Reducing Trash: No Time to Waste
As cities and counties across California scramble to meet state requirements to cut waste headed to landfills in half by the end of this year, local officials say their efforts have been hampered by a host of seemingly unrelated factors, from poor data to financial woes in the Pacific Rim.
Still, most Orange County cities are expected to meet the requirements set by the state’s Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, considered landmark legislation in the nation’s recycling movement. And the few cities whose diversion rates are pitifully short of the 50% mark are often actually recycling a significant amount of their waste, but officials say their numbers have been grossly skewed by inaccurate figures, the booming local economy, illegal dumping and other factors.
“If we focus only on the 50% number, we’re really missing the total picture of what’s going on here in Orange County,” said Sue Gordon, spokeswoman for the county Integrated Waste Management Department. “Orange County is a shining example of cooperation and working to attempt to reach the goal.”
Orange County is among the recycling leaders in Southern California and has reduced landfill waste at a stronger clip than Los Angeles and Ventura counties, according to state figures.
Sparked by dwindling space in California landfills, the waste management act requires each municipality to reduce the amount of waste it sends to the landfills by 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000. It is the only recycling law in the country that has enforcement mechanisms--the act allows a state board to create compliance orders or impose fines of up to $10,000 a day. The Legislature later allowed the state board to give communities extensions if they were making a “best-faith effort.” Cities incorporated after the act’s passage have a three-year extension.
“At the time, [California] led the nation in setting ambitious goals,” Gordon said. “When you get down to implementing it, that’s where everything started to look murky.”
To figure out just how much waste a municipality could continue dumping, the state started with a baseline amount. That was set at the 1990 dumping levels for each municipality.
A complex formula involving population growth, interest rates and other variables is used to project how much waste the municipality would dump in future years if there were no recycling. The difference between that number, and the actual amount dumped, which equals the reduction in landfill waste, was supposed to allow the state to figure out if cities and counties were meeting the waste management act’s requirements.
But the base figures and the formula are flawed, city and county officials say, sometimes leading to numbers that do not accurately reflect landfill-waste reduction.
All Orange County cities except five reached the 1995 goal. Dana Point, Irvine and Tustin received exemptions because they put good recycling programs into place, said Mark Leary, program manager with the state’s Integrated Waste Management Board. Laguna Beach’s and San Clemente’s numbers were so bad that they were given compliance orders this year to audit their waste generation and diversion numbers, which city officials have called inaccurate for years.
*
Some cities, such as Laguna Beach and Irvine, said that when the baseline figures were created, they were not given enough credit for their existing recycling efforts, which began in the late 1980s. Because they already were recycling, they said, they started out with lower baseline numbers on the amount of waste dumped.
“We’ve retained a consultant to reassess our original base year figures,” said Laguna Beach City Manager Kenneth C. Frank, a longtime critic of the 1990 figures. “The base year figures are crazy. They’re totally out to lunch.
“What’s frustrating is, we were one of the first two cities in Orange County to go to recycling,” he added. “We were penalized for being leaders in the field.”
Daniel Batty, recycling manager with Solag Disposal in San Juan Capistrano, is working on San Clemente’s study.
“The base year numbers were so poorly handled--that’s what caused problems throughout the state,” Batty said. “A lot of communities and businesses have been recycling even before the mandate. When the original waste generation studies were done, they didn’t account for that. We have to reinvent the wheel.”
The state board has agreed, allowing many jurisdictions statewide to reexamine the 1990 figures or to establish a different year as a baseline. Irvine recently completed a waste generation study and made 1995 its baseline year. Laguna Beach and San Clemente expect to release studies this month.
“Generally speaking, there [are] a lot of jurisdictions who don’t put a lot of faith in our base year assessments,” Leary conceded.
Gordon added that the statewide mandate did not take regional differences into account. For example, cities with high tourism have added challenges, she said.
Waste reduction has also varied because of unpredictable factors, such as the booming economy. “The economy got great and when the economy is going along at full speed, people are buying more, they’re remodeling their houses, they’re building new houses,” Gordon said. “When the economy is good, you have more waste going to the landfill.”
The economic crisis in East Asia, the primary market for recycled products, also hampered recycling efforts. Rainbow Disposal in Huntington Beach, which used to sort 27 types of recyclables, now only sorts 13 categories because demand for recycled materials dropped in Pacific Rim countries. As a result, more waste wound up in landfills in 1997 and 1998, Gordon said.
Other, sometimes unique situations have skewed cities’ numbers. For example, Brea had reduced its landfill waste by 39% in 1995. But in 1997, it had reduced it by only 14%.
“Nothing has changed with our program--our program got better,” said Patrick McCarron, the city’s maintenance services director.
However, the city is close to a Los Angeles County landfill that closed about two years ago--the same time Brea’s waste numbers exploded and the diversion rate plummeted. The Olinda Alpha Landfill in Brea is supposed to take only Orange County refuse, so McCarron suspects self-haulers from Los Angeles have told the gatekeeper their loads were from Brea. The city has asked the county to investigate such illegal dumping.
*
Despite these anomalies, Orange County and its cities are considered strong recyclers in the state, especially because it has five Materials Recycling Facilities, three of which were built since the act was passed.
“The infrastructure and the investment that has gone on in Orange County to help meet the mandate is pretty phenomenal,” said Steve Jones, a member of the state’s Integrated Waste Management Board. “There are some of the leaders in the state down in Orange County.”
By late 2001, the state board is expected to finish analyzing landfill data for 2000 and know which cities met the 50% reduction mandate. Jones said the board will try to work with cities that don’t meet the mark rather than immediately impose fines.
“Cities and counties are doing a great job to meet the requirement,” Jones said. “[Recycling] has become part of the culture.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Reducing Waste
Cities and counties are scrambling to meet state requirements to cut landfill waste in half by 2000.
Tips to Reduce Trash
* Grass-cycle--Mow your lawn without a bag and leave grass clippings on the lawn to provide mulch and nutrients.
* Compost--Yard waste and some food scraps decompose into high-quality free topsoil, and composting can reduce trash by 25% or more.
* Reduce--Buy in bulk, eat your leftovers, use cloth bags at the grocery store, store food in reusable containers, avoid over-packaged products, use e-mail, get removed from junk-mailing lists, use cloth napkins and towels instead of disposables.
* Recycle--Check with your local hauler about sorting requirements (which vary among cities), sort materials appropriately or the whole load could wind up at a landfill, flatten cardboard boxes, don’t mix plastic and paper bags, wash out recyclables so they don’t attract bugs, mold or mice.
* Buy recycled--Close the loop.
Average California family trash can:
38% paper and paperboard
14% yard trimmings
6-10% glass
6-10% metal
6-10% plastic
6-10% wood
6-10% food scraps
Trash-Reduction Rates
*--*
Jurisdiction 1995 1998 Anaheim 44% 31%
Brea 39 15 Buena Park 28 35 Costa Mesa 26 18 Cypress 62 59 Dana Point 19 15 Fountain Valley 51 44 Fullerton 32 41 Garden Grove 46 29 Huntington Beach 45 38 Irvine 20 11 Laguna Beach 20 9 Laguna Hills 55 28 Laguna Niguel 40 34 La Habra 32 39 Lake Forest 18 31 La Palma 52 62 Los Alamitos 30 38 Mission Viejo 38 43 Newport Beach 51 43 Orange 34 29 Placentia 36 41 San Clemente 19 37 San Juan Capistrano 26 28 Santa Ana 34 34 Seal Beach 63 56 Stanton 35 23 Tustin 17 26 Villa Park 49 51 Westminster 55 30 Yorba Linda 43 48 Unincorporated 40 21
*--*
NOTE: 1995 figures are from the State of California; 1998 figures are preliminary numbers reported by each city. Cities incorporated after the Integrated Waste Management Act’s pasage in 1989 have three-year extensions on trash reduction deadlines.
Source: County Integrated Waste Management Department and State Integrated Waste Management Board
