San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing the possibilty of making recycling mandatory in the city. This follows news that the city had attained a 70% solid waste diversion rate which ranks as one of the highest in the nation. A New York Times article details San Fancisco's aggressive waste reduction and recycling programs, which includes a residential green waste composting infrastructure.

Mayor Newsom feels that mandatory recycling is the only way for the city to achieve %75 waste diversion.

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What CAW is doing to increase residential recycling opportunities statewide>>>

A Civil Grand Jury released a report yesterday concluding that the method calculating the recycling rates in San Mateo County is flawed, making it impossible to know whether or not cities are meeting the state mandated 50% diversion requirements. The current method involves comparing the amount of solid waste that ends up in landfills each year to how much was sent to landfills in a "base year." Julia Scott of the San Mateo County Times reports.

The report blames a confusing method of calculating recycling rates utilized by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which does not track the actual amount of recyclable materials diverted from Ox Mountain landfill. Instead, it relies on a complicated measurement scheme that compares how much solid waste ends up in the landfill each year to how much was sent to the landfill in a "base year" before a recycling program was implemented.

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What You Can Do

• Learn more about where and how to recycle various items.

AB 2505, which will phase out the use of polyvinyl chloride packaging, will be heard in Assembly ESTM committee Tuesday.  PVC packaging is not recycled, contaminates the PET recycling stream and has a high incidence rate of heavy metal and phthalate contamination.

In related news, the New York Times reported that hospitals are working to phase out the use of PVC.  Susan Moran writes that hospitals have been leading the campaign to require vendors to switch to non-PVC alternatives:

"A few years ago, some Kaiser managers grew alarmed by studies showing that a plastic used in many supplies — polyvinyl chloride, or PVC — turns to chlorinated dioxin, a toxin, when burned. Other studies showed that DEHP (diethylhexyl phthalate, a chemical that makes PVC malleable), can leach into the contents of intravenous bags, potentially causing reproductive problems in male babies.So the team summoned experts to identify hospital products containing hazardous ingredients. Soon after, a Kaiser sourcing manager called suppliers to see if they could come up with safe and functional PVC-free alternatives for carpets, medical gloves and other supplies."

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CAW and PVC:

• Learn more about PVC

The ARB released draft regulations as part of its Landfill Gas Early Action Measure, and, at first glance, these requirements appear to signal a strong statewide shift towards landfill gas collection practices that are protective of public health, safety, and the environment. Since the passage of AB 32, CAW had strongly advocated for rigorous landfills gas regulations and, last year, the Air Resources Board identified landfills as an industry that would be well suited for early regulatory action. These draft regulations are the result of a diligent effort by the ARB staff to identify opportunities to minimize methane emissions from landfills.

As far as CAW is aware, these are the first actual control measures to be drafted by the Air Resources Board as part of AB 32 implementation, and this underscores the importance of achieving maximal emission reductions through these regulations.

The ARB will be holding a workshop on these measures on Monday, the 24th.

• Read the draft regulations here.