Recyclers Issue Call for Action : Environment: In the midst of the Iraqi oil crisis, the National Recycling Coalition opens its ninth annual congress today in San Diego with a call for conservation.

Nobody likes saying, “I told you so,” but the nation’s recyclers, meeting in San Diego this week for an intensive look at saving the Earth’s resources, will admit that there’s a certain irony in their timing.

“Here we have a gathering of people who have dedicated their lives to resource conservation, in the middle of a crisis that says we may have to spend billions of dollars to move troops to save a foreign oil supply because we are so wasteful at home,” declared Richard Anthony.

The principal solid waste program manager for San Diego County, he has been a major planner for the four-day conference of the National Recycling Coalition, which opens its ninth national congress today at the Town & Country Convention Center.

Anthony expects from 2,500 to 3,000 community recycling coordinators. The theme is “The Global Challenge.”

“That means the challenge to recycling the Earth’s resources,” he said. “We’re talking about a sustainable society. It’s more than eliminating waste: It’s a more efficient way to utilize the Earth’s resource to make each household, city, state and country more independent in utilizing their own energy resources.”

He hopes that everyone will leave the conference with the same political agenda.

“We can (move) very quickly from a society based on virgin resources--extracting resources from the ground--dependent on foreign oil and foreign resources, to a recycled society.”

To that end, the participants, ranging from trash haulers to city planners with new environmental degrees, will spend the next four days hearing plenary discussions, picking from 25 workshops and 75 speakers, pondering legislation, investigating exhibits and bestowing awards.

“It’s a great place to get caught up on the state of the art,” says Margaret Gainer, a recycling consultant in Arcata.

It’s a fast-changing world, she added. “Recycling used to mean separating materials, and that’s how the general public perceives it. But now we talk about the rest of the loop, which is developing markets for recycled materials.

“The buzzword these days is ‘integrated waste management,’ and it means that recycling now has a top priority in how we handle trash. We can’t just whisk it out to a landfill any more.”

That’s the issue. But more important, in a world preoccupied with energy problems, the National Recycling Congress will offer solutions. The scope of workshop programs, from such basics as “Rural Recycling” to such complexities as “Interagency Waste Management Strategies,” indicates the sophistication of a career that once consisted of separating paper from glass from plastic.

“These are people who literally do know how to reduce our dependence on natural resources and how to do it in a nuts-and-bolts fashion,” said John Ruston, an economic analyst with the Environmental Defense Fund and a specialist on the economics of recycling and developing markets for recycled materials.

“It’s clear now that the public will participate in recycling if you make it convenient, and it’s clear that shoppers will buy environmentally sound products if they are offered and clearly identified,” he said.

Ruston has watched the annual conference grow from a “sparsely attended meeting in a Fresno hotel” nine years ago.

Public acceptance of recycling has been achieved after fits and starts over the last 20 years, he said. The oil crisis in the Persian Gulf is only the latest shock to raise awareness, again, that Americans haven’t attacked the energy issue head-on. “It’s 1979 (the Iranian revolution) all over again, and what have we learned?”

If there’s a bright side to the crisis, he said, it is that interest in conserving energy at home will increase. “As people’s frustration over events they can’t control rises, so do the desires to do something in their own daily lives.”

With or without the oil crisis, recycling is fast assuming prominence on the growing environmental agenda, says David Loveland, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition. “It’s the most tangible means by which individuals can somehow contribute to the environmental protection.”

The coalition, now pushing 3,000 members, has almost doubled in the last two years, he said, and in May, 1989, it opened headquarters in Washington.

“It’s the only coalition in the country working to establish comprehensive nationwide plans for the reduction, reuse and recycling of wastes,” Loveland said. “After years of pushing and knocking on the doors of power, we are now finding the doors open to us.”

He noted some reasons:

* Recycled products, once thought to be inferior in quality, have growing market appeal, with major manufacturers clearly labeling recycled items.

* Hundreds of cities have introduced curbside recycling programs, and 20 state recycling associations are providing the nucleus for a national network.

* Countless entrepreneurs are developing processes for returning glass, paper, plastics and other recyclables back to the marketplace.

* A newly formed Recycling Advisory Council, composed of executives from environmental, recycling, business and public sectors, was formed last year to make public policy recommendations to Congress.

As one sign of the future, this week’s conference will reward innovative thinkers in 12 categories.

In addition to turning out new kinds of collection vehicles and more artful home-recycling containers, recycling programs are changing personal behavior on a spot basis around the country. For instance:

* Berkeley is one of the cities where restaurants are offering a discount for customers who bring in their own mugs for takeout coffee.

* In King County, Wash., 11,000 homeowners have free composting bins in their back yards that are converting lawn clippings to fertilizer and have reduced the landfill burden by 31%.

* San Francisco, whose curbside recycling program will handle everything from used paints to Styrofoam and Christmas trees, won an award for versatility, while Southwestern Bell was cited for recycling a single item--telephone books.

Despite two decades of start-stop progress, Loveland voices an optimism shared by the recyclers about a future when recycling will be a way of life.

“We will look back and wonder why it seemed so difficult to implement.”

The congress is open to the public. Registration for non-members is $300 for the full conference or $150 per single day registration. Information: (619) 270-8189.