Category: Newsletter

Help Support The Race To Zero Waste!

 

Join the Virtual 5K Walk/Run
to Zero Waste Challenge!
(Or just donate!)

With your generous support, Race to Zero Waste can uphold its mission of “Sustainability in Action.” As we reflect upon our workers, ways to promote Zero Waste initiatives, and how we can better serve our community once social restrictions are lifted, we can acknowledge our past, work in the present, and plan a Zero Waste future for all.

Below are The 3 P’s your support of Race to Zero Waste will create:

  • Providing financial assistance to R20W Workers
  • Promoting accessible Zero Waste education and outreach
  • Pursuing safer, more efficient Zero Waste methods for future events.

We are all in this together and your support will help guide our future into a new and even better normal than the one we left behind. RUN/WALK/BIKE with us in solidarity over solutions that keep us all safe and our planet healthy for generations to come.

 

Once you register you’ll be able to set-up your tracker (Charity Footprints free iOS/Android app or link up your Fitbit), and complete your distance goal anywhere and anytime!

The registration/running fee is $25, and you can sign up as an individual our create your own team to invite friends and family to support you on this challenge.

We’ve got some fun ways to stay engaged, learn about Zero Waste and meet new people virtually of course >:)

SAVE THE DATES:
May 22nd, Live @ 5 pm PDT – Zero Waste Educational Series
May 29th, Live @ 5 pm PDT – Celebration Zero Waste Fest

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81719167159

Bay Area Shelter-In-Place Orders Amended To Include Recycling and Composting

BAY AREA SHELTER-IN-PLACE ORDERS AMENDED TO INCLUDE RECYCLING AND COMPOSTING

Doug Brooms, ZWAC Co-Chair, 5/14/20

In the revised S-I-P Order, issued on April 29 by Alameda County and Contra Costa County, and likely others, the definition of “Essential Infrastructure” has been amended as follows:

  • Essential Infrastructure means airports, utilities (including water, sewer, gas, and electrical), oil refining, roads and highways, public transportation, solid waste facilities (including collection, removal, disposal, recycling, and processing facilities)…
  • All recycling facilities may operate, including but not limited to those providing for recycling of beverage containers, scrap metal, used oil, construction and demolition debris, and any other materials that can be, or are required to be, recycled by the State of California.
  • Composting facilities may operate and composting activities may take place.

This was welcome news for recycling businesses. On the first day following the revised Order, Cash for Cans in East Oakland reopened for business, with over 100 pleased customers, after being closed for six weeks.

There is speculation that the change might have been precipitated by letters that had been emailed individually to each Public Health Department Director serving five of the participating Bay Area Counties. At a NCRA Zero Waste Advocacy Committee (ZWAC) meeting via Zoom teleconference on 4/14, attendees had commented on the impact of Covid-19 on waste collection services, mostly the curtailment or suspension of businesses handling recyclable materials.

To address concerns raised by members, ZWAC Co-Chair John Moore volunteered to draft a letter to send to County Public Health Directors. Paragraph #1 included several compelling arguments for the inclusion of recycling within the solid waste category of Essential Infrastructure. Paragraph #2 presented a strong case for allowing CRV buy back businesses to operate. Paragraph #3 had requested accommodation to allow grocery store customers to bring in their reusable bags.

The 4/29 Order had acceded to the first two counts, with composting appearing as an added bonus. It is not known if the Public Health Directors had heard from any other grassroots organizations or recycling businesses. There may be no way of knowing for sure whether the NCRA letters had been persuasive or pivotal, but there is gratification in suspecting that they were. Letters in fact can make a difference.

In Response to Mr. Forkash’s Letter

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The views expressed here do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the Northern California Recycling Association.

By Arthur R. Boone, Center for Recycling Research (CRR)

I think your article brings a needed perspective to the question, but I don’t think I would put all the pieces together as you do.

My orientation is of a man who goes through trash all the time, looking to see what’s in play in the marketplace that is not recyclable. I started my quest being exasperated by my Zero Waste friends who had little to no idea about what’s getting thrown away and the disarray of these and other reformers at creating various minimum content and other laws to drive the reuse of previously unused scrap materials.

Paper, wood, metal and glass materials have been recycled for over 100 years; plastics and composites are the new guys on the block with no experience or even interest in what happens to their stuff after the first sale. In 2011, when I got up to 250 entries in my list, I discovered nobody was interested then (nor now, for that matter) in my little list. In the process of going through all this stuff, I realized I had created a mini-MRF, far more discerning than the monstrosities working today, with good attention to reuse. Still looking for my first bigger-than-bench-scale site, but closer than I was.

I also think AB2020’s big mistake was failing to recognize that unless CRV return was very much tied to the supermarket (its hours, location, convenience, etc.), a disconnect would exist for the always-short-of-time consumer that would allow, even encourage, folks for whom many nickels make a living to get involved in the redemption transactions. Markets hated all those scruffy underclass people and the CGA’s eternal antipathy to the idea got a face (usually what I saw black or brown) on it. And, since CalRecycle (as it’s called) gets its money from the grocers, the grocers and their lobbyists call the shots.

My recent but incomplete survey of CRV sites in operation says there are only three in Sonoma County, two in Alameda, SF and Napa counties, one each in Solano and Contra Costa counties, and too incomplete data for Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties; the AB2020 arrow has landed in the mud, I wish all agreed on that. Maybe when CV trundles off into history, we can talk about it.

Note: Boone operated a Saturday morning buyback in North Oakland from early 1984 until early 1989. 

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Website & Social Media Survey!

We would like to know what you think of this website and our social media:
Facebook, Twitter , LinkedIn and YouTube

Please take our Survey by June 15!

Members            Non-Members

Now that we can only interact virtually, on-line communication is more important than ever. So, we’ve created a survey to get your feedback on how our website and social media can meet your needs. It shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes to fill out (depends on you) and if you include your contact info, you’ll be entered in the survey raffle to win a 2021 Recycling Update (RU) registration or a $100 Community Bikes  gift certificate

Also, please help by sharing the following link with non-member friends interested in recycling, so we can learn how to better reach people with our Zero Waste message:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NCRAWebSurvey2020Shared

Our goal is to hear from hundreds if not thousands of people!

Please respond today or by June 15!

Horrible Hybrids Letter To The Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The views expressed here do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the Northern California Recycling Association.

Re: ‘Horrible Hybrids’, The Guardian, 4/20/20, NPR , 4/26/20, Waste360, 4/30/20

By Neil Seldman, Waste to Wealth Initiative, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 5/5/2020

This article –

Horrible Hybrids’: The Plastic Products That Give Recyclers Nightmares, introduces the problems posed by hybrid packaging for recyclers and has excellent specifics on how to avoid hybrid and other unnecessary packaging. But the solution proposed — putting manufacturers in charge of recycling — excludes tried and true alternatives to putting companies in charge, which for decades have made unmet promises for better packaging. Companies respond to hard mandates. Recall the aerosol ban of years ago. Companies complained bitterly about the regulations but the day after the aerosol ban their products were on the shelves just as before.

Citizens have been providing these hard mandates for 50 years: mandatory recycling and composting, container deposits, waste surcharges and more. Organized citizens and small businesses have been the engine of recycling in the US. Waste and beverage companies fight to repeal yard debris bans, bottle bills and most recently use state preemption to quash local initiatives such as bans on single use plastics. Recycling has gotten us to 35% despite wrongheaded solutions posed by industry to reduce waste: large scale incineration, single stream recycling and the Chinese debacle. Some cities have reached 50%, 60% and even 70% recycling.

The way to break through the stagnation is to focus on better solutions than creating corporate dominated agencies to take over a thriving industry:

    • Product Stewardship in which companies pay into funds to support municipal programs
    • Minimum recycled content for products sold
    • Taxes on packaging, especially hybrids
    • Carbon tax to increase the value of materials with embedded energy, labor and extraction costs

For 100+ examples of successful local actions that can be replicated in any county, town or city visit the US EPA’s Managing and Transforming Waste Streams – A Tool for Communities

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