San Francisco Mandates Recycling

Mayor Gavin Newsom wants the citizens of San Francisco to recycle. Everything. Or else.

Newsom, who described himself as “intense” about recycling, is preparing a proposal for a new recycling program that would make recycling mandatory, with violations punished by suspended trash privileges.

San Francisco’s success, manifested in the highest waste diversion rate in the nation at seventy percent, is the result of an array of innovative waste management tools. One is  specialized garbage trucks, which keep glass shards from mixing with paper, easing the recycling process and producing higher quality recycled matter. Another is a creative rate structure, where citizens pay higher rates if they generate more waste. In turn, this encourages participation in a municipal compost project. San Francisco’s compost then fertilizes California’s growing zone, the San Joaquin Valley. San Franciscans also recycle concrete from renovations, which end up back in sidewalks, as well as paint, which is filtered, remixed and supplied to local nonprofits.

San Francisco’s recycling campaigns are getting noticed, more often in China and Germany than in the Midwest, where waste diversion rates lag (but, are ahead of Alaska). San Francisco environmental staff are ‘big in Japan’, frequently called upon to speak to foreign governments about waste reduction strategies.

Read more at the NYTimes.