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Recycling ABC's
by Robert Reed
San Francisco tenants, apartment building owners and managers understand environmental challenges are increasing and that our very existence is directly tied to the health of our planet. Everyone wants to know, “What can we do to help protect the Earth?”
A recent study published by the Institute on Self-Reliance states that increasing recycling and composting is one of the fastest, cheapest and most effective ways to combat climate change. The study, “Stop Trashing the Climate,” reports that if Americans recycled and composted 90% of all their discards, we could cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 400 million metric tons, which is equivalent to closing 21% of all U.S. coal-fired power plants.
In addition, a German study published in the journal Recycling International reports recycling offers “stunning emissions savings” compared to primary manufacturing processes. That’s right, recycling (especially participating in urban compost collection programs) helps fight climate change. Additionally, by recycling and composting, San Francisco residents and businesses help save forests, provide materials for manufacturing, return nutrients to local vineyards, reduce landfill disposal and protect oceans and beaches.
Many of the 100 cities in the Bay Area are expanding recycling programs. In San Francisco, a highly visual effort to help people see garbage in a different way is rolling through neighborhoods and business districts. Glance at a garbage or recycling truck in the city today and you may see a truck that looks like its sides were removed. That’s because large 3D photographs on the sides of 20 collection trucks operated by Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate Recycling & Disposal companies give the illusion that you can see all materials inside.
Look closely at that garbage and what do you see? Paper, metal, glass and food scraps—all are resources that should be recycled or composted. Near the middle of the image is an outline of a curbside bin showing the Northern California environment we want to help protect: a redwood grove, a pristine beach or a lush vineyard nourished by compost made from food scraps collected in San Francisco. The idea is to help people see that most material thrown away is not garbage at all and to encourage people to think about their own trash and how everyone can help protect the environment by recycling and composting.
In recycling, the moment of truth is when we toss individual items in a garbage or recycling receptacle. Food scraps (cooked meat, fish bones, eggs, broccoli) tossed in a trash bin go to a landfill, decompose and produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Those same scraps tossed in a green collection cart go to a modern compost facility, where much of the carbon in the scraps is preserved in the finished compost and returned to the land when the soil amendment is applied to local farms and vineyards.
Compost naturally traps nitrogen and carbon and provides nutrients to local farms. Compost also helps the Earth store carbon. San Francisco operates the largest urban compost collection program in the country. More than 2,100 restaurants, 50,000 city homes and 2,100 apartment buildings participate.
So how can apartment building owners, managers and tenants increase recycling? The biggest factor is desire. If you truly want to increase recycling in your building, Sunset and Golden Gate—your recycling companies—will help you make it happen.
To make a recycling program successful, we believe it is essential to make recycling easy and convenient for customers. We also believe that to maximize recycling we must offer many service options. Our primary recommendation is for apartment building owners or managers (whoever pays the garbage bill and makes service decisions) to request a waste audit. For no additional cost, we can send a recycling manager to meet with you, look at your garbage and containers, and recommend service options and program refinements for your consideration.
One Cart, Two Cart;
Blue Cart, Green Cart
Almost all apartment buildings in San Francisco have blue recycling carts for bottles, cans and paper. We expanded the blue cart program and now accept plastic cups, molded plastic packaging and plastic toys without wires or metal parts.
If your building needs more or larger blue carts, we can provide them. No one knows what is in the garbage better than the people who collect it, and our collectors tell us there are still a lot of recyclable materials in garbage cans in apartment buildings. This is often the case in older apartment buildings with several floors and garbage shoots. In the last year, numerous apartment buildings in San Francisco have set up recycling stations next to garbage shoots to make recycling more convenient for tenants.
In addition to the blue cart, we began collecting food scraps in a pilot program in 1996. The city approved the green cart program for citywide rollout in 2001. Hundreds of apartment buildings have joined the green cart program in the last 12 months. We expect many more buildings to come onboard soon, as the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently approved the nation’s strictest recycling law, mandating composting for every residence and business in the city. Garbage collectors will leave tags on containers when they spot incorrectly sorted material, though those collectors are only going to view what’s on top of the container and have no intention of going through them. After several notices of incorrectly sorted trash, fines of up to $100 can be issued at residences and up to $500 at businesses. Landlords will have some extra time to secure the green carts and make them part of existing recycling programs. The ordinance will take effect this fall for single-family residences, while there will be a moratorium on fines until at least July 2011 for tenants and owners in multifamily properties.
We need more buildings to use the green carts because our composting is in high demand. Vineyard managers love our compost because it is made from a diverse feedstock and it stimulates microbial activity. Those attributes help improve vineyard soils naturally and give farmers a viable alternative to liquid (chemical) fertilizers. More than 200 vineyards in Northern California have applied our compost. Now vineyards are using our compost to grow cover crops that carry nutrients and carbon deep into the soil.
Farming one acre of land conventionally emits 3,700 pounds of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere annually. Farming that same acre and using compost made from food scraps to grow cover crops returns 12,000 pounds of carbon to the soil. San Franciscans can be proud that our compost has helped the Northern California wine industry become more environmentally sustainable.
How else does our compost program increase recycling and help protect the environment? When customers separate food scraps, the materials remaining in the waste stream tend to be clean and dry, giving San Francisco a better shot at recycling additional tons. Collecting food scraps separately also creates opportunities to pursue promising technologies such as anaerobic digestion, a process that harvests energy from biodegradable material and helps us compost additional materials to produce even more superior compost.
To help customers, including apartment tenants, recycle more of their waste, we can provide outreach materials to your building. Colorful flyers with pictures showing the different types of materials accepted in the blue and green carts are available on our website: sfrecycling.com.
We have different sizes and types of containers available. One is a tall, narrow container called a Slim Jim that some apartment buildings use to set up recycling stations on different floors. We can also provide kitchen pails for tenants who want to participate in the compost collection program. Tenants who prefer kitchen pails line them with compostable liner bags. They are available at markets throughout the city. Another option is to place food scraps such as kitchen peelings and coffee grounds in a paper bag or paper milk carton and toss the bag or carton in the green cart.
The key to avoiding odors is to transfer scraps from the kitchen to the green cart often. Remember, it’s the same waste material you always generated. When you are recycling, you are just handling that material in a different way.
Sunset and Golden Gate routinely present information about recycling and composting at community and tenant meetings. We would be glad to speak at one of your tenant meetings to help kickoff upgrades to the recycling program in your buildings.
Other than Christmas and New Year’s days, we offer garbage and recycling collection every day. Rates are set by the city and based on the number, size and type of your containers, and the frequency of collection. In many cases, we can increase recycling services (such as adding green cart service) at apartment buildings without increasing costs. We also provide junk hauling services at no additional cost to apartment buildings through our service RecycleMyJunk.com. Check out the site or call us at 330-1300 or 626-4000 for program details. All these efforts support the city’s goals of diverting 75% of all waste generated in San Francisco away from landfill disposal by 2010 and achieving zero waste by 2020.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the SF Apartment Magazine. Robert Reed is the public relations manager at Sunset and Golden Gate, San Francisco’s recycling companies. Reed and the other employee-owners at Sunset and Golden Gate actively recycle and compost both at work and home. For general information about garbage and recycling service in San Francisco, go to SFRecycling.com. Copyright © 2009 by Black Point Press. All rights reserved.