Recology

Communities partner to make sustainable organics recycling possible

An article in the December issue of MSW Management titled Rethinking Sustainable Organics included a quote from Henry Wallace, secretary of agriculture to President Franklin Roosevelt. The quote is:

“[n]ature treats the earth unkindly. Man treats her harshly. He over plows the cropland, overgrazes the pastureland, and overcuts the timberland. He destroys millions of acres completely. He pours fertility year after year into the cities, which in turn pour what they do not use down the sewers into the rivers and the ocean… The public is waking up, and just in time. In another 30 years it might have been too late.”

United States Department of Agriculture’s Soils and Men: Yearbook of Agriculture, 1936

In 1936, we already knew that through unsustainable management of cut trees, shrubs, and spoiled or leftover food we were depleting fertile soil of carbon and other nutrients. These materials can be managed to provide a soil amendment that returns minerals and carbon to the ground so that a piece of land will remain fertile despite years of cultivation that would otherwise depleted it. Bob Shaffer, an agronomist, says that only 10% of the planet has land that is suitable to raise crops and fortunately, over time, compost made from recycled food scraps has been embraced by farmers.

Recology has been working for 15 years with the City of San Francisco to make food scraps recycling possible. Now, 60% of what we at Recology touch in San Francisco stays out of landfills. One way we do this is through advanced composting processes, technology and the knowledge we’ve gained over 15 years. Greg Pryor, manager of  Jepson Prairie Organics has mastered the process through testing all kinds of technologies and techniques at the composting facility, which opened in 1996. Jepson Prairie Organics is located among agricultural lands in Northern California, and has created 1,100,000 tons of compost since it opened. The composting processes that Recology has developed have resulted in VOC emissions that are far below state minimum requirements, prevent the creation of methane gas, and create a specially-blended compost and compost teas that are useful to biodynamic farmers.

Closing the loop on sustainable farming is possible when communities that consider sustainability issues  as they plan their garbage programs–or resource recovery programs in the case of San Francisco–are willing to partner with companies like Recology in this great experiment of human social and ecological survival. We are glad that more and more cities are catching on.

Article Profiles the Recology SF Artist in Residence Program

Posted in Recology, San Francisco, You Should Know... by art at the dump on January 17, 2012

Robin LasserWEAD, the Women Environmental Artists Directory, has included an article about the Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence Program in issue #4 of their online magazine. Entitled, A Nexus for Art and Environmental Activism: The Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence Program, the article traces the history of the residency program and its role in bringing attention to important environmental matters. Included are the many artists who have addressed environmental issues in their residency work, as well as those with a social practice whose residencies have engaged community. The article illustrates how the residency activates artists, and demonstrates that even for those individuals whose work is not overtly environmental in focus, the residency experience has impacted their artistic practice and views about the environment and sustainability.

WEAD was founded in 1996 by Jo Hanson, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, and Estelle Akamine to use the unique perspective of women to further the field and understanding of ecological and social justice art through international collaborations. Hanson was the founder of the Recology Artist in Residence Program, and Steinman and Akamine both had residencies during the early years of the program. We are happy to continue our relationship with this organization which presents a distinctive voice on important issues effecting our planet.

       Robin Lasser, Dining at the Dump, 2002, c-print, 31 1/2 x 29 1/2″

Cupertino’s Environmental Recycling Day and Shredding Event

The City of Cupertino and Recology South Bay have teamed up to bring you an Environmental Recycling Day and Shredding Event on January 21st!

Location: Parking Lot A of De Anza College, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd in Cupertino

Cupertino residents can shred their documents, drop off their yard clippings for composting and recycle e-waste such as computers, monitors and certain appliances. We will also accept reusable furniture, clothing and shoes as well as toys and play structures for recycling.

Unacceptable materials include painted or treated wood, mattresses and products containing toxic chemicals, such as paints, pesticides and fertilizers.

This collaboration between the city of Cupertino and Recology (it happens twice a year) is to offer a free drive-through, drop-off service for Cupertino residents in an effort to encourage extended use of products and prevent valuable resources from being sent to landfills.

Each household is allowed one trip, and unloading of materials will be the responsibility of the resident. Residents must also provide a current waste collection bill and personal identification such as a driver’s license to verify Cupertino residency.

For more information, call Recology South Bay, which serves Cupertino at 408.725.4020 or visit http://www.recologysouthbay.com.

Thanks for recycling!

San Francisco Dump’s Artist in Residence Program Announces 2012 Residency Recipients

Posted in Recology, San Francisco, You Should Know... by art at the dump on December 15, 2011
Recology San Francisco is pleased to announce recipients of artist residencies for 2012. The six selected artists are Beau Buck, Tamara Albaitis, Amy Wilson Faville, Michael Damm, Julia Goodman, and Jeff Hantman.The Artist in Residence Program at Recology San Francisco is a one-of-a-kind initiative started in 1990 to support Bay Area artists while teaching children and adults about recycling and resource conservation. Artists work for four months in a studio space on site and use materials recovered from the Public Disposal Area. Over ninety professional Bay Area artists have completed residencies. Applications are accepted annually in August.http://www.recologysf.com/AIR


Beau Buck:
Residency: February-May; Exhibition reception: May 18 and 19, 2012

Beau Buck’s work is shaped by a kinship with animals and a personal mythology that draws on Native North American stories and contemporary folklore. Buck has crafted headgear—often modified motorcycle helmets—to approximate the heads of horses and buffalos. In his 16mm films, people are seen wearing these costumes in scenes tinged with magic realism which blur the lines between humans and animals. During his residency, Buck will expand on previous work to create numerous life-size jackrabbits made from worn garments, old uniforms, and other textiles. Buck’s art explores what is mysterious or unknown about the animal world to prompt contemplation about our own relationships with these creatures and the greater environment. Buck will share studio space with Karrie Hovey who was awarded a 2011 residency; their joint solo exhibitions will take place in May.

Tamara Albaitis and Amy Wilson Faville
Residency: June-September; Exhibition reception: September 21 and 22, 2012

Tamara Albaitis uses technology to mimic nature through sculptural sound installations. A painter by training, Albaitis often “draws” on walls, floors, or through space with the functional speaker wires used to transmit her sounds. She is interested in environments—be they natural, constructed, or simulated—that exist in our technologically saturated world, and explores their relationships to the global ecosystem and our own psyches. While at Recology, Albaitis will make use of the ample electronics that pass through the facility, such as old computers, discarded stereos, and speaker cones from TVs. She hopes to also incorporate welded metal in her installations which will feature sounds scavenged from the facility.
Piles of discarded items in the Public Disposal and Recycling Area will be familiar to Amy Wilson Faville who for the last year has been photographing public dumping sites in her Oakland neighborhood as sources for her paintings. In her work chaotic piles become tableaus that suggest complicated personal narratives, while also serving as metaphors for economic and societal collapse. Previous collage work has been based on photos Wilson Faville has taken of shopping carts used by the homeless. The patterning of the paper and fabrics that Wilson Faville brings together in abstract arrangements in these works are suggestive of quilts or curtains and allude to issues of home and security. During her residency Wilson Faville will photograph piles of refuse and continue with her 2-D collage work, making images of discarded material from discarded material.

Michael Damm, Julia Goodman, and Jeff Hantman
Residency: October-January; Exhibition reception: January 25 and 26, 2013

Video and installation artist Michael Damm will use the Recology Environmental Learning Center as both studio and gallery during his residency. Expanding on a body of site specific installations that present video works as unexpected, large-scale projections in urban traffic corridors, Damm will use the building’s windows to project images viewable to those passing on the street or riding Caltrain. For another work, Damm, who is interested in reframing experiences of the ordinary to induce new perceptions or alter habitual ways of seeing, will use a macro lens to film objects found in the Public Disposal and Recycling Area. His images will explore the idea of refuse as a landscape, and survey the waste stream as an index of material culture.


Julia Goodman uses paper and fabric pulp to create sculptural forms that conceptually relate back to their source materials and the items used in their making. Previous work includes a series of public wheatpastings using handmade paper, and the recreation of her parents’ love letters using their old bed sheets for pulp. Process and the history of papermaking are an integral part of Goodman’s work, and she has incorporated these elements into performative events that include either making paper or papyrus. Goodman will construct molds and drying systems from found materials during her residency, and will look for a variety of paper and fabrics from which to make her pulp. She will incorporate hand-carved marks and preexisting textures into her pieces, and plans to exhibit the objects used to make her paper as sculptural armatures or foundations for the finished works.
Jeff Hantman combines painting and printmaking in three-dimensional pieces on wood that bow or curve out from the wall. Hantman’s background as a woodworker informs his process which requires bending and shaping found materials, especially plywood, to create the rounded forms he uses as his canvases. Signs of wear, stains, paint, and other remnants of the wood’s previous use are incorporated into the works that are influenced by deteriorating structures such as old barns or water towers, as well as personal memories of places and events. Hantman, who normally scavenges for the wood he uses, looks forward to the abundance of items available at the dump and hopes to create larger-scale pieces and incorporate new materials, such as discarded household belongings, that are arched or can hold a curve.

Starting or building on successful recycling programs

Recology Humboldt County will now provide curbside recycling services to residents of the unincorporated Blue Lake and Fieldbrook areas of Humboldt County.  Recyclables will be collected in blue bags from the curb, along with garbage service. Recology Humboldt County’s Mike Leggins is excited to get the new recycling program up and running because “[i]t’s a low-cost means to get recycling service started.”

In Marysville, Recology Yuba-Sutter customers will get a free on-call curbside bulky-item pick-up once a year (1 per customer in areas that have the 3-cart service) in addition to their annual free dump coupon program. 

They will also have access to up to 50-gallons of free compost through an annual compost give-away at the Marysville Transfer Station.  Outreach and education is also part of the plan to help customers understand how they can decrease contamination of the recyclable materials they put into the yard debris and recycling carts.

We are happy that enthusiasm for our resource recovery programs is catching on!

Three ideas for giving to kids this holiday season

It’s the holiday season. Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone. And if you have children you are thinking of during this season, here are a few thoughts from Recology.

Do you know the company Green Toys?  They make toys out of recycled milk bottles.  There’s just one example of the innovative work being done by vendors to use recovered materials in their products.

Kaboose.com has a list of craft ideas to make from recycled and reusable material. There’s nothing like making things with kids to enrich their early life experiences.

In San Mateo County, you can also participate in the annual Coats for Kids collection drive. Recology San Mateo County will start collecting coats as part of the residential recycling service and will also picking up coats at special drop-off locations.

Belmont: Library:
1110 Alameda de las Pulgas
Monday – Wednesday
10:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Thursday – Friday 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Belmont: City Hall:
1 Twin Pines Lane
Monday – Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Belmont: Fire Station:
911 Granada Street
Monday – Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Burlingame: City Hall:
501 Primrose Road
Monday – Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Burlingame: Fire Station:
911 Granada Street
Monday – Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Foster City: Recreation Center:
650 Shell Boulevard
Monday – Friday 8:00 AM – 10:00 PM
Menlo Park: Library:
800 Alma Street
Monday & Wednesday
10:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Tuesday 12:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Thursday & Friday 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Saturday: 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Sunday: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Menlo Park: Arrillaga Family
Recreation Center:

701 Laurel Street
Monday – Sunday
5:30 AM – 10:00 PM
Menlo Park: Onetta Harris
Community Center:

100 Terminal Avenue
Monday – Friday
12:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Redwood City: City Hall:
1017 Middlefield Road
Monday & Friday
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
San Carlos: City Hall:
600 Elm Street
Monday & Friday
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Recology
San Mateo County:
225 Shoreway Road Monday & Friday
8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Recology Vallejo has collected children’s coats each year for the past eight years. The donated coats may be of any size but should be in good enough shape that a child can play, sit and go to school with a sense of pride.

All coats will be cleaned and then given to local children who are in need.

We look forward to your participation during the holiday season.

1 Million Tons of Food-Scraps

The rich soil from composted food scraps and yard waste is sent to farms and vineyards.

Photo: Sarah Rice / Special to The Chronicle

Today, Recology San Francisco collected it’s 1 millionth ton of food scraps for composting.

Since the pilot program launched in the mid 1990s, the program has grown in popularity and acceptance. It was in 2009, however, that participation in the program became a requirement. Following San Francisco’s example, over 90 cities across the world have created similar laws, says the San Francisco Chronicle.

Recology employees Marcus Tiger and Alfredo Guzman assemble compost bins for delivery

Photo: Sarah Rice / Special to The Chronicle

The food scraps—what is leftover from dinner at a restaurant or what went bad in the refrigerator—are composted and sent on to farms and vineyards in Northern California. Besides increasing San Francisco’s landfill diversion rate up to 78%, compost may be said to help prevent further desertification in the United States. The USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service provides a map of the regions that are vulnerable to desertification. The state of California is one of them.

USDA Globar Desertification Vulnerability MapThis Thanksgiving, remember to compost your food scraps. We need them for next year’s crops.

Composting tips

1. Place a paper bag inside the kitchen pail provided for compost, or line it with newspaper to avoid a mess. Remember not to use plastic bags – they’re not compostable
2. Sprinkle baking soda on the compost if it starts to smell.
3. Deter flies with citrus, lavender, eucalyptus or lemongrass oils by placing a few drops on a cloth and leaving it inside or on top of the pail.
4. Check to see if something is compostable before you throw it away. Take-out containers, pizza boxes, coffee cups and wine corks are all compostable.
5. If you generate almost no garbage, you may be able to utilize the 20-gallon cart service, which can save you $2 per month.

(src: Recology San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle, page C2)

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.

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.

Plastics Part 6: Poly is Popular

Posted in Recycling, Waste Streams, You Should Know... by tulip on November 8, 2011

Guest blogger, Jessica Connolly of Recology San Mateo County explores plastics and her relationship to them in this series.


Photo by Polycart via flickr

Polypropylene (PP) is one of the most versatile plastics available. It has a variety of uses and is made into many types of manufactured products. This plastic is used because it is very durable, has a high melting temperature, can be hydrophilic (be absorbent), and is relatively resistant to solvents and some chemicals.

                 PP is used in packaging, textiles, reusable food containers, electronic exteriors, automotive interiors, car batteries, and even the filling in baby diapers, and other sanitary products! Some textiles that PP is made into are carpets, ropes, synthetic thermals, and long underwear. Companies like Rubbermaid, Ziplock, and Tupperware use PP in their reusable containers, as they can withstand high temperatures in microwaves and dishwashers. The caps on PET soda and water bottles are made of PP as well.

                 PP is used as the exterior of car batteries because it is more resistant to corrosion from toxic materials and because the plastic can withstand high temperatures.

                 PP is also used as the main plastic in baby diapers because it can be manufactured to have high liquid-absorption properties, where the liquid binds to the plastic and becomes semi-solidified. It is also used for synthetic dish towels where the towel acts like a sponge, drying objects better than cotton or wool towels would.

                 PP is usually recycled into other hard plastics. However, it is not generally recycled into disposable or reusable food containers because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deems recycled materials in food containers as unsafe. Many times electronic exteriors for computers, TVs or DVD players are made from recovered PP.

 Because of its more durable and resistant properties, it is often reused much more than other types of plastic. It also has fewer chemicals and additives than other food ware plastic, making it safer for food to come in contact with. Compared to other plastic, PP is better for the environment, our health, and reduces our usage of disposable plastic, taking some ease off our consumption of petroleum.

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The biodegradable banwagon

Marketers, in their zeal to “green” their products, are calling everything they can “biodegradable.” There was an article in September’s paper about making plastics “green.” Everyone’s trying it–softdrink manufacturers, plastic bag manufacturers and even pen manufacturers.

With the array of products being marketed as “green” alternatives to plastic ranging from “new carbon” inputs to biodegradable (although not necessarily compostable) processing options, it can be a confusing world out there. And consumers are confused, or more often, misled.

There is a line that marketers tend to cross. Under the pressure to produce the greenest consumer products, they tend to misuse language, and the word “sustainability” most of all. If we consider the entire lifecyle of these products, what do we really gain? We’ve seen some plastic bags marketed as “will biodegrade in a landfill,” which is dually funny, if you know anything about landfills.

An article in today’s Mercury News announced that California’s Attorney General is finally going after false advertising.  This is a significant step in the recycling world. We are sure there will be a long road ahead for recyclers, manufactuers and consumers–everyone.

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