On Aug. 24, the Integrated Waste Management Board, the state’s leading authority on recycling and waste reduction, announced that California achieved a statewide 52 percent solid waste diversion rate and congratulated San Diego for its 52 percent diversion as well. But is the city of San Diego on track to keep the effort going?
Jennifer Ott, a city of San Diego supervising recycling specialist, explained that the 52 percent diversion rate for the city is based on data collected during 2004. The city is expected to get the rates for the 2005 year in January 2007.
“I’m not sure what to expect,” Ott said. “I think [in] the city, we’ve gotten to that 52 percent that’s definitely a success. Now we need to make sure we stay there and even go a little bit higher. To me, 52 percent isn’t enough of a buffer. We need to get a little bit higher, and why stop there? Just go for it.”
And while the city’s diversion rate is currently 2 percent higher than the county’s, those figures are based on old data and the county has taken many proactive steps to increase its waste diversion this year alone.
According to Wayne Williams, program coordinator for land use and recycling, San Diego County requires residents in participating cities to recycle certain basic materials. And on Aug. 4, the county added cardboard and mixed paper to a list of required items that previously was limited to only glass, plastic and metal.
The county Department of Public Works hopes that these efforts will increase recycling by an additional 15 percent thanks to the participation of every city in the county limits except San Diego. Incidentally, San Diego has yet to require any form of recycling.
“Historically, we’ve taken a voluntary approach to recycling,” Ott said. She explained that through education, the city hopes that residents will voluntarily recycle inside and outside the home. The city has researched requiring residential recycling but has not moved forward; however, Ott does believe that that could change in the future.
Williams hopes that these, along with community recycling events for used tires and oil and oil filters, as well as a concentrated effort to build a new construction and demolition (C&D) recycling facility, will keep the county on track to keep up with the ever-increasing population and increasing consumption rates and maintain the 50 percent diversion.
“About 25 to 35 percent of the material that goes into our landfills is from construction and demolition activities,” Williams said, “and most of that is cement and asphalt and other inert materials “” it weighs a lot. And since we are required to have 50 percent recycling on the basis of tonnage, we’ve chosen C&D as one of our targets.”
The city has also placed an emphasis on the recycling of C&D material, which, according to the city’s C&D Recycling Web site, are as good as or even better than some virgin materials.
Williams explained that a new ordinance mandating the majority of construction, demolition and remodeling projects divert at least 50 percent of debris goes before the County Board of Supervisors for approval in January. The C&D recycling facility “” built with federal grants and matching funds from SANCO Services LLC, part of EDCO Disposal Corporation “” is scheduled to open Jan. 2, 2007.
The city of San Diego adopted a similar ordinance and is currently constructing a mixed C&D recycling facility that should be open in January 2008.
“We’re trying to make it as convenient and easy as possible to let people know where they can take these things,” Ott said.
According to Williams, accessible information is key to the success of recycling programs.
“The information is out there, but it’s not out there enough,” he said. “We have to continuously improve our educational programs. We spend about $200,000 a year on education, but it’s not sufficient simply because it’s a huge problem out there.
“We have to continuously improve our programs in education. They’re pretty good, we reach a lot of people, but they can be improved, and that’s our job, to try to improve that,” he continued.
According to Ott, the city is reaching out to the private sector to form partnerships in recycling efforts in both community events and informing the public.
“I think we’re doing a great job with residential, with our curbside program. Where we need to do some more work is with the C&D material,” Ott said. “Then we also need to do some work with businesses and multi-family complexes.”
With the passage of Proposition C “” the mayor’s initiative on managed competition in city departments, including Environmental Services “” the city’s recycling could be outsourced to private waste management companies.
“We want what’s best for the public,” Ott said, “but we also plan to compete pretty strongly and hope that we win the bid back.”
While much depends on the collaboration of local leaders to improve and increase recycling efforts, individual officials have made strides on their own. District 6 City Councilwoman Donna Frye has taken it upon herself to get the green message out to the community in hopes that residents will speak up to the city and county about the problems or improvements to their recycling practices.
Recently, Frye contacted Westfield Mission Valley Shopping Center about adding two solar-powered trash compactors to its shopping center. These unique receptacles can hold up to four times more trash than regular trash cans, which will in turn save emptying and maintenance time.

According to Frye, the claim that funding limits recycling efforts is unfounded.
“I do not believe that, no, because one of the things that you’re going to find with recycling, with solar, with anything, with renewable energy and these types of issues, is that we have a way to actually reduce costs,” she said. “So there are ways to do these types of programs and do them very inexpensively.”