“On November 1^st the state abruptly cut all processing payments to its more than 2,400 recycling centers including 20 in San Francisco.  This was after an initial July cut of 85 percent.  According to a report put out by Californians Against Waste, the move is projected to cost consumers $100 million in increased fees for beverages, lead to the closure of 1,100 recycling centers, and put 5, 000 people employed in the recycling industry out of work – many of whom are at-risk youth, the Los Angeles Times reported.”

This is sad news to hear that recycling programs are being cut back. The state of California is broke and I guess is trying to cut back basically everywhich way it can, but green jobs are important to keep, especially if it is helping troubled youths. There will also be less recycling sites due to the cutback in subsidized recycling facilities.

via SFGate and MissionLocal.org

My girlfriend moved to Tempe, Arizona to attend ASU for her MBA and has realized that her apartment complex, Grigio Tempe Town Lake does not have recycling! Growing up in the bay area, we are very used to having recycling everywhere. It was shocking to us that apartment complexes did not have any form of recycling. The reason, we found out, was that apartment complexes had to pay to have recycling picked up in Arizona. The complex has about 500 units and it sounded horrible to us that there is so much wasted trash that could have been easily recycled. She will try to talk to management about getting recycling there but I would not be too optimistic since they will most likely not want to pay for it. The complex is about 2 years old and it is just sad that we would have to bring recycling somewhere instead of having it easily accessible.

On a recent trip to New Orleans, we also noticed that there isnt really any recycling there either. Walking in the streets, we can see that the bars and restaurants basically tossed all the empty bottles in with the trash. I am glad I live in California where recycling is pretty abundant.

I am sure many people wonder what we can really recycle and put in the recycling bin and what can’t be recycled. Usually items that can be recycled have the recycle triangle on the item somewhere and if it doesn’t have it, then most likely it can’t be recycled. Different cities also have different recycling programs but for the most part, the items that cannot be recycled are usually pretty similar. For example, in South San Francisco where I live, we have just one recycling bin that we put everything which makes it really convenient for us. The items will get sorted at the collection center but it doesnt hurt to help them out some more.

Here are 3 links that have some pretty useful information from the cities of San Francisco, South San Francisco, and Palo Alto.

San Francisco

South San Francisco

Palo Alto

Here is the most detailed list out of the three cities above of items that are not recyclable.　

NOT ACCEPTED

• Paper, plastic or foil with food residue
• Waxy/coated cardboard
• Aseptic containers (e.g., milk/juice cartons, drink boxes and pouches)
• Film plastic (e.g., plastic bags, shrink wrap, bubble wrap)
• Plate glass (e.g., window panes, mirrors)
• Ceramics, porcelain
• Light bulbs
• Glassware (e.g., Pyrex®)
• Hardback books
• Blueprints
• Photographs
• Thermal fax paper
• Frozen food boxes/cartons
• (e.g., ice cream)
• Carbon paper
• Metallic paper
• Paper napkins/towels
• Tyvek envelopes (e.g., overnight mailing packages)
• Polystyrene (a.k.a. Styrofoam® blocks/”peanuts”, food containers/cups)
• Plastic pipe/tubing

image taken from http://janeyvox.blogspot.com/

My friend Danny was back in town from Japan and was telling me how the Japanese have a pretty interesting recycling system. They separate burnable items which can include food and paper that get incinerated and non-burnables, which go to the landfill. Glass bottles, jars, and aluminum/tin cans are separated out and different kinds of paper and cardboard are also separated. Cardboards need to be cut up and bound together into a stack and plastic bottles need to have the labels and caps removed. This all sounds like a lot of work but it sounds like it is a good environmental system. Being in an apartment, my friend Danny has to bring his garbage downstairs and sort it all out. 

In my building complex in South San Francisco, we just have two big blue recycling containers and we are suppose to just toss all our paper/cardboard and plastic/glass/tin containers into it. I assume they bring it all somewhere and it gets sorted? So I guess it works the same way here but other people do it for us. The only problem is that there are different recycling systems for different cities and districts and they are not all consistent. So we never really know what happens with our recycling. For example, San Francisco and Albany are two cities that I know have composting recycling but many other cities in the bay area do not.

SFGate had a pretty good article today about San Francisco’s recycling and disposal center. The Tunnel Road complex collects all of San Francisco’s garbage bins, green for compost, blue for recyclables, and black for trash. Norcal collects 82% of San Francisco’s trash and recycles 4 out of every 10 tons that passes through. Most of the Bay Area cities have a process that the bins go through before the waste gets disposed of.  All recyclables get shipped off to Recycle Central at Pier 96 where conveyor belts, machines, and people sort through more than 700 tons of paper, platic, glass, and other materials. The recyclable products get shipped all over the world to different processing plants. Paper could go to China, Indonesia, and South America but glass is shipped to a San Leandro facility that creates new wine bottles and other products. Compostable items get shipped to the Organics Annex. At Jepson Prairie Organics,  300 tons of compostable materials are processed daily.  The materials  take about 60 days to break down  into usable compost. The workers of the recycling and disposal centers all deserve great credit because it is not an easy job. I couldn’t imagine having to sort through garbage. The sorting site had sprinklers spray mist to keep down the dust and also has a strawberry scent added to keep the smell down but for anyone else other than its regular employees, that place must smell horrible. Cheers to those guys who are helping the environment.