May 11 - Rule to Lessen Smog Would Hurt Efforts to Reduce Trash at Landfill, Officials Say (Modesto Bee)

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.

Read complete article.

What You Can Do

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

The San Joaquin Valley APCD has released draft regulations and a revised staff report for Rule 4566 (for greenwaste composting). CAW is reviewing these documents and preparing a response. [Read the regulations]

On March 6, the LA County Sanitation District submitted a letter and presentation to the ARB and CIWMB board members that argued that greenwaste used as landfill cover reduced greenhouse gases compared to composting. This outlandish claim was based on a clearly biased life-cycle assessment and we have submitted a joint response with Sierra Club California and NRDC. [Read our response]

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.