Author: Editor

Board Of Directors Candidate Statements, 2017

Eight candidates have submitted ballot statements to serve on the 2017 NCRA Board of Directors. There are six positions to fill. Voting is open from January 9 – January 18. The election results will be announced January 19 at the Annual Members Meeting. Custom voting links will be emailed to members on or after January 5. If you do not receive our email but believe you should (i.e. your membership is current as of January 11, 2017), please email the office and we will email the link again.

CANDIDATES 2017: Arthur Boone, Douglas Brooms, Rebecca Jewell, Laura McKaughan, Hilary Near, Jessica Robinson, Steven Sherman and Mary Lou Van Deventer.

ARTHUR BOONE, INCUMBENT (LinkedIn)
I became a professional recycler in 1983 and have served on the NCRA Board for most of those 34 years (no term limits here). I have served in all Board positions but am best known as founder and for 17 years director of NCRA’s well-known Recycling Update. I have taught NCRA’s Introduction to Recycling class twice a year for newcomers, and am now co-chair our Zero Waste Advocacy Committee. Your vote will assure my continued Board membership. Seventy-nine in March but going strong; a little crusty at times but usually for a good cause. Thank you.

DOUGLAS BROOMS, INCUMBENT (LinkedIn)
I’ve served on the Board for three years, and would be honored to serve another term. I look forward to Board meeting deliberations, and helping with and participating in NCRA events. I’ve represented NCRA at each annual “Oakland Green Expo” and other similar events.

I’m a co-chair of the ZW Advocacy Committee. I’ll continue with the evaluation and selection of new CA legislature Bills, and drafting of support letters. I’ll promote greater Bills support collaboration among environmental organizations in areas of common interests. I’ll continue with timely updates to the ZWAC Webpage, and work towards increasing its appeal and usefulness.

I’ll continue promoting awareness about the annual America Recycles Day, and other means to encourage greater recycling participation. I’m still the volunteer recycling coordinator at my apartment building. I enjoy work doing sorting at public fairs and events.

I have sustaining commitments to climate protection and other environmental stewardship causes. However, Zero Waste and recycling advocacy are my stronger passions, making NCRA my favorite place. I would appreciate your vote.

REBECCA JEWELL (LinkedIn)
I respectfully submit my name for your consideration for the NCRA board. My pragmatism and experience will help further NCRA’s work as I will focus on professional development and information sharing for NCRA members.

My work for the organization over the past decade has included a job-seekers series, jobs board and Recycling Update CoChair. I will continue to work on these projects and help the Board to continue its work on formalizing procedures and policies.

NCRA has made some significant strides in these past years. I look forward to helping it’s continued development.

LAURA MCKAUGHAN, INCUMBENT (LinkedIn)
I have been honored to serve on the NCRA board for the past 6 years and as President since 2012. This along with 12 years working in Zero Waste has provided me with the background to bring leadership and experience to the NCRA board. In my professional career outside of NCRA, I founded Envirolutions Consulting in 2014 to promote recycling, composting, Zero Waste and resource recovery for private industry, government and non-profits, and prior to this, I worked for nearly 8 years for the San Francisco Conservation Corps, first as Recycling Manager and then Associate Director of Green Programs.

NCRA has grown in membership and achieved much in the past few years and I believe we are now gaining momentum rather than reaching plateaus. My goal in continuing to serve would be to help build upon these successes and shepherd in new leadership. If re-elected, I would seek to accomplish this through continued initiatives and events that engage our membership, re-building our curriculum offerings and continuing to advocate for resource recovery, recycling, getting organics out of landfills and promoting resource recovery over burning or burying.

I humbly ask your vote to continue to serve on the NCRA Board of Directors.

HILARY NEAR (LinkedIn)
I am submitting my candidacy to join the NCRA board in 2017. I have worked in the Zero Waste field for a decade, primarily in program management and outreach related to municipal residential and commercial Zero Waste programs. I consider it my turn to serve. I am grateful to many past and present NCRA board members for their training and comradery over the years. I particularly recognize the legacy of NCRA’s training and conference coordination; NCRA’s Intro to Recycling course was a highlight in my early career, and the Recycling Update, of course, continues to serve my professional development and our larger community.

I currently serve the City of Oakland as a recycling specialist. I am passionate about expanding participation in our current curbside collection programs, particularly organics and bulky item collection. As a board member, I am interested in supporting the new mentorship program. I also enjoy event coordination that could benefit the tours committee and RU event. I would join the NCRA board as an experienced, passionate, creative and open servant to our NCRA membership and our aspirational goals.

JESSICA J. ROBINSON, INCUMBENT (LinkedIn)
I am a passionate environmental advocate, who would like the opportunity to continue as a board member. I have served as Treasurer for 4 years and would like to carry on as I have discovered more ways I can better serve.

NCRA has been a huge support of my endeavors and educational outreach. NCRA was the first vehicle for me to introduce, “Miss Alameda Says Compost!” to the recycling/sustainability community back in 2010. My M.A.S.C. program recruited over 150 restaurants in Alameda to compost and recycle, helping the city address it’s Zero Waste and Climate Protection Plan. NCRA funded my short film, “Recycle Woman,” which educates and inspires people to take action in helping the planet by maximizing on recycling and composting. NCRA co-produced my Resilience Climate Change Expedition documentaries, which I hope NCRA will get more exposure as the series expands.

I’m also a Climate Leader under Al Gore, educating the public about global warming and how recycling and composting are part of the solution.

I hope I will be given the opportunity to share my energy, creativity and innovative ideas with the board for many more years to come.

  • STEVEN SHERMAN (LinkedIn)
    NCRA inspires me by advocating for waste reduction, source separation and leading-edge materials management policies. I am grateful that NCRA annually hosts the best one-day conference on recycling, which features our members’ activities. I joined NCRA in 1990. It remains the heart and soul of the recycling movement. I share NCRA’s passion for its mission. My own path on the journey toward Zero Waste includes:

    • Past or current board service: California Organics Recycling Council; San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners; Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union; Upstream; Berkeley Zero Waste Commission; Alameda County Recycling Board
    • Recycling and compost consulting for 20+ years, including 14 years as managing partner and president of Applied Compost Consulting, Inc.;
      Compost program development courses taught via CRRA, UC Extension and ABAG;
    • Bridger of wastewater and recycling industries (work with EBMUD anaerobic digestion).I will advocate for environmentally sustainable approaches to organics management; product quality, end uses, and behavior change all matter tremendously. I will help NCRA to participate effectively in coalitions to address the scourge of plastics, which ends up in our oceans, our soil, and in our bodies. I will work to ensure that NCRA’s financial footing remains steady.

I respectfully ask for your vote.

MARY LOU VAN DEVENTER (LinkedIn)
I want to rejoin NCRA’s Board of Directors because I’m afraid for recycling’s future and want to participate actively in defending it. NCRA thinks big, thinks forward, and sticks to its guns. That stick-to-it-iveness will be required in the next few years.

NCRA’s job is to grow and protect the recycling industries. Recently in an email thread, an advocate for systemic replacement called today’s recyclers “the previous industry.” Some powerful forces share that view. They walk next to waste-to-energy advocates. Even President Obama’s energy plan calls WTE “sustainable.” What will the new administration say?

Some vulnerabilities are visible. In the last 18 months 850 recyclers have gone out of business in California, and pressures will soon increase.

But recovery industries have achieved so much, and the promise of Zero Waste is huge!

In this new period of uncertainty, our large creation will endure only if we defend it. I have served in every office on NCRA’s board, including three terms as president. If I can rejoin the Board I will contribute practical experiences gained in fighting off threats while maintaining a holistic, developmental vision.

If you share the fear, the hope, or both, please vote for me. Thank you.

President’s Report, Nov 2016

By Laura McKaughan
We made it through the election season, or as it’s otherwise known, the year of 2016! As I write this before the results are known, I think one thing we can all agree upon is a sense of relief that it’s finally over and we can go back to caring about all the multitude of programs and policies that make up our day-to-day professional lives.

One big push for NCRA during this election cycle was to get out the word about the two bag-related statewide measures on ballot this year. NCRA hosted a variety of outreach activities throughout October including tabling at local grocery stores, phone-banking, spreading the word via social media, and last but not least producing an original video promoting a Yes Vote on Prop 67, (Prop 67, Prop-Prop 67 for those of you who are familiar with it!) Special thanks go out to NCRA Board member David Krueger and members Tom Wright and Randy Russell for their tremendous efforts in promoting a Yes vote on Prop 67 and encouraging a No vote on Prop 65!

In the midst of the election madness, NCRA still found the time to organize it’s annual fall mixer in San Jose on Thursday November 3rd. Around 20 members and non-members alike joined together for drinks, networking and mentorship at San Jose’s SP2 Communal Bar & Restaurant. See photo above and more on the website. We love hosting events that help members mix and mingle with each other and industry affiliates and thank all of those who were brave enough to face the tough San Jose traffic. (photos will be posted shortly)

With the holidays nearly upon us, please keep an eye out for details about our December holiday party, the Annual January Members meeting and then Zero Waste Week and Recycling Update in March. It will be here before you know it!

Lastly, it’s November which means NCRA board elections are right around the corner. We are currently making a CALL FOR NOMINATIONS for anyone who may be interested in joining the NCRA board. Members seeking to join the board of directors (or current board members seeking re-election) need to submit a 200-word ballot statement outlining why you are interested in joining the board and how you are qualified for the position. Afterward these statements will be posted to the web site and members will have the chance to vote for NCRA’s 2017 Board of Directors. Voting will commence in early December. Please see the newsletter for more details about deadlines and consider running for the 2016 NCRA board. Please EMAIL US with questions.

Yes on Proposition 67 – Talking Points

 

Yes on 67 is good for the environment and for taxpayers

  • Single-use plastic bags are damaging to the environment and wildlife, expensive to clean up, and an easily preventable source of litter.
  • The Ocean Conservancy recently deemed plastic bags as the #2 deadliest threat to sea turtles, birds, and marine mammals.
  • Plastic bags eat up taxpayer dollars in cleanup costs. Local governments across the state spend $428 million each year to prevent litter in streets and storm drains.
  • Less than 3% of plastic bags are recycled, and rather they jam most recycling equipment.
  • Prop 67 is the last statewide on the ballot, but the most important for our oceans, rivers, and parks.

Yes on 67 reaffirms legislation signed by Governor Brown

  • In an attempt to mitigate an easily preventable form of plastic pollution, Senate Bill 270 (Padilla, De León, Lara) was adopted by the Legislature and signed by Governor Jerry Brown establishing a statewide ban on the distribution of single-use plastic grocery bags at most stores in 2014.
  • It was the culmination of a five-year effort that included the adoption of numerous local bag bans and the support of local governments, environmental groups, grocers, retailers and labor organizations.
  • Prop 67 asks voters to affirm statewide legislation that phases out single-use plastic grocery bags and requires stores to pass along the 10 cent cost of paper bags.

 

Yes on 67 bans plastic bags in California once and for all

  • Immediately after SB 270 was signed, out-of-state plastic bag manufacturers spent more than $3 million on a paid signature gathering effort to qualify Proposition 67 for the November 2016 ballot for voters to decide its fate.
  • This postponement of the law has resulted in the continued distribution of more than 192 million single-use plastic bags every week. Today, these manufacturers have spent over $6 million, and are expected to spend $25 to 40 million more in order to protect their profits.
  • The plastic companies behind this attempt to hijack our state’s referendum and initiative system have a disastrous environmental record, including pollution by one Chinese-based firm, Formosa International, which caused one of the largest fish kills ever recorded.
  • As part of their last ditch effort to overturn the bag ban, the out-of-state bag manufacturers have put a competing measure on the ballot (Prop 65) the Mercury News described as “one of the most disingenuous ballot measures in state history–and that’s saying something.”

 

Yes on 67 has already shown to be effective

  • Plastic bag bans work. Today 151 California communities have them. In all of these cities and counties, bag use declines as customers bring their own bags, as well as plastic bag litter that blow out of trash cans, solid waste vehicles and landfills into streets, parks and waterways.
  • California’s environmental leadership has been challenged and we cannot allow a monied special interest to succeed in an ‘end run’ around our hard fought environmental victories.

South San Francisco Scavenger Anaerobic Digester Tour

By Greg Dudish, Dudish Consulting

Images…

On August 18, Chris of South San Francisco Scavenger took 25 NCRA members and guests on a fantastic tour of their anaerobic digestion facility. Built in 2015, the facility can process 11,000+ tons per year – using methane produced as energy for the facility and as fuel for the 10+ collection trucks.

One of the first things noticed on the tour is the space constraints. Less than 100 yards away from the digester is a parking structure and the Genentech executive building. These constraints require the facility to have a small footprint with tight odor controls while balancing the need to process as much material as possible. The SMARTFERM technology solves this balancing act.

The key to successful anaerobic digestion is the carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N) of input material. At SSF, various feedstocks are mixed for this optimized ratio prior to digestion. Generally, brown or woody material has a high ratio and green material or food waste has a low ratio.

While waiting for an available digester chamber, the material is stored in the aeration bay. The bay is under negative pressure (i.e., vacuum) for odor control. Once added to a digestion chamber, a 21 day, 3-phase process begins.

Start: Anaerobic digestion only occurs in a specific temperature range. To bring material into this range, a heat-generating, aerobic decomposition process is started by pumping air into the chamber allowing the material to heat itself up naturally! It’s a clever solution with lower energy requirements than heating up the material with steam or hot air.

Fermentation: Once at the correct temperature, percolate with bacteria from cows’ digestive tracts is sprayed onto the material, starting digestion and producing biogas. The key indicators during fermentation is quality and quantity of methane produced. Unfortunately, high quality doesn’t occur during times of high quantity. To increase quality, CO2 and other components are filtered out.

Termination: After ~20 days, methane production has been greatly reduced and doesn’t make sense to continue. To stop the process, percolate is no longer sprayed onto the material. Air is again added to the chamber but this time to purge the chamber of methane and create a safe/non-explosive environment to open the chamber and allow the removal of digestate.

Remaining digestate is treated in an IVC (In-Vessel Composting) tunnel to compost the material. The tunnel also removes ammonia gas produced and processes it with an acid scrubber where sulfuric acid is sprayed over the gas to precipitate out the ammonia as ammonium sulfate. Scrubbed gas then passes through a BioFilter similar to the flora on a forest floor – removing odors and harmful gases – and into the atmosphere. The compost produced is screened offsite and sold to farms!

Overall, the facility is a great example of anaerobic digestion with space and odor constraints while remaining financially viable.

Although not a substitute for the tour, there is a great YouTube video summarizing the process.

ZERO WASTE ENERGY AND BLUE LINE TRANSFER AWARDED 2015 INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR

Recycling Today, 9/15/15
Zero Waste Energy (ZWE), Lafayette, California, and Blue Line Transfer Inc., South San Francisco, California, were announced as the recipient of the National Waste & Recycling Association’s (NWRA’s) 2015 Recycling Equipment Innovator of the Year for its Blue Line Biogenic CNG Facility atWaste360 Recycling Summit. The award recognizes recycling equipment designers and manufacturers that successfully challenge and advance recycling sector operations through innovation in design and manufacturing that increases the effectiveness or efficiency of recycling equipment and operations. Read more… Recycling Today

A Cautionary Tale for California

As I Walked The Streets of Laredo… [1]

By John D. Moore, NCRA Vice President and Legal Counsel, Henn, Etzel & Moore, Inc.

… I saw more plastic bags. That is, after a Texas appellate Court ruled recently that the City of Laredo, Texas, had no power to adopt a local ordinance banning “commercial establishments” from providing customers with single-use plastic bags. Unlike California, the Laredo ordinance did not provide for a ten cent payment to the commercial establishment. Maybe that is why the merchant groups sued. But the reasoning of the Texas court yields a cautionary tale for California.

Laredo, Texas is a home-rule city. In California this is called a “charter” city. Home rule cities are allowed extra latitude in using their police powers and may be limited by the state legislature only when the state intends to preempt local legislation with “unmistakable clarity”. A merchant group[2] sued the City to block enforcement of the bag ban. The City won judgment in its favor at the trial court. The Court of Appeal not only reversed the trial court judgment for the City, it also declared the merchants group to be the winner of the case. The appellate court remanded the case for the trial court only to award attorney fees to the merchants group.

The appellate court focused on whether the state law of solid waste disposal prevented the City from adopting a plastic bag ban. In Texas, a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality promotes regulation much like (in concept if not in practice) CalRecycle in California. The Texas state law has a very specific provision that local government may not adopt an ordinance that “prohibits or restricts” (for solid waste management purposes) the “sale or use of a container or package in a manner not authorized by state law.” There is no indication in the opinion that the state of Texas or its regulator/enforcers actually restricted the sale or use of single use plastic bags.

The appellate court found “unmistakable clarity” that the state law blocked all local ordinances concerning containers or packages. The appellate court reasoned that single use plastic bags were containers or packages with “unmistakable clarity.” This is the opposite of the trial court’s view.

The sponsor of the state law said that the local government preemption provision was intended to be limited to local laws concerning “wasteful packaging, Styrofoam cups, and bottle caps.” The appellate court did not care what the sponsor said. That is partly why legislators should say what they mean. The appellate court’s opinion is entirely based on its reading of the “plain meaning” of the preemption statute.

The Texas preemption statute forbids local regulation of the sale or use of certain materials in a manner “not authorized by state law” i.e. the use is not authorized by the state. It seems to me that if the Laredo law governed the sale or use of the single use plastic bags (used) in a manner authorized by state law, then the strict letter of the preemption statute is not applicable. Or maybe it is open to grammatical debate what was intended.[3] No Texas statute cited detailed how its citizens are to use plastic bags, except presumably not littering them.  From the opinion it seems that this argument was not made.

HERE IS THE CAUTIONARY TALE

California’s statewide plastic bag ban being challenged by referendum presently, SB 270, also contains a preemption provision, prohibiting local governments from enacting more restrictive plastic bag laws. If SB 270 were in force, then cities, including charter cities, in CA, like Laredo, would be barred from adopting more restrictive bans. It is my experience that regulated industry groups will often trade more regulation in exchange for state preemption. I understand that this dynamic cleared the way for SB 270- plus the ten cents/bag provision that helped the grocers which the bag makers are trying to take away in Proposition 65.

[1] If you don’t know the song Streets of Laredo, check out the Johnny Cash version on YouTube. For the musically inclined, think key of G

[2] If funding for the case came from plastic bag makers, the opinion does not reveal this

[3] Like the Second Amendment