San Francisco reports record 80% diversion rate

This is from Octo­ber 2012, but still worth cel­e­brat­ing. We keep deal­ing with com­mu­ni­ties where local offi­cials want to pur­sue incin­er­a­tion (not real­iz­ing that it’s the most expen­sive and pol­lut­ing way to make ener­gy or to dis­pose of waste) while they haven’t even tried to get seri­ous about zero waste pro­grams (redesign / reduce / reuse / recy­cle / com­post). San Fran­cis­co is lead­ing the way, hav­ing man­aged to hit 80% diver­sion of waste from land­fills and incin­er­a­tors. Oth­er com­mu­ni­ties, like Austin, Texas, have devel­oped ambi­tious zero waste plans as well and find them eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable even while com­pet­ing with super-cheap land­fill­ing fees of only $20/ton.  Read on for the news from San Francisco:

San Fran­cis­co reports record 80% diver­sion rate

Octo­ber 5, 2012
By Jere­my Car­roll, Waste & Recy­cling News

San Fran­cis­co extend­ed its best-in-the-coun­try diver­sion rate, report­ing the city has achieved an 80% land­fill diver­sion rate.

May­or Edwin Lee made the announce­ment today.

The city pre­vi­ous­ly led the nation in diver­sion with 78% for 2010–2011, up from 72% in 2009–2010. In addi­tion to col­lect­ing plas­tics, met­als and paper, the city col­lects food waste and yard waste to be turned into com­post. Recol­o­gy Inc. is the exclu­sive hauler for the city.

“Recy­cling and com­post­ing is not only good for our envi­ron­ment, it is also good for our econ­o­my,” Lee said in a state­ment. “Recy­cling alone cre­ates 10 times more jobs than sim­ply send­ing refuse to the land­fill, and I applaud Recol­o­gy, the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and San Fran­cis­cans for reach­ing this record mile­stone of 80% diversion.”

Michael San­gia­co­mo, pres­i­dent and CEO of Recol­o­gy, said it is proud to be a part­ner in this achieve­ment and hopes to con­tin­ue to help the city reach its zero-waste goal by 2020.

“Inno­v­a­tive poli­cies, finan­cial incen­tives, as well as out­reach and edu­ca­tion are all effec­tive tools in our tool­box that have helped San Fran­cis­co reach 80% diver­sion,” said San Fran­cis­co Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment direc­tor Melanie Nut­ter in a state­ment. “We would not have achieved this mile­stone with­out the hard work and part­ner­ship of many peo­ple and busi­ness­es across the city.”

The city said of the 444,000 tons of mate­r­i­al sent to the land­fill in the last fis­cal year, about half of it could have been recy­cled or composted.

More details at:

http://www.sfmayor.org/index.aspx?recordid=113&page=846
http://blog.recology.com/2012/10/05/sf-hits-80-diversion-on-the-road-to-zero-waste/http://www.greenerideal.com/politics/1009-san-francisco-hits-landmark-80-diversion-rate/
http://www.cawrecycles.org/whats_new/recycling_news/oct5_sf_80percent_diversion