentum here in the United States because, whether aspiration or not, the technology, know-how, public will and information is now available for us to make it happen. Yet, according to CalRecycle, although some places in San Diego County are on their way to meeting the 75% recycling mandate, there are many places within that county and throughout California where cities, towns, municipalities and unincorporated areas struggle to divert even 50% of their landfill-bound materials.
Percent Diverted from Landfills, San Diego County
So what is zero waste?
Zero waste is the perspective that no materials are sent to landfills or incinerators. At Recology we believe in WASTE ZERO, which means making the best and highest use of all resources. There is a slight distinction. It is not enough to aspire to send nothing to landfills. Rather, the idea of WASTE ZERO is that the materials that are diverted from end-of-life destinations should be used in smart ways.
Raising the bar on mandated recycling isn’t just about the destination of landfill-diverted materials. Governor Jerry Brown signed the legislation not only to save our natural resources, but also to create jobs. Assembly member Chesbro, who authored the bill, said that the original 50% mandate helped to create 125,000 new jobs since 1989 and provide $4 billion in yearly salaries. Members of StopWaste.Org mentioned that for every job lost at a landfill, three more were created in recycling. Here’s to more jobs! Let’s keep recycling!
Ask Gino: Why are garbage rates going up?
Gino Gasparini is the community affairs manager for Recology San Mateo County. He lives in Redwood City. His OP-ED piece appeared in the Daily News, San Mateo County, on October 17, 2011.
I spend a significant part of my day visiting with our customers, attending community meetings with neighborhood associations, service clubs, chambers of commerce and a host of other groups. In these meetings I get the same question from everyone — “Why are our rates going up again?” The common assumption is that our company, Recology San Mateo County (RSMC), is somehow allowed to charge whatever we want for our collection services.
However, the truth is very different from the perception. RSMC is simply the collection service provider to the 12 member agencies that make up the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (SBWMA or RethinkWaste) service area. We are not the rate-setting entity, we simply charge a contractually agreed upon cost to provide collection service. Moreover, while the percentages that rates are going up seem alarming, the actual dollar amounts are quite reasonable for the new and improved services being provided, in an area that has some of the lowest established collection rates in the Bay Area. The reality is that Recology’s cost is just one component of the collection rates set by the 12 agencies. For instance, within the rates set by cities, there are costs for disposal at the landfill and processing charges for the recycling and organics handled by a different contractor, South Bay Recycling, as well as the cost to close out the previous contracts with Allied Waste [totaling $10+ million].
To complicate things even more, a significant contributor to collection rates increasing for many cities this year is the impact of residents subscribing to smaller garbage carts — otherwise known as cart migration. Many residents have increased recycling and composting, which has helped them reduce their garbage service levels considerably, and since rates are lower for the smaller garbage cart sizes, they are able to reduce their monthly charges.
This cart downsizing is a very positive thing, and coupled with the amount of material we pick up, tells us definitively that the recycling collection programs are working well, since we have increased recycling and compost volumes across the board by more than 30 percent. This is a good thing and it is what RethinkWaste and the CartSMART program sought out to do when choosing a new collection system and Recology as its new collection services provider.
Though a bit counterintuitive, the effort or time spent and the cost to service a 20-gallon cart is essentially the same as the cost to service a 32-, 64- or 96-gallon carts. In all instances, the same number and type of trucks are used, the labor costs are the same and the same infrastructure requirements are necessary. Yet, the rates charged to residents are based on the size of their garbage carts, and they are significantly discounted when using a smaller garbage cart.
This rate structure was put in place for a good reason: it provides an incentive for recycling over disposal — a highly commendable and sustainable purpose, and it has yielded cost savings to people who recycle.
However, because of the success of the new CartSMART program, and based on the rates established, the balance of large carts to smaller ones has shifted and many of the RethinkWaste member agencies have found themselves collecting insufficient revenue through their rates to cover the costs of providing the service and are therefore in a position where adjustments are necessary to account for past revenue shortfalls and to help prevent future shortfalls.
This explanation of rate setting is not to suggest that Recology’s costs are not increasing. They are. Our collection service costs to the RethinkWaste member agencies have an average rate impact of 2.2 percent from 2011 to 2012. The reason for this increase is due to contractual adjustments based on consumer price index, fuel costs and labor costs. The truth is that Recology would prefer not to raise collection rates. But the fact is, based on our contracts, our costs rise and/or fall based on established indexes to cover adjustable items like fuel and labor. What is also fact is that while our cost increases are part of the rate increases, they are a small portion of them and they are not done on a whim, but instead are based on solid, nationally indexed, contracted and approved formulas.
We understand that rate increases are never easy. We also understand that the percentages being discussed are large. We ask you to keep in mind that the actual dollar amount is minimal and are only due in small part to Recology’s allowable cost increases. We also ask you to keep in mind that the new CartSMART program is providing great results and has been warmly received. It also is a critical step in meeting new state recycling goals established by Assembly Bill 341 that sets a 75 percent recycling goal for California by 2020 — the most ambitious in the nation.
Recology San Mateo County is proud to be a part of this successful program and is committed to helping our community and cities that we serve achieve the highest level of recycling through the new CartSMART weekly collection program.
A direct portal to a landfill
There was an article posted last week on tinygreenbubble.com about the semantics in the world of resource recovery. Jocelyn Saurini wrote “don’t think that I’m one of those girls on a bandwagon about how San Francisco does everything right. Believe me, I am not that girl. However, the city has nailed one thing fabulously: They’ve found a way to make residents think about landfill size every single time they throw things away.”
During her trip to SF, she discovered that landfill-bound material is collected in a container labeled “landfill” and not “trash” or “garbage”.
Semantics do matter in what we do because the materials that go into the green and blue containers ARE NOT garbage. According to one dictionary, garbage means: “any matter that is no longer wanted or needed; trash.”
But in the areas where we work, what diligent people do every day is make a decision to save our natural resources by recycling and composting. They are not “throwing away” anything except what there is no next best use for. The materials we recycle become the same or next use items. We convert the organics that we collect into compost. Let’s stop calling it garbage.
As for landfill size–yes, landfill space matters. In some communities people do not think about what they throw away and quickly use up the area available to dispose of true garbage. That means they end up having to find more land to use for landfilling “garbage”. But we see a more fundamental problem. Many useful resources are buried in the first place because no recycling alternatives exist.
As for everything that goes in the landfill container, yes its true that has no chance to be recovered. It doesn’t get sorted for usable material. So we depend on people to make the wise choice and minimize the amount of true garbage they put in that container. We know, like Jocelyn does, that “waste doesn’t just disappear.” That’s why we say WASTE ZERO.
Recology Wins California Product Stewardship Council’s Partner of the Year
Last week the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC) awarded Recology their Partner of the Year Award at their annual meeting at the California Resource Recovery Association’s Conference. CPSC recognized Recology for its belief in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), contributions to EPR educational outreach and participation in local, regional and statewide efforts to expand the implementation of EPR.
EPR, or product stewardship, is a strategy to place a shared responsibility for end-of-life product management on the producers, and all entities involved in the product chain. It is an approach to product and materials management that improves their utilization and promotes waste minimization. Under product stewardship, the consumer, the product designer, the manufacturer and the recycler are called upon, as environmental stewards, to take responsibility for the design, manufacture, marketing, distribution, use, and recycling of the product. This method removes the sole responsibility, for end-of-life management, from the general public and instead encourages changes in product design that reduce waste and the negative impacts on human health and the environment at every stage of the product’s lifecycle.
Currently 28 California counties, in addition to dozen of cities within these counties, have individually passed EPR resolutions, together these total 121 resolutions supporting product stewardship. Every other remaining county is a member of an association that passed an EPR resolution or policy statement. These resolutions support phasing out the end-of-life management that is free to manufacturers of problem products like carpet, paint, batteries, electronics and pharmaceuticals, to name a few. However the only current statewide programs are carpet and paint. Now that local governments are setting the goals, the next step is to develop a statewide EPR framework policy for all applicable products, so that individual legislation isn’t needed on a product by product basis. When this type of progress occurs, California can, through successful EPR programs, rapidly decrease the waste production of these products and effect changes to require better product design.
As a part of Recology’s product stewardship work, Recology provides educational programs in the communities it serves, gives first hand presentations and explanations of how to appropriately recycle difficult materials, works on state legislature to allow for the creation of EPR programs and participates in regulatory packages to allow for existing EPR programs to thrive.
Recology has long expressed its excitement about the direction recycling and composting efforts are moving in California, and a big part of those efforts is the growing support and expansion of EPR programs. With a rallying cry of “WASTE ZERO,” Recology looks forward to the future successes of more EPR programs. Recology is well-deserving of this recognition and together with organizations like CPSC, by promoting improvements in product design, appropriate end-of-life product management and overall environmental sustainability, goals like “WASTE ZERO” can be achieved.
The partnership between CPSC and Recology is a great way to continue the support of product stewardship and continue the movement toward finding the highest and best use for every resource.
The Story of Zero Waste
The 850,000 residents of San Francisco are what make it the country’s environmental leader. Read The Story of Zero Waste and of the hard work that the City and Recology do every day to support it in this month’s issue of Resource Recycling.
Menlo Park Connoisseurs Marketplace
Connoisseurs’ Marketplace: One Green Festival
Are you planning to attend the Connoisseurs’ Marketplace this weekend in Menlo Park? It’s their silver anniversary, and it’s going to be their GREENEST event yet!
Menlo Park’s Chamber of Commerce has pledged to make this a Zero Waste event while showcasing top artists, music, chefs’ demos, fabulous food and drink, fun for kids, artisan specialty food purveyors, a collector car show, home and garden exhibits, health and wellness displays, an organic and green products showcase, and the new Cuda Lounge.
July 16-17 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Santa Cruz Avenue.
Admission is FREE–don’t miss it!
Learn more about the event and how Recology is helping out with their greening efforts.
Zero waste at Golden Gate Park
Bring your own cup… and compost
On Saturday, May 21, 2011, 172 Recology volunteers gave a helping hand to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department at Golden Gate Park. Our project volunteers painted two Polo Field tunnels, enriched the soil of 65 rose beds, trimmed, cleared 
and laid cardboard and mulch along a half-mile-long hedge, and weeded a segment of the Redwood Grove–all before 12 noon!
We topped it off by enjoying each others’ company at the zero waste picnic after the hard work was done.
Recology volunteers had some time to talk about recycling and reuse, and Annika sported her purse, made from recovered plastic. Our blue and green carts were respectively filled to capacity with recyclable and compostable material and we left no trace of residual landfill material behind.
We also donated to Golden Gate Park:
· 40 gallons of recycled paint received at our Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility from San Francisco residents
· 2,800 pounds of old corrugated cardboard (OCC) sorted and baled at Recycle Central® @ Pier 96 and collected from San Francisco residents and businesses
· 40 yards of blended compost made at Jepson Prairie Organics from San Francisco food scraps and yard trimmings
Thanks again to our volunteers, who made the zero waste volunteering event at Golden Gate Park a huge success. Together, we continue to Recologize the communities we serve.
Go Green This Memorial Day!
Photograph by Jeff Kubina via flickr.com
No matter what you have planned – a day at the park, a backyard barbecue, or just a simple family gathering – make it green!
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Before everyone arrives, be sure to set out different containers for recycling and composting. This will make it easy for everyone to put items in the right place once they’re done.
Use reusable utensils, bowls and cups. Cloth napkins work great instead of paper napkins. But if you do go with paper plates and napkins, be sure to buy recycled – and then compost them when you’re done.
Pass on those condiment packets! Buying in bulk is cheaper, more convenient and much more eco friendly. For example, provide bottles of ketchup and mustard instead of individual packets.
Avoid Styrofoam! Polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam, takes up to 1,000 years to break down, and can’t be recycled! In addition, products made of Styrofoam leach toxic chemicals out into the food or beverage they contain – especially when heated.
Clean off dirty chairs, tables and other outside patio furniture with biodegradable, non-toxic cleaning products instead of using chemical based cleaners.
Grill organic, hormone-free meat, sustainable caught fish and organic fruit and vegetables. Go shopping at your local farmer’s market! The fresh produce and local products will please everyone’s palate, and you’ll help support local farmers. And as a bonus – you can avoid crowded grocery stores!
Grilling:
Over half of all Americans will be having meals from a grill this Memorial Day weekend. While the effects of one or two grills may seem small to you, the overall impact of millions of barbecues around the country can have a very serious impact! Try some of these tips to lessen your bbq footprint:
- While they are still toxic, gas, propane and electric grills burn cleaner and more efficiently than charcoal or wood. Electric grills are the cleanest, releasing 99% less carbon monoxide and 91% less carbon dioxide than charcoal. Next best is propane, followed by natural gas-fired, which burn cleaner.
- If you do use charcoal, consider lump brands. These are made from real hardwood firewood chunks which have been charred and do not contain chemical binders or igniting agents.
- Switch from lighter fluid, which releases smog-forming Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), to a chimney starter.
Cleanup:
Be sure to recycle all the glass bottles, aluminum cans, plastic tubs and bottles from your party.
Remember that paper plates, cups, napkins, plain cardboard and waxy cardboard boxes and containers – they can all be composted.
Be sure to encourage guests to take home leftovers, and remember – leftover food can be composted!
Whatever you end up doing, have a happy and healthy Memorial Day Weekend!
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