The Ecology Center is a community based, non-profit which operates Berkeley's curbside recycling program and uses these cool split hauling trucks (see photo) and split bins which ask customers to split their recyclable discards into fiber (paper) on one side and cans and bottles in the other. Here's a link to their website: http://www.ecologycenter.org/
The Community Conservation Center, another non-profit runs the recycling center. Here's an excerpt from their site: "Community Conservation Centers (CCC) has been operating Berkeley Recycling at Second and Gilman Streets in Berkeley since September 1982. CCC operates programs that buy recyclables and provides for convenient drop-off of recyclables. The City-owned facility is also home to the Ecology Center, which operates the residential curbside pick-up program. The City of Berkeley operates the commercial pick-up program which collects recyclables from commercial establishments throughout the city. Together, the three programs collect about 18,000 tons per year of various materials, including newspaper, cardboard, glass and plastic bottles, scrap metals and household hazardous waste. The following are programs operated by CCC." (http://berkeleyrecycling.org/page.php?id=8).
I had been referred to Tania by Neil Seldman and Tania has a long history in recycling and anti-incineration activism. Tania suggested several things both for IFLC and for the Lake County Recycling Task Force.
#1. She suggests subscribing to Biocycle Magazine (http://www.jgpress.com/biocycle.htm) and reading Sally Brown's articles. (Several other recycling experts wholeheartedly agree)
#2. She said we should bring a composting expert onto our team.
#3. Consider finding an agricultural ally who can help us promote using composted materials and help develop aftermarkets for food-scrap compost. Conventional agricultural practices depend heavily upon petroleum products. Using compost conserves water in the soil, and promotes healthier, stronger plants which are better positioned as global warming increases. I know that Illinois State University's dept of Agriculture has a learning farm which is interested in composting. Perhaps that's a source?
#4. Contact the US Composting Council.
She said the main composting facility (food scrap and landscape waste) they use is Grover Landscape Services which is approx. 90 miles away from them. This means that a compost facility would not necessarily have to be in Lake County. Here's an article about Grover's composting facility: http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/001708.html
Alameda County, California recycling history:
California passed AB939 (http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Laws/Legislation/calhist/1985to1989.htm) in 1989 which, among other things, changed from a "County Solid Waste Management Plan" to "Integrated Waste Management Planning" and asked each county to "establish a task force to coordinate the development of city Source Reduction and Recycling Elements (SRREs) and a countywide siting element". They also "required each city or county plan to include an implementation schedule which shows: diversion of 25 percent of all solid waste from landfill or transformation facilities by January 1, 1995 through source reduction, recycling, and composting activities; and, diversion of 50 percent of all solid waste by January 1, 2000 through source reduction, recycling, and composting activities." This, as I understand it, laid the groundwork for what was to follow.
Next, several local recycling activists in Alameda County wrote, proposed and passed "Measure D" also known as the "Almeda County Waste Reduction and Recycling Initiative", a proposition which required that they could charge $7 per ton to fund recycling and waste reduction efforts in the county as they felt AB939 was essentially an unfunded mandate. Stop Waste told me that every one $ per ton they charge costs the consumers approx 7 cents per month.
Here's a link to Stop Waste's page which has the download for the measure: http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=512
It's a great read for anyone (read Garbage Geeks) interested in recycling programs.
Here's an excerpt:
The people of Alameda County find and declare that:
A. The increasing consumption of single-use and environmentally harmful products depletes natural resources, produces huge quantities of refuse -- most of which is disposed of in ways that damage the environment -- and, ultimately, will injure future generations;
B. The use of terms such as "garbage" and "solid waste" result from -- and serve to reinforce wasteful attitudes; the materials referred to by these terms retain their value as natural resources, and should instead be described and treated as "'discarded materials" to be recycled rather than incinerated or landfilled;
C. At least ninety percent of the discarded materials generated within Alameda County are landfilled (almost exactly the same as Lake County's) as are vast quantities of discarded materials from neighboring counties; existing landfill capacity in the Bay Area will be exhausted in less than twenty-five years, while new landfills are increasingly difficult and expensive to site; landfill is neither a long-term, nor a sustainable, nor an environmentally safe option for disposal of discardedmaterials;(sound familiar?)
D. Refuse incinerators are a poor alternative to source reduction and recycling: such incinerators damage the environment by wasting natural resources that could instead be recycled, by accelerating the release of greenhouse gasses -- which worsen global warming -- and by generating toxic substances;
E. Each person discards materials and should therefore be involved in solving the problems caused by the disposal of such materials; this involvement must include changes in individual behavior resulting from each person's awareness of her or his role in creating or finding solutions to environmental problems; only through such changes can sustainable consumption and disposal patterns be established and the biosphere restored:
F. The County government shares a responsibility with Alameda County cities and sanitary districts to provide a comprehensive source reduction and recycling program which will foster these necessary changes in individual behavior as well as ensure that the goals set by state law are met; and
G. The best available method for funding the Recycling Plan is a surcharge on materials disposed of at landfills.
Hats off to the people of Alameda County for passing this measure!
The last thing I learned from Tania is that Pay-as-you-Throw works great in the short term, but as they became more efficient at recycling, they were receiving less income and ran into some trouble. They are considering a fixed charge to all households as a base and then adding pay as you throw on top of that. This gives them a somewhat fixed income.
More later from Tom Padia, the Source Reduction and Recycling Director for StopWaste, "the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board operating as one public agency."
Photos:
City of Berkeley's organics collection 9/8/10, Ecology Center's split truck, a dual sort recycling bin to go with the split truck, Berkeley's battery and fluorescent light collection (2), a 3 hour haul for Urban Ore salvagers from the transfer station (more on Urban Ore later this week), the floor of the City of Berkeley's transfer station.
