Supervisors OK Recycling Plan to Avert Trash Disposal Crisis

Hoping to avert an impending trash disposal crisis, the Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved an ambitious recycling program that ultimately could require residents and businesses to separate aluminum cans, glass, paper and other recyclable materials from the rest of their garbage.

Described by Supervisor Susan Golding as a “major step toward addressing one of the issues of the ‘90s,” the long-range recycling program is aimed at reducing the amount of solid waste in county landfills by 30% within four years and, in the process, saving the county money.

Although the nine-point plan includes a variety of voluntary steps and recycling education programs, the supervisors and top county administrators indicated that they expect some of the provisions to become mandatory within several years.

Tuesday’s unanimous action was a follow-up to the board’s approval of the broad outlines of the program last December, at which time the supervisors directed county administrators to develop a timetable to phase in mandatory garbage separation and other requirements.

The mandatory measures that could be in place by the early 1990s in the unincorporated areas of the county include so-called “source separation” of garbage at residences and businesses alike and curb-side collection of recyclable materials.

Recycling Centers Envisioned

As a first step toward those and other possible mandatory measures, the plan approved Tuesday envisions development of recycling centers and composting facilities throughout the county by next year. Under the county’s projections, those facilities are expected to reduce the amount of trash that otherwise would be disposed of in local landfills by 5% next year, with that figure gradually increasing to 30% by 1992, assuming that a mandatory requirement is in place by then.

Golding, who has been the recycling’s plan most ardent advocate on the board, acknowledged that voluntary measures “are a good first step . . . but will get us only so far,” adding that some mandatory provisions will be necessary in the early 1990s in order for the program to attain its trash-reduction goals.

“When you’re talking about changing basic habits, human nature being what it is, some people just aren’t going to change until the law says they have to,” Golding said. “For this program to be as successful as we want it to be, some parts of it are going to have to become mandatory at some point.”

Over the next four years, the plan would cost about $1.8 million annually, with $1 million of that devoted to incentives to develop and operate model residential and commercial recycling programs. However, county officials hope that by 1991, the annual landfill savings will exceed the recycling program’s cost.

To help the supervisors evaluate whether--and when--mandatory measures might be appropriate, the county plans to conduct a waste composition study to determine precisely how much recyclable material is found in local trash and its potential revenue. That study is expected to be completed by this summer.

Monitoring Markets

Eager for the program to reach its maximum potential trash-reduction goals, the board, at Golding’s request, also instructed county officials to closely monitor the development of markets for recyclable materials over the next several years.

“If they’re available (sooner than expected), we may have to move up the time line for mandatory recycling,” Golding said. “But we don’t want the stuff piling up before there’s someplace to sell it.”

County officials estimate that each resident generates about 1.6 tons of solid waste annually, producing a countywide total of about 3.6 million tons of garbage a year. With that total increasing by about 10% a year, the capacity of the five county-operated landfills is expected to be exhausted by the late 1990s.

New landfill sites, trash-to-energy plants and other emerging waste-disposal technologies figure prominently in the county’s long-range approach to its garbage problem. Recycling, no matter how successful, cannot solve the problem, county officials admit, but at least can add years to the life of local landfills, thereby giving the county more time to search for solutions.

Currently, less than 10% of San Diego’s solid waste is recycled, despite the fact that nearly half of that trash consists of recyclable materials, according to county figures. Through the program approved Tuesday, however, the supervisors hope to triple the recycling figure within five years, thereby saving nearly 1.5 million cubic yards of space in landfills and cutting trash-disposal costs by about $4.4 million annually.

Lavishly Praised

The recycling program, which has been lavishly praised by environmentalists, trash-disposal industry officials and others, calls for voluntary separation of natural vegetation such as leaves, grass and tree branches for composting, rather than dumping them in landfills. If the voluntary approach proves ineffective, that provision, too, could become mandatory.

Other provisions include changes in county purchasing policies to encourage the use of recyclable materials, a countywide recycling education program, a review of possible ordinances to restrict the use of nonbiodegradable packaging materials and an expansion of existing recycling programs at county garbage disposal facilities.