August 10, 2003: Sacramento Bee
Compost on the Menu: Innovative Recycling System
Extends Landfill Life
SAN FRANCISCO -- When bus boys scrape bits of
arugula or half-eaten sandwiches off plates in this
culinary capital, the food starts a 150-mile round
trip unlike anywhere in the country. Over the next
year, the scraps will be mixed with food waste from
about 1,700 San Francisco eateries, composted in
giant bags outside Vacaville, spread as fertilizer
on farms in the Sacramento and Napa valleys and
returned to the Bay Area as tomatoes or wine. "It
makes absolute sense that as I am trucking down the
freeway (to San Francisco) with all of these
nutrients from my farm that they are coming the
other way with food waste," said Dixon farmer Nigel
Walker, who targets the Bay Area with his organic
produce. "This is a way of completing the cycle...
The city is giving something back."
Fall 2002: Onearth, National Resources Defense
Council Wasting Away
"One of the more innovative programs in this
country is San Francisco's. The program makes the
process as easy for customers as possible.
Residents receive three bins. Glass, metal, paper,
and plastic all go in one. Sorting is left to
professionals, reducing the chance that recyclables
will be contaminated with unwanted trash that can
lower their value for manufacturers. Compostables
such as food scraps and yard waste go in another,
garbage in the third. A single hauler, Norcal Waste
Systems, handles all waste, thereby streamlining
collection and sorting. (New York uses about a
dozen.) Norcal also offers twelve recycling
programs, tailored to different neighborhoods and
needs. It bills on a pay-as-you-throw basis,
charging for garbage disposal but not recycling --
a financial incentive for citizens to set out less
trash.
So successful is the system that San Francisco is
about to meet California's statewide mandate for 50
percent recycling, a real achievement for an urban
area that can't rely on yard waste to meet the
goal. (New York averaged 20 percent before its
recycling cuts.) Norcal has also taken impressive
advantage of the global demand for recyclables,
sending the city's trash around the United States
and Pacific Rim. San Francisco has even introduced
legislation to get to 75 percent recycling by 2010
-- and, by 2020, to achieve recycling's Everest:
zero garbage. 'San Francisco has had a passion for
recycling,' said Norcal's Robert Reed, 'That's the
driving force. Then it's just a matter of going out
and working at it.'
Tufts economist Ackerman agrees. He argues that
communities have to get beyond the limited question
of whether recycling costs more than putting it all
on the garbage truck. The point, he says, is that
'if you get up in the morning and decide to do
something different about the environment, you
actually can do it."
