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.
Junk: a symphony, a book, a treasure
New Music
In the spring of 2010, Nathaniel Stookey, a participant in the Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence program, performed a composition called Junkestra at the San Francisco Symphony. It was played with more than thirty instruments made entirely from objects that were discarded at the San Francisco Dump. Among them were bird cages, bicycle wheels, drawers, sewer pipes, railings, saws, and fixtures. And somehow, Stookey pulled it off. Cnet.com published a nice article about the project, which included a link to the composition’s third movement that you can download here (3MB). Just two years earlier, in 2008, the composition was part of the opening of the California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park, and was made into a CD performed by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.
The Book
There are other treasures that have emerged from the Artist in Residence program. For over twenty years, the program has inspired artists and the public to see garbage in a different way. Through the program, artists scavange the “junk” that people throw away–sometimes the volume of useful things can be overwhelming–and they transform what they find into works of art. Last year, Recology produced Art at the Dump: The Artist in Residence Program and Environmental Learning Center at Recology, a book that profiles the 78 artists who had participated in the program since its founding.
Cultural Treasure
The program has won numerous awards and recognition, including the Best Art from Trash – 2011 award from SFWeekly, The Acterra Business Environmental Award in 2009, inspired Recology’s GLEAN (formerly the Pacific Northwest Art Program) in Portland, RAIR (Recycled Artist in Residence) in Philadelphia, and was recently profiled for being the nexus of environmental activism. The program has become a beacon of culture, education and entertainment in San Francisco.
Join us for the first exhibit of 2012! 503 Tunnel Avenue in San Francisco.
- Upscale by Kaiya Rainbolt
1 Million Tons of Food-Scraps
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.
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.
This 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.
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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.
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!
Clean Economy Jobs: A Key in America’s Emerging Next Economy
In December of 2009, we wrote about green jobs in recycling–jobs that have a positive environmental impact. And so we are glad that yesterday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson visited one of the Recology materials recycling facilities (MRFs) to promote President Obama’s jobs plan and sustainability . If you’re wondering what clean economy or “green” jobs have to do with recycling, you should read a report called ”Sizing the Clean Economy” written by The Brookings Institution. It found that:
In terms of its sectoral profile, the clean economy encompasses a wide variety of activities that extends far beyond high-profile renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors. In fact, the vast majority of clean economy jobs produce goods or services that protect the environment or reduce pollution in ways that have little to do with energy or energy efficiency. Nearly one-fifth of clean economy jobs, for example, involve agriculture and conservation, which includes a variety of land and forestry management jobs, as well as those in organic farming. Another 40 percent of clean economy jobs benefit the environment through greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction, the management of resources like air and water, and recycling. Businesses involved in renewable energy, by contrast, comprise just 5 percent of all clean economy jobs. Nuclear energy, considered clean but non-renewable, comprises 3 percent of jobs: roughly 75,000.
The Brookings-Battelle Clean Economy Database, which was a source for the report, also found that according to their data, 1.7 million people in 2010 held clean economy jobs. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont ranked #6 out of a 100 metropolitan areas, with 51,811 people working across sectors to create environmental beneficial alernatives. There’s an interactive map you can look at online that illustrates their findings.
The data on San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont shows that between 2003 and 2010, 15,784 new clean economy jobs were created–and over 6,000 of them were in the waste industry. In 2010, these jobs paid $59,856 per year on average. That’s not a bad deal in a country struggling to overcome an unemployment rate of 9.1%.
Meet Recology – Our Commitments
This summer, Siemens found that San Francisco outranked all other major cities in the U.S. and Canada in the area of environmental performance. It’s perfect score in the area of garbage, recycling and compost was due to a progressive public-private collaboration between the City of San Francisco and Recology, which was founded in San Francisco.
What makes Recology an outstanding performer of course is not just its roots. Recology is a company with commitments to the communities where our employees live and work because we are part of those communities. And we work hard—protecting our environment is serious work—but we also try to have fun.
For example, Recology Vacaville Solano was present at the Vacaville Fiesta Days Parade this past May, where the Recology Drill Team earned a First Place award in the Drill Team category and the Recology vintage garbage truck won Second Place in the Antique Car category. Recology’s Buddy Blue Toter was also a winner, taking home the First Place award in the novelty category.
Last month, as title sponsor at The Bite of Oregon, an annual festival in Portland’s waterfront organized by the Special Olympics Oregon, one Recology employee personally made sure that 400 pounds of cooked, delicious chicken leftovers from the event were donated to 3 different rescue missions.
On August 23rd, over 40 employees from Recology South Valley volunteered to clear the bike path near Gallop Drive, all the way up to Thomas Grade in Morgan Hill, California. For two and a half hours, starting at 8AM, the group raked, shoveled, and swept the bike line, clearing it of dirt, weeds, and garbage. The reason for the project was that a group of Recology South Valley employees approached their general manager about doing something for their community. These employees had read about a project in another community served by Recology and wanted to organize something for their customers, neighbors and friends.
Obviously, we care about what we do, but its also nice to be recognized once in a while too. A reporter for the Morgan Hill Times quoted the City Program Manager, Anthony Eulo, saying, “[W]e appreciate Recology’s volunteer energy and commitment to our community… We know that the residents passing East Dunne everyday will enjoy the cleaner street.”
We are proud of the work we do to make this planet a better place to live, for all of us.
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.
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.
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.
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