Newsletter – Page 36 – Northern California Recycling Association

Five Sessions On The Bottle Bill

By Arthur R. Boone, Center For Recycling Research and Total Recycling Associates

In late January and early February, the CalRecycles leaders and Graciela Castillo-Kriegs from the governor’s office held a series of meetings in the Governor’s office council room on topics related to the bottle bill.

The department sees it has a “structural deficit” which is paying out more than comes in and is searching for ways to change that. What is not on the table is reducing staff (grumpy looks when I suggested that), better police work on out-of-state imports (they think they’re catching lots of the crooks), improved auditing of the money in/money out chain to prevent graft and corruption in a one billion dollar cash flow operation (despite some very polite language from one person from the Can Manufacturers Institute saying that “the department has less than a 100% auditing function.” The idea of taking the $100 per day fines that the non-compliant grocery stores were paying to support CZ recyclers went unappreciated.

The elephants in the room, largely unnoticed (although my hearing is sufficiently poor in large rooms like this with no audio amplification that I missed a lot) were the large benefits given to curbside programs ($129 million per year) and other programs gifted by the legislature when reported redemption rates were much lower. These are now sacred cows not to be messed with.

There’s an old saw in Sacramento that if you’re not at the table, you will be part of the lunch. This was clear towards the end of the fifth session when everyone jumped on the idea of holding back some of the redemption fees to large collectors who sell more than 100 pounds (or some other number) of anything at a time; since they’re not the consumers of those volumes, it’s not their nickel that is being removed from the table. Interesting to me, coming from Oakland where the indigenous poor are major collectors, those folks were not at the table in any room filled with suits and white people.

My biggest disappointment (since I expected the suits to champion the status quo) came towards the end of the fifth session when the Pepsi spokesman asked what had become of a previous request from stakeholders (August 2016 by his reckoning) that the department assess what is going on in other states and countries with deposit legislation. Christine Hironaka, CALRECYCLES’ Assistant Director of Policy Development, who was also overseeing the speakers’ roster, said in an off-hand way that “a deposit system is a good way to get high collection rates,” and let it go at that. Six months and 700 staffers and they can’t do any better than that? Not “We have a twenty page report with ten things we’re never done here in California for consideration.” Unless staff pays attention to your input, why go to these meetings? Unless you’re paid, of course, to make sure nothing inimical to your employer’s interests is being considered. But that was, to me at least, a real kissoff to the people who care.

In my opinion, real reform of the bottle bill as currently practiced in California will not come from the department or the Governor’s office; it will come from the little people of the state and their advocates who like to drink covered beverages and want their nickels back. But I also thought that some of the fat cats in the room are tired of all the talk and a ready to support some major changes. As one old-timer remarked, “The bottle bill was passed in 1986; that’s a generation ago; maybe it’s time for some new ventures.” Not from the people in that room unless we start all over again.

Arthur R. Boone is a former NCRA president and was many years a boardmember; he was not re-elected in 2017 and did not identify himself as a NCRA spokesperson at these meetings.

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.

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