Food scraps and other organics are the low-hanging fruit that will be plucked more aggressively from Americaґs waste stream throughout 2012, industry analysts say.
“I think thatґs where youґre going to see major increases this year,” said Mark Lichtenstein, president of the National Recycling Coalition. “This is what weґre promoting. Weґre saying, ґTake a look at organics first and letґs build some successes around that. And once you feel good about the successes you built, then letґs start to target other things in the discard stream.ґ ”
San Francisco set the bar last year after reaching its milestone of composting 1 million tons or 2 billion pounds of compostable organic waste. It took the city 15 years to reach that number since implementing a compost collection program in 1996, but it has saved 2.7 million cubic yards of landfill space, the city says.
“Weґre doing wonderful things with organics,” said Jeff Danzinger, a spokesperson with the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle). “But you still have roughly one-third of whatґs going into the landfills is organic in nature and can be applied in so many different ways.”
CalRecycle said itґs hearing of more jurisdictions making a concerted effort to take food composting seriously because it still is the largest component of the U.S. waste stream.
Soil scientist Bob Shaffer, owner of Soil Culture Consulting, works as a composting consultant to farmers around the country and to Recology Inc., which collects and composts San Franciscoґs food waste.
Shaffer said the U.S. is having one of the greatest periods of growth in composting heґs seen.
“Iґve been a composter since 1970 or so,” Shaffer said, “and this is just really a booming period.”
More and more cities are following San Francisco.
“Organics is the place for us to attack right away,” Lichtenstein said. “No. 1: itґs such a huge component of the waste stream. No. 2: itґs an absolute sin to be disposing of that stuff in any kind of disposal facility. No. 3: It can add nutrients back into our system. а And No. 4: itґs relatively easy to identify in a waste stream. Itґs a lot easier to identify organics than it is a plastic container that you have to educate people as to what number they can recycle.”
Source: Waste & Recycling News
By Shawn Wright