Helping to Inform Dupont Circle: San Francisco's Composting Law prepared by MaKayla Hanington The Washington Center Intern

Program for DupontGreenWeek 2012 For further information please contact Stephanie Sheridan, s_sheridan@ipaiglobal.org Washington, DC was named #2 coolest city in the United States by Forbes. Let's keep up the pace with our fellow cities in regards to sustainability. Part of that means beginning to take stock of the waste that we produce. Composting provides an environmentally friendly way to reuse our food waste. While DC is unique and we have our own challenges to implement mandatory composting, learning about how the process works in San Francisco helps all of us see that there are ways to be both cool and sustainable. Background to San Francisco: Seattle started a mandatory recycling law in 2003, in which San Francisco has clarified and recently implemented. The major difference is that restaurants and businesses were not included in the original writing, but San Francisco has taken the initiative to require business owners to comply with composting. Seattle uses shame in order to implement their law by sorting through the trash bins, making sure that all the items are recyclable, but if not, a sign will be put up and the waste will not be picked up until it is correctly separated. Brett Stav, a planning and development specialist at Seattle Public Utilities has expressed that this action itself is caused much motivation because recycling has improved by 10% since this law went into effect in 2003.

Laws that require recycling have been set in motion, to a greater extent in San Francisco. This law, implemented on October 21, 2009, by Mayor Gavin Newsom has produced a mindset for putting food waste, and other compostable items in a separate bin. Collection containers are sealed and picked up by city workers. The requirement has helped reduce garbage costs for individual building owners, in some cases, by half. Jared Blumenfeld, San Franciscos environmental officer, explains that the Organic Annex has already started processing more than 500 tons of food waste a day. The cycle continues until the Bay Areas farms and vineyards use the composted materials for their soil. Recycling has already been keeping 72% of its garbage stream out the landfill by recycling, and composting will considerably increase that percentage even more. Individually, people are able to have composting bins in their homes, as well as use the larger containers around the city. San Franciscos community members have the desire to help the environment as much as they can, so the threats this law has produced are mainly for larger building and business owners. The overall goal of this law is to have no waste going to landfills by the year 2020, so the city has decided to fine people in extreme cases for this end result to be more of a possibility. Recology maintains a highly used composting facility, the Jepson-Prairie facility in Vacaville, which already obtains over 600 tons of food scraps from over 5,000 restaurants and businesses. While San Francisco has continued to improve this system, there is still at least 36% of waste sent to landfills that can be composted or recycled. With the extra black gold that can be produced from more compostable items, farmers and landowners will improve their manufactured items and put about 12,000 pounds of carbon back into the earth. In order to implement this law in the most effective manner,

brochures, pamphlets, and many other items have been produced to explain the goals in a very understandable language. The bins that are set out have been color coded with labels containing bilingual instructions and even pictures expressing what items are acceptable for each. Blue pails are e for recyclables, green for compostable items, and black for all remaining trash. The brochures are of the same nature and business owners are allowed a bilingual staff training for more knowledge of the process. Businesses are also able to be serviced daily depending on their needs and compostable bags, named Nat-Ur Bags, are available for the green kitchen pail. With these improvements, San Francisco should obtain a 90% recycling rate, according to Mr. Blumenfield. Although the citys government has high hopes for the composting law, there are exceptions in making conformity accessible to everyone. Forms are easily accessible to residents of San Francisco on the Internet, which can excuse them or help them still comply with this law. Businesses who do not have the space for a composting bin can apply for the city to create a space that is efficient, as well as elderly citizens who can have the compostable collectors help with their pails. The Department of Environment of San Francisco has been readily involved in the implementation, as well as informative sessions to the public. Two accessible employees of this group are Alexa Kielty (alexa.kielty@sfgov.org) and Jack Macy (jack.macy@sfgov.org). More considerations for a more energy efficient system are being considered, including a cheap, environmentally friendly compostable toilet. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has found that these products do not smell and could be used in public restrooms. They would not be connected to a sewer system and could be located anywhere, so this is a huge consideration produced by Hyphae Design Laboratory.

Resources: http://www.epa.gov/reg3wcmd/composting/AlexaKielty.pdf http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113969321 http://inhabitat.com/san-francisco-mandates-recycling-composting/ http://www.sfenvironment.org/our_programs/topics.html?ti=6 http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/san-francisco-startsmandatory-composting-this-week http://sunsetscavenger.com/residentialCompost.htm http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/tougher-recycling-rules-for-san-francisco/ http://greenopolis.com/goblog/gavin-newsom/san-francisco-home-to-first-mandatorycomposting-law http://www.sfenvironment.org/our_programs/interests.html?ssi=3&ti=&ii=236 http://inhabitat.com/san-francisco-working-on-plan-to-install-composting-public-toilets/ For more general statistics: http://www.cool2012.com/ http://www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org/