Waste Not! Carroll

By Shawn Wright | WRN reporter

Jan. 16 -- Food scraps and other organics are the low-hanging fruit that will be plucked more aggressively from America´s waste stream throughout 2012, industry analysts say."I think that´s where you´re going to see major increases this year," said Mark Lichtenstein, president of the National Recycling Coalition. "This is what we´re promoting. We´re saying, ´Take a look at organics first and let´s build some successes around that. And once you feel good about the successes you built, then let´s start to target other things in the discard stream.´ "

San Francisco set the bar last year after reaching its milestone of composting 1 million tons or 2 billion pounds of compostable organic waste. It took the city 15 years to reach that number since implementing a compost collection program in 1996, but it has saved 2.7 million cubic yards of landfill space, the city says.

"We´re doing wonderful things with organics," said Jeff Danzinger, a spokesperson with the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle). "But you still have roughly one-third of what´s going into the landfills is organic in nature and can be applied in so many different ways."

CalRecycle said it´s hearing of more jurisdictions making a concerted effort to take food composting seriously because it still is the largest component of the U.S. waste stream.

Soil scientist Bob Shaffer, owner of Soil Culture Consulting, works as a composting consultant to farmers around the country and to Recology Inc., which collects and composts San Francisco´s food waste.

Shaffer said the U.S. is having one of the greatest periods of growth in composting he´s seen.

"I´ve been a composter since 1970 or so," Shaffer said, "and this is just really a booming period."

More and more cities are following San Francisco.

"Organics is the place for us to attack right away," Lichtenstein said. "No. 1: it´s such a huge component of the waste stream. No. 2: it´s an absolute sin to be disposing of that stuff in any kind of disposal facility. No. 3: It can add nutrients back into our system. à And No. 4: it´s relatively easy to identify in a waste stream. It´s a lot easier to identify organics than it is a plastic container that you have to educate people as to what number they can recycle."

Meanwhile, Seattle diverted about 90,000 tons of organic waste from landfills in its first year. Seattle´s ordinance requires residents to collect food and yard waste in a special bin, but households are able to opt out if they compost onsite.

Metropolitan Vancouver instituted a region-wide composting mandate last year, which aims to cover all single-family residences by the end of this year.

Portland, Ore., recently began its own citywide compost collection program, and Calgary announced a test run of a system in four neighborhoods. Montreal wants to do something similar, and New York City is trying to figure out how to implement this type of program for its 8 million residents.

"These cities are setting the standard," Lichtenstein said. "I will get people who say, ´Those are big cities. They have the ability to do that.´ But what we have to do, the NRC and organizations like us, is help articulate and peel away from those cities what best practices can be applied elsewhere."

In addition to composting, Lichtenstein, who also leads a sustainability center at Syracuse University, said he sees four issues that will come into play during 2012: China´s goal to recycle and incinerate more of its waste, an increased understanding of sustainable materials management in the U.S., a Senate resolution toward better recycling infrastructure, and creating more jobs from recycling.

"They all kind of intertwine," Lichtenstein said. "And mixed together, they all send a message to me that, ultimately, materials recovery in this country is going to see a resurgence."

U.S. Senate Resolution 251 expressed support for the improvement of the collection, processing and consumption of recyclable materials throughout the U.S., though it has no power.

California passed its own bill late last year that will have teeth in 2012.

The law requires a business, defined to include a commercial or public entity that generates more than four cubic yards of commercial solid waste per week or is a multifamily residential dwelling of five units or more, to arrange for recycling services on and after July 1.

Also part of the bill is California´s goal of a minimum 75% diversion rate by 2020. To help reach that goal, the bill is requiring the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to provide a report to the Legislature by Jan. 1, 2014, that provides strategies to achieve that goal.

An EPA report said there are about 9,000 curbside recycling programs in the country, up from 8,875 in 2002, and there are 3,095 community composting programs, down from 3,227 in 2002.

Creating jobs from recycling was a hot topic in 2011 after at least four reports published findings on how the U.S. economy could benefit from a larger recycling infrastructure.

"I predict by the end of this year, coming out of Washington and particularly the EPA, there is going to be much more guidance and impetus for communities across the country to implement sustainable materials management programs," Lichtenstein said, "and to step back and take a look at how they deal with this stuff and really see it as materials to be mined."

Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Shawn Wright at swright@crain.com or 313-446-0346.