You’ve sorted your garbage, recyclables, and yard trimmings. Now what? What happens to the nearly 80 million tons of stuff that Californians toss out each year?
For starters, after the garbage truck hauls away your waste, it’s probably in store for even more sorting. In 1990 the state diverted 17% of waste to recycling, composting and other reuse programs. In 2004 it’s up to 48% and still increasing.
California Connected visits San Francisco, which has some of the most advanced waste disposal and diversion plants in the nation.
An earlier version of this story first aired September 23, 2005.
- Statewide Waste Diversion Rate: 2004, California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB)
- Zero Waste California collects the CIWMB’s efforts to “promote the goals of market development, recycled product procurement; provide recycled purchase opportunities through [their] RecycleStore, and continue to research new and sustainable technologies.”
- Where to Bring Things to Be Recycled or Reused and Where to Buy Recycled Content Products (CIWMB)
- The Economic Impact of Waste Disposal and Diversion in California, a report to the California Integrated Waste Management Board
- California Department of Conservation
- Wealth to Waste, recycling policy and action alerts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), an advocacy group which “provides technical assistance and information on environmentally sound economic development strategies.” The ILSR also produced “The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling.
- Rethinking Recycling, Environmental Health Perspectives, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
- “Are We Wasting Our Landfills?,” Orange County Grand Jury (PDF)
- The Economic Realities of Recycling, Polystyrene Packaging Council, cautions against overly optimistic views of recyling.
- Economics of Waste, Zero Waste America — a decidedly different take on the economics of recycling.
- The Journal of Industrial Ecology, The MIT Press, offers free downloadable articles on indudstrial responses to environmental issues.
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