Recycle it
by Sidney Hollister
We are all creatures of habit, alas. Yet, we are also astonishingly adaptable, able to change our entire lives if disaster strikes or good fortune beckons. San Francisco's Department of the Environment is betting on the second of these human traits to help it expand the compostable part of its citywide recycling program.
So far in San Francisco, 2,000 restaurants and tens of thousands of individual homes already participate in this voluntary composting segment of the city's recycling program by depositing yard trimmings, food scraps and paper food wrappings and containers in the rolling green carts for weekly pickup. According to Robert Reed of Norcal Waste Systems, Inc. which runs the program for the city, every day approximately 300 tons of material from those green carts are hauled out of San Francisco. It goes to Norcal's Jepson Prairie Organics outside Vacaville where, after 90 days of intensive composting and curing, it fills to the brim four to five l8-wheel dump trucks with nitrogen and microbial rich compost. In addition to thirty vineyards that use this compost, some commercial nurseries and landscapers use it, as well as a number of organic farmers who sell their produce at farmers' markets at the Ferry Building and in Berkeley.
The most aggressive program of its kind in the country, this composting effort has experienced a strong start and attracted worldwide attention. But people's habits are hard to change, especially if it means taking a bit of time or doing something that is unfamiliar. Then again, most of us cut down on water use during a drought; and we no longer give even a second thought to doing all kinds of things with those tiny cell phones/message centers/mail managers/cameras/who-knows-what-else electronic gizmos we carry with us everywhere. I can remember, too, when the garbage trucks from the towns of California's north coast simply backed up to cliff-top chutes and dumped their trash into the ocean. Now, after some initial resistance, they even use landfills and recycling programs just like us urban folks. Change happens.
San Francisco is the first large city in the nation to offer a citywide collection of food scraps for composting. If the city is going to do its part in meeting the mandated goal of recycling 75 percent of all city waste by 2010, the compostable part of this program needs help from property managers, owners and their tenants. Everyone involved agrees that the key to composting in apartment buildings with six or more units is having someone manage and monitor the program, preferably on site. Such monitors can easily distribute the Norcal posters and flyers that educate tenants on what goes into the green bins. Then, they can encourage those tenants to stick with the program until it becomes as much of a habit as recycling paper, bottles and cans.
They can also provide tips on how to keep things tidy in the kitchen. In the 21st century, garbage is supposed to be out of sight—and out of smell—so convincing people to keep food scraps in the kitchen for a few days often proves to be a hard sell. Actually if you use a green 2.5-gallon kitchen pail (a limited number for apartment-building use are available from Norcal), you can line it with a biodegradable bag (available at 80 stores around the city, including Cole ;Hardware and Walgreens) and keep it tightly shut so that gnats and those lusty fruit flies stay away. It's as easy as peeling a banana. Keeping the green carts clean and free of unpleasant smells is another, and perhaps the biggest, challenge. Step by step, according to Kevin Drew of the Department of the Environment, the program is tackling this issue. The biodegradable bags that were hard to find and costly when introduced are now available around the city at affordable prices. Lacking those bags, tenants should be encouraged to put food scraps in a cardboard milk carton or regular paper bag, or even wrap them in newspaper. Managers or monitors should also regularly rinse the green carts to reduce the smell. Last, the department is looking into the use of cart-washing trucks that have been used in European cities for some time now.
The final step is to get compostables from the kitchen to the cart. This process is made easier if all three carts—black, blue and green—are kept close together with illustrated posters nearby that indicate what goes where. Of course, you will need to take a little extra effort and a few more minutes to make all this happen. In the long run, though, what are our options?
In recent years, we have learned we cannot afford to waste energy. Green space and water are also limited resources that stir increasingly heated debate because of issues pertaining to their conservation and use. On top of it all, locating landfill space at a reasonable price and not more than an hour or so truck drive from San Francisco is more and more difficult.
If the 65 percent of San Franciscans who are renters, especially those in large multiunit buildings, join restaurants and homeowners in chopping, peeling, scraping, clipping and then recycling, the loop can be closed. Instead of going from a farmer's field to market to kitchen to landfill, those cuttings and food scraps can be sent back to the farmer's field as compost.
San Francisco's groundbreaking program to recycle compostables has attracted experts to our city from Brazil, India and other countries, not to mention New York and—imagine that—Los Angeles. Finding new ways to deal with trash is a worldwide problem.
When you participate in San Francisco's pioneering program, you can feel a bit of pride as you take a bite of your next organic tomato or a taste of a flavorful California wine. After all, your efforts helped make them the delectable treats that they are.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. Sidney Hollister is a writer, photographer and editor who lives in San Francisco. He has been an environmentalist since working for the Sierra Club in the 1960s and a vegetable gardener since the age of 8. For more information about composting, call Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Company, 415-626-4000, or Sunset Scavenger Company Inc., 415-330-1300, and ask to speak to a recycling coordinator. Copyright © 2004 by the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.