Reduce, Reuse, Recycle....or Rot!

I went on a hike last week-end with a friend who knew me well during the hey day of our .com careers. Life was a little jet set then, furiously paced and laced with the hubris to ride that roller coaster with hands in the air.

So we shared a solid belly laugh when I mentioned that because of my work with moregreenmoms I had recently been invited to tour the Norcal Waste facility, i.e.,The Dump, in South San Francisco and it was……AWESOME!

When she asked what was my most important takeaway from the experience, I answered, “Everyone needs a compost container in the kitchen.”

If we really want to contribute to reducing the stress on our environment and to safeguarding the health of our planet’s creatures and organisms, we all have to learn why it should be against the law to throw an apple core in the trash.

As a society we are not quite there yet, but maybe it wouldn’t be so outlandish to issue tickets for this offense when you consider the simple fact that food rots. That is why trash smells so bad. And when food rots in an ultra dense landfill environment, it eventually decomposes to produce methane, which is a greenhouse gas 24 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

When methane is released, it not only increases the toxicity and temperature of our atmosphere, it then settles into our oceans, raises their acidity and further destroys the integrity of aquatic life. For an excellent in-depth explanation of this lifecycle, you can read the following series, Altered Oceans, published by the Los Angeles Times in July 2006, http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-oceans-series,0,7842752.special.

By throwing our food in the trash, we are contributing to global warming. We are poisoning our resources. And we are depriving the earth of wholesome sustenance we could otherwise return to it in the form of compost.

If you didn’t know this already, I’ll let you in on a secret. I put all my food waste into the trash can until last October when I finally began to understand the ramifications of my ignorance. I thought composting was for people who garden a lot. I thought it would smell bad in my kitchen. I thought it would attract rats the size of cats sniffing at my door.

But once I understood the larger equation, I had no excuse. I had to change my lifelong habits. And guess what. Composting CAN smell a bit, but that just means it’s time to take the full Biobag out to the green can. And once you have a system in place, it is simple and even our two-year-old knows where to slide his leftover waffles and strawberries after breakfast.

Astoundingly, my household of 6 people now fills an entire 32-gallon green can with food and yard waste every week. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re not talking about clippings from a pastoral acre either. I have a few leaves and tendrils that sneak in from our urban green space, but mostly the haul comes from our kitchen.

In San Francisco, more than 2000 restaurants now compost their food remains daily. Roughly 90% of the resulting product is applied to our region’s vineyards, while the rest is spread over organic gardens. According to Robert Reed, our incredibly knowledgeable and gracious host for the Norcal tour, “San Francisco’s compost is the best in America because of the rich array of fish, crab, coffee, pasta, fruit and vegetable products that come from some of the finest food purveyors in our country.” It is fascinating to consider that the cannelloni you leave on your plate in North Beach may someday make it back to your wineglass as the cycle of life plays forward.

Our tour did not include a ramble through the the company’s prolific worm bins because they are located in Vacaville, California. But there was plenty to see while we walked the grounds that morning, including the spectacular, and I don’t mean in a good way, Pit, where an endless parade of the City's garbage trucks bellied up to belch out their contents while we stood in rather shocked observation of the process.

That is when I had my rather Zen epiphany that trash is really trash.

I never really understood until I was treated to that profoundly visceral visual and olfactory assault that if something reusable goes in the trash can, there is not a recycling fairy waiting at the back-end to scoop it up and salvage its potential. That resource is exhausted, wasted and plowed away for all eternity.

And in the case of many materials that do not efficiently or safely biodegrade, they will decompose, leech and off-gas their noxious by-products into our water, soil and air for up to hundreds of years.

That’s right. It takes a diaper, designed with today’s brilliant absorbent chemical technologies, approximately 500 years to break down and finally biodegrade in the landfill. Knowing how many Huggies my family has churned through over the past eight years, I shudder to imagine how many decomposing diapers are now peppered across our fair land.

Judging from the number of cardboard boxes, aluminum cans, melon rinds, plastic bottles, pizza boxes and chicken bones we witnessed in the Pit, we are still a long way from effectively communicating that when you put something in the trash, it is really the end of the line.

These improperly discarded compostables and recyclables abound even in a city like San Francisco where waste management is handed to us on a silver platter, or at least the junkyard equivalent. We enjoy one of the most user-friendly and effective refuse sorting and disbursement programs in the world.

Not only can we combine all of our recyclables in our 32-gallon blue containers, but every household has been provided with a green compost receptacle of the same size, as well as a black trash bin, which is the only component of service that is assigned a monthly fee, a mere $23.58. For reference, when the comingled recycling bins were launched in 2001, volumes increased by 30% within 3 weeks due to the incredible convenience of this expanded service.

And the story here is far from grim. Reed quotes that approximately 4,000 tons of garbage are processed at their facility every day and the estimates now reflect that 70% is recycled or composted. The goal is to elevate that number to 100%, or zero waste, by 2020. The technology is clearly available to make that target attainable, as is the infrastructure.

So is there any potential deterrent? According to Reed, “Success or failure is dependent upon individual actions.”

Mr. Reed has great hope for consumer awareness to expand and he is betting on our kids to make it happen. Our inspirational tour of their facility began in the education center where approximately 4,000 children a year are treated to a powerful learning opportunity that ripples far beyond an hour spent looking at the lifecycle of a plastic bottle.

“Kids just get it, it’s natural for them,” he casually reports. "They are going to be the ones to set up the compost in our kitchens and they are going to be the ones who will find a recycling bin before throwing a can in the trash." Recycling, and now even composting, are becoming engrained into the culture of their generation.

But what about the rest of us? What about the people who have little faith that recycling actually happens on the back end? What about the people who, like me, are generally well-intentioned, but have trouble understanding if plastic toy packaging is recyclable? What about the people who just don’t care?

For all but the latter, the advice we settled on is that if you THINK something can be recycled, it is better to toss it in the blue bin than the black one. Remember, trash is really just trash. And in the recycling division of the Norcal Waste center, there is not only innovative sorting machinery, but a robust staff to segregate sixteen different reusable commodities, some even by hand such as the plastics.

As example of what is extracted from this relative gold mine of refuse, 40 shipping containers filled with waste paper that can be reused as a raw material for packaging or other pulp products are shipped to China and the Pacific Northwest every day! In addition, there is a building dedicated exclusively to construction debris where 700 tons of building material are processed daily, for a 65% rate of reuse.

The innovation continues in the Hazardous Waste department where batteries are dismantled and their parts are parsed to manufacturers. Most impressively, 80% of the leftover paint that is brought by consumers or contractors is re-mixed and re-packaged under a private label for building projects. During the week of our visit, 3,500 gallons of paint were donated and shipped in a container to Zambia to be used in the schools and houses of 12 remote villages.

The creative nature of this business spans from the practical to the sublime as we continued the tour walking through an urban oasis that undulates above the recycling and disposal compound. This three-acre sculpture garden not only serves as an attractive barrier between the facility and the neighboring community, but it also features the work of many creative visionaries who have participated in the Artist in Residence Program that began in 1990.

According to their brochure, “selected artists have unlimited scavenging privileges for three of four months and 24-hour access to the company’s art studio equipped with welding and woodworking equipment, a glass kiln and more. Remember the saying, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

So as I spent my last my last few minutes wandering the indoor gallery space that is now filled with a collection of works made from hotel sewing kits, bottle caps, machine parts, street signs and broken bus shelter glass, I wanted to find a way to explain the importance that trash plays in our lives. Some of these things clearly have life in a new form, outside their intended use.

Whether we can turn food scraps into compost, plastic bottles into Patagonia fleece or packing peanuts into sculpture, it is abundantly clear to me that I need to be MUCH more conscious of everything I choose to discard. With this perspective I now endeavor to keep as much as possible out of the Pit and in circulation for whatever purpose these items might still have potential to serve.

With that in mind, as you may remember from prior Posts, I have banished countless cups, plates, toys, pots, pans, bottles and gallons of petroleum-based slick surfectants and toxicants from my cabinets. They now fill up a significant portion of my garage. But I have been waiting to responsibly dispose of them.

My plan now is to head back down to the Norcal Waste Systems' San Francisco Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center, or The Dump, and see what can be salvaged for the future. Who knows, maybe the next Artist in Residence can become inspired by an unexpected plethora of Teflon pans!

For helpful reference here are my golden rules for trash:

1. Don’t throw food in the trash. Compost it instead.

2. Go out of your way to recycle.

3. Support businesses that visibly enable these practices.

4. Buy products in bulk. For example, if you eat yogurt every morning, try buying one larger container each week? Maybe you can even reuse it to store art supplies?

5. Don’t drink bottled water.

6. Buy products with less packaging.

7. Buy less.

8. Watch the Story of Stuff, http://www.storyofstuff.com/ , which is a brilliant viral expose on the lifecycle of our consumer addiction to acquisition in America. I tell you, and I mean it, that I have never been the same shopper since watching this video. I see the trees falling when I don't reuse both sides of each piece of paper….

9. Visit www.sfrecycling.com, or a similar resource in your community to learn more about how you can be a better recycler, composter and citizen.

10. Take a trip to YOUR Dump, it will change you forever!

As I close this Post, I am reminded of a friend's comments in the Norcal Education Center that day while we pondered the fate of the oceans, our dependence on petroleum and the growing evidence of human vulnerability to chemical exposures.

We recognized that so many of the pollutants we now so desperately want to control have become ubiquitous in our culture only during the past 40 years, essentially my lifetime.

"What was that famous line from The Graduate (1967)?" she mused.....

I looked it up just to be sure:

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?

Indeed!

Comments

[Christine Gardner]

In response to Francesca's question about the sinkerator (or disposal) below, my take on it is that while our municipal water treatment systems in most U.S. cities are pretty capable of dealing with our food refuse, there is still an output of this food that needs to find a home. This output, or sludge, as I've heard it referred to, is slathered on our golf courses, non-organic growing fields etc. as fertilizer. So while it is not a "pure" compost solution, it is probably a lesser evil than ending up in our daily trash receptacles, especially in urban environments where limited compost options exist.

And as for the next question about living in a municipality that does not currently offer compost management, perhaps the steps are a) try to put most food products in the disposal; b) reach out to your waste collector and City leaders to express your interest in having these services provided and encourage your friends to do so as well and c) if you are really ready to get serious, look into a worm bin for your yard.

There are many innovative and manageable personal composting systems available today and if it might make sense for your garden/green space, perhaps it's something to consider.

Don't feel overwhelmed. Feel more informed and help your community step forward to offer these crucial services. Again, I feel strongly that if we get a handle on our garbage, it will be a massive win for our nation in both the short- and long-terms.

As reference, I just returned home from a week in Chicago where I met a lot of green moms who are trying so hard to implement these great programs in their homes, schools, businesses and communities. But I was astounded to learn that if they want to recycle, they have to personally drive their collected materials themselves to the facility each week. They don't have 32-gallon blue containers in their driveways or apartment garages like we do in San Francisco.

So I realize we are at the cutting edge of these services. Don't give up. Every can counts!

[Jessica Stafford]

I was very intrigued by your post on composting. But was very disappointed to learn that Allied Waste in my area (San Carlos) does not offer composting at this time. I sent them an e-mail to inquire, and they sent me back the following e-mail.
"Thank you for your interest in food composting. Unfortunately, we currently do not offer this service to our residential customers. I assure you we are working on new services to offer our customers and will provide your feedback to our management team. Look for new programs soon!"

As a side note Allied Waste offers food composting to commercial/business sites but not residential which is odd to me.

I searched for alternatives and really only found links to doing the composting on my own. I guess I feel overwhelmed by this at this time and was wondering if you had any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Francesca (again)]

Does it count if you put the food in the sinkerator instead of the compost? Is it any better than throwing it in the trash or is it just polluting the water system in the same way?

[Lisa Labon]

Here is a link to photos from our tour of the SF NorCal Waste Facility. It was a real eye-opener!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lisalabon/2008_05_30SFRecyclingTour?authkey=7vGRTEOkhH4