Zero Waste standards, tours & a party for good measure

The last few days of the international Zero Waste convention in San Francisco and the East Bay area have been very hectic with much debate and learning taking place.  It has become evident that this part of the world is very justified in having such high standards in its expectations regarding the future of zero waste initiatives.

Standards

On Thursday, there was much heated debate in Oakland City Hall, led by Gary Liss, on defining a Zero Waste standard for business certification.

It was clear that Zero Waste certification is already being carried out on some major international businesses and is currently being managed by a range of organisations, including UL, NSF-ISR and the US Zero Waste Business Council who, in consultation with the Zero Waste International Alliance, are preparing an American standard for Zero Waste for submission to ANSI.   Even though the current programmes are working towards high standards for Zero Waste (without landfilling or burning), it was debated that they aren't yet high enough and there could be a range of loop holes.  Also there needs to be clarity of a standard for businesses that have very minimal wasted resources.


Pigs & Peacocks

Following the day's debate at City Hall, it was back on tour again, this time for dinner at Marin Sanitary Service, a family-run waste management company that serves Marin County in the East Bay area.

I've now been to a wide range of MRFs but I've this is the first time I've ever visited a site that keeps pigs or even peacocks, not to mention the chickens, which feature as a popular and unexpected item on their educational tours.

The philosophy of Zero Waste is at the heart of the company's activities and I love this poster where our host Devi Peri outlined how once you've harvested the low-hanging fruit, it is possible to incorporate other services to a point where the only things left are Extended Producer Responsibility, including redesign.

Mattress Recycling


On Friday we visited a mattress recycling company in Oakland, which is now processing 150,000 mattresses per year with only 10% of its waste ending up in landfill.

Mattress Recycling is a great example of how recycling is progressing but if manufacturers designed products for better deconstruction at end-of-life, waste reduction achievements could be even better. 

The company's landfill stats may appear to be minimum but there still needs to be a push for products such as the one below, which cannot be disassembled, to be redesigned for disassembly.

However, for the majority that can be separated, the company is able to deconstruct the mattresses into good quality components, including metal that is sold onto metal dealers, wood that can be used in mulch, compost or energy production and cotton & fabrics that are sent onto the textile markets.

Dual Stream Bins & Buy Back

Having stayed in Berkeley this week, it was interesting to have a peek behind the scenes at Berkeley Recycling, the city's waste management company that serves residents and businesses locally.

One of the key points I drew out of the tour was the success of the company's dual stream collection, i.e. collecting recycling in split wheelie bins.

This allows for better quality of materials as plastic & metal packaging can be kept separate from paper and cardboard, which means easier and more efficient sorting at the MRF and maintains their ability to create one of the cleanest streams of recycling the the Bay Area.  Currently Berkeley Recycling's MRF maintains just a residual rate of only 2-3% and thanks to the quality of its recycling streams doesn't experience any rejections.

It was also interesting to see how there are different service levels of participation to engage the public.  Residents have a range of options for recycling, which include the kerbside service through the dual-streamed bins and a front-end recycling centre at the MRF.

The bins shown above cater for all the kerbside materials plus hard plastic, but as you can see below there is also a Buy Back service, where visitors can get paid separately for bottles, cans, paper and scrap aluminium, incentivising those who want to earn some extra dollars either for themselves or a community initiative.

I was intrigued to know the amount of materials collected through these different service levels.  The figures are as follows:

Bring back: 100 tons per month
Buy back: 250 tons per month
Kerbside: 650 tons per month

It was also interesting to note that 'Buy back' services are an integral part of recycling services, not just in Berkeley but across California.



Innovations in Reuse

Throughout the week I have seen many examples of how Reuse has been an important feature in this area's waste hierarchy but it was the visit to El Cerrito's recycling centre which really demonstrated how this can be made not only visible to the public but also integral to a local culture.

The El Cerrito site underwent a major redesign in 2012 and has fast become one of most attractive recycling sites I have ever seen.  Its popularity amongst local residents is such that it restricts visitors to two hours onsite.  Two hours?  Most people I know are in and out of a recycling centre in just 20 minutes.

The attraction of El Cerrito is that it is not just a recycling centre, it is also an exchange centre, featuring an onsite book 'store', where you can pick up items of interest for free and those who are registered can also pick out various items from some of their deposit bins.  As well as managing a range of recycling streams on site, it also supports local community reuse organisations such as Urban Ore and the Goodwill charity.

For anyone interested in modelling reuse and community exchange facilities into their own recycling centres, it really is worth looking closely at the El Cerrito model and more information can be found on its website.


Party Time at Urban Ore

On the topic of reuse, one of the most amazing centres in this part of California... or indeed anywhere else that I've had the pleasure to visit is Urban Ore, which is a huge reuse and building materials exchange operation in Berkeley.  It is also an active contributor to the Zero Waste programme and its website is really worth a visit for anyone who want to push activities further up the waste hierarchy in their own localities.

Urban Ore was also the venue for the end-of-week party and with the opportunity to browse around the store, I couldn't think of a better place to be.

This place is cool with a capital C!

It's not even afraid of reselling electricals and electronics.  The onus is simply on any interested purchasers to test them out onsite first!

But when I say that Urban Ore is huge!  It really is!  Even this photo of 'party central' doesn't do it justice.  And in fact, the outside is even larger than the inside.

The Urban Ore party really was a fitting venue for the end-of-week celebrations.  It has been a great study tour of some of the best practice Zero Waste practices that are taking place in the world right now and if there are any local innovators, great thinkers and aspirational leaders in the UK's waste sector who want to be connected up to what I've seen this week, I would be delighted to make those connections.

I know waste management and working towards Zero Waste to conserve resources isn't easy, but it starts with rethinking the impossible and realising its potential towards a new reality.  We should never be scared of these levels of innovation but should be excited about the technological, economic and social opportunities that they bring.

What I've witnessed this week have been communities that care about making the impossible actually possible, forging ahead with their vision and working together with City officials, service providers and strategists who are not daunted by moving away from old models of thinking.

This is something that is worth celebrating big time!  So thank you San Francisco, leading the way with your 80% diversion rate, and to all the organisations from the Bay Area that shared their experiences this week.  I feel very privileged to have been here with many of my International friends.

Folk, I think it's now time to watch this space.  Meanwhile, here's another photo from the coolest party I've been to in a long time... and most probably ever!

California rocks!  And so does its path to Zero Waste!

Zero Waste greetings from California

So here I am, thousands of miles away from home, following in the footsteps of Jeremy Irons and his recent movie Trashed.  Except, I've not ended up in Hollywood.  I'm somewhere far more exciting! Yep, as part of this year's international Zero Waste conference, I'm 'on location' in San Francisco, visiting Recycle Central, which was featured in the documentary, and exploring how the city and county of San Francisco is so advanced in its journey towards Zero Waste.

And that trash truck that you see there, is one of the few that can be seen heading for landfill, taking less than 5% of waste from Recology's recycling MuRF/Recycling Depot, after the paper, plastic, cardboard and cans have been baled for processing.   Overall, thanks to its well-streamed organics and recycling facilities, San Francisco's diversion rate from landfill is 80%, not only placing it high on the Zero Waste league table, but well on its way to its goal of 100% Zero Waste by 2020.

And that's Zero Waste to landfill or incineration!

Now that's a very high ambition indeed and gives many of the best Zero Waste goals of even the UK a run for their money,  but judging by what I've seen on my first day, I would bet my bottom dollar (see how I threw in that local colloquialism there) that San Francisco is going to achieve it, or at least get pretty damn close.

And this stems from the fundamental belief that the rubbish generated by San Francisco's visitors, businesses and residents is too valuable to bury or burn and has much higher economic, social and environmental value being reused or recycled as a resource.   Consequently, San Francisco's municipal Environment Department and business community have overcome many of the perceived barriers and hurdles, working together to introduce alternative solutions that benefit their zero waste agenda and its local community.

As we drove away from Recycle Central yesterday, these solutions were pretty easy to spot, with the piles of demolition rubble that now has to be processed for construction reuse instead of being buried in landfill.  Further afield, but close to the city, organics (including all forms of food waste) are also diverted out of the landfill thanks to composting and AD facilities, creating a product that is now highly in demand by local vineyards, farms and recreation facilities.

But to achieve this, high levels of participation are needed and during our tour around the very popular Fisherman's Wharf, it became clear how re-education, attitudes and the right financial leverage tools are helping to realise San Francisco's Zero Waste culture, especially within the business sector.

Take Scoma's Fish Restaurant for instance.  According to one of its executive chef's Kelly, who gave us a behind-the-scenes tour, it now diverts 97% of its waste from landfill, saving an estimated $1100 per month. 

Scoma's is one the top 20 grossing restaurants in the United States, with 170 staff on its books, serving up to 2000 people a day.  Its corporate philosophy is heavily linked to sustainability and embraced by its staff and thanks to the supporting waste collection infrastructure, diverting restaurant waste from landfill has become very easy.

As Kelly says "it's not hard, it's just using a different coloured garbage can".

But businesses in Fisherman's Wharf don't just stop at recycling goals.  There are some great examples of waste prevention too, and one of these is the lead being shown by fish supplier Two X Sea, which has redesigned their distribution packaging from disposable cardboard boxes to reusable hotel pans.

Owner Kenny Belov took us through how his company's one off investment of $8,000 in the streamlined reusable system, which integrates with the storage facilities of his customers, not only saves his company huge amounts of money from being wasted through disposable packaging, but it also saves his customers time and cash too as they don't need to process or repackage the fish at the other end.

While all this is happening 'behind-the-scenes' in Fisherman's Wharf, there is also more visible change on the streets too.

Our guide for the day, Lisa Lukacs, a Zero Waste consultant who's working closely with the wharf, demonstrated how the port authorities are changing their management of recycling through the application of the Big Belly solar recycling bins on Pier 45.

With facilities for passers-by to fully separate compostables and recycling, the system also has a solar-powered compacting system to manage the residual trash, alerting the authorities electronically when it's ready to be emptied.  With a leasing agreement of $230 per month, this method has already demonstrated a reduction in labour costs associated with emptying regular bins.

The day's tour ended with a presentation from San Francisco's municipal environment department, which addressed a whole range of topics from the 10c single use bag charge, the significance of the food hierarchy in diverting usable food to the San Francisco food banks and the promotion of home composting.  Also covered were the success of the Green Apartment programme as well as links to schools.

As the county progresses further down the path towards zero waste, there will now be a focus on extended producer responsibility, including redesigning waste out of the system and greater financial contributions for disposal.

You can find more about department's Zero Waste programme here at www.sfenvironment.org.

Of course, a day of introductions to San Francisco's Zero Waste initiatives wouldn't have been complete without a screening of Trashed at the Aquarium of the Bay, which is itself closely connected to the ZW goals.  The avid applause and whoop-whoops from the audience at seeing the achievements of San Francisco featured in the documentary were entirely appropriate, enjoyable and very well deserved.

It was inspiring enough to have seen these examples from afar as an audience member in the UK, but to have witnessed them in person has been even more of an eye-opener to the opportunities that are available to work towards zero waste efficiently and effectively.

There are great lessons to be learned from San Francisco and over the next few days week, I hope to find out more as well as discover news of what's happening from across the world at the zero waste conference that is bringing together experts from countries that include the US, Sweden, Italy, Wales, Brazil, Columbia, India, Bhutan, the Philippines, Italy, Canada and Australia.

It will be a real privilege to find out about some of the best practice from across the world and also share my experience of The Rubbish Diet with them too.  My thanks go to the Zero Waste Alliance UK and Zero Waste International Alliance for providing me with this fantastic opportunity.

More news will be shared soon.

____________________________________