Under the Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, the state has to divert 50% from landfills by 2000. As many of the state's cities have achieved this 50% goal and many on their way, the rate of recycling for apartments is much lower, at around a 15% diversion rate for municipal multi-family dwelling programs, even though 24% of housing units in the state have five or more units. Apartments or multifamily dwellings account for 45 percent of the housing units in San Francisco, 34 percent in Los Angeles and 29 percent in San Diego, numbers much higher than the national average of 16 percent.

Recycling at apartments is unfortunately difficult to increase, due to a myriad of reasons, including a high turn over rate, cost of service, and lack of available space. This is all the more reason to not only increase availability of recycling in multifamily dwellings, but to make it easy for residents and managers.

A 2004 waste stream analysis by the California Integrated Waste Management Board found that 26.4% percent of the multifamily waste stream is recyclable and that more than 894,687 tons of recyclable materials are currently being landfilled by multi-dwelling residents. While nearly 70 percent of Californians living in single family homes have access to curbside recycling, no more than 40 percent of those living in multifamily dwellings have access to a residential recycling opportunity—and many of those are unaware of it. Expanding curbside recycling to multifamily dwellings could divert an additional 329,000 tons of recyclable materials. Additionally this increased recycling will help in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by nearly one million tons. Californians Against Waste believes all Californians deserve the opportunity to recycle, regardless of whether they live in a single family home or a multifamily dwelling.

Learn More...

• Learn about what CAW is doing to make multi-family recycling a reality
• Go back to the Main Recycling Oppurtunities site