September
2008 | By Sam Borgese
Here
is a compelling “green” statistic:
San Francisco has removed
70% of its disposable
waste out of local landfills.
(The state average is
54%.) And Mayor Newsome
is not stopping with
that impressive achievement.
San Francisco’s
goal is to have 100%
of its disposal waste
eliminated from local
landfills.
And
how does this work for
a large City (population
750,000)? It’s
a dedication to being
the best city in more
than just words. It’s
a pay-as-you-go system
of charges for waste
disposal (the more trash
receptacles you place
at the curb the higher
your waste disposal
bill) and creative reuse
of all the material,
garbage and basic recycled
waste generated by residents
and businesses.
As
for samples of creative
reuses, most of the
recycled paper goes
to China for reprocessing
into consumer product
packaging; concrete
demolition waste goes
into new sidewalks and
garbage goes to compost
for Napa Valley vineyards.
And
San Francisco is just
one of a number of large
cities in California
that are aggressively
attacking waste management.
San Jose is at a high
of 62% and Los Angeles
is at 52%. This in contrast
to other large U.S.
cities with less impressive
numbers such as New
York City at 30.6 percent,
Milwaukee at 24 percent,
Boston at 16 percent
and Houston at 2.5 percent.
How
does Del Mar measure
against the list of
cities such as San Francisco
and San Jose that efficiently
manages household and
commercial waste?
At
the moment Del Mar at
53%, complying with
AB 939 the State Assembly
Bill that requires all
California cities, through
the California Integrated
Waste Management Board,
to have 50% of its disposable
waste out of landfills.
The
question is, should
Del Mar at 53% and approximately
4300 people and thousands
of visitors lag behind
San Francisco and its
success in managing
the waste of 750,000
residents and its millions
of visitors?
Here
are some readily available
steps that have been
presented to increase
Del Mar’s
percentage of disposable
waste out of landfills.
These steps center around
the obvious, such as
a local business recycling
program of at least
the basics: paper, glass,
and plastic (included
in Del Mar’s
current Waste Management
Agreement – in
other words free to
businesses); business
association sponsorship
for the placement of
recycle containers in
the village core; a
local business policy
to encourage businesses
and commercial property
owners to make space
available near public
areas for container
placement; and, a City
policy for Parks and
Recreation and Community
Services Department
to review the current
collection sites within
our parks and beaches
with the goal to select
potential new recycling
containers that will
remove recyclable waste
from the thousands of
people who visit and
use the parks and beaches
each year.
Perhaps
the reason these steps
have not yet been taken
lies in the fact that
unlike other cities
Del Mar does not have
a specific goal to increase
its percentage of disposable
waste out of local landfills.
It also does not have,
as part of its waste
strategy, a garbage-to-compost
policy which has proven
to be very effective
in contributing to the
reduction of waste out
of landfills and which
is also directly related
to meaningful decreases
in poisonous leaching
in landfills.
Del
Mar might learn a lesson
and start seeing recycling
a little differently.
More like Robert Reed,
a spokesman for Norcal
Waste Systems, the parent
company of Sunset Scavenger
and Golden Gate Disposal
and Recycling Company,
the main garbage collectors
in San Francisco: “When
we look at garbage,
we don’t
see garbage, O.K.? We
see food, we see paper,
we see metal, we see
glass.”
The
question is what does
Del Mar see?
|