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San Francisco Passes Ordinance to Require Recycling and Composting |
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News -
Green Building News
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Written by Liina Laufer
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Wednesday, 17 June 2009 |
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 on June 9th to
approve Mayor Gavin Newsom's proposal to require every residence and
business in the city to have three separate color-coded bins for waste:
blue for recycling, green for compost and black for trash, beginning
this fall.
The recycling ordinance will greatly facilitate the LEED Material
& Resources credits for building occupant recycling systems. With
recycling required for all buildings, projects seeking LEED will not
have to push for recycling areas to be included in a space, and for
those seeking a certification under LEED for Existing Buildings:
Operations & Maintenance, the task of getting occupants to actually
recycle may become much easier. Not only will the recycling law
hopefully improve the recycling of plastics, glass, metal, paper, and
cardboard, but with San Francisco's innovative compost collection
program, the waste stream will be reduced even further. As occupants
learn to compost their food waste rather than use a sink disposal
system, wastewater will be reduced as well.
When left uncomposted, food waste and landscaping waste decompose
in landfills and create methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more
potent than carbon dioxide. Properly composted plant material produces
carbon dioxide instead of methane, greatly reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. Compost materials collected in San Francisco are brought to
compost facilities outside of Vacaville and Gilroy. Approximately 90%
of the compost is used at local vineyards, and the remainder goes to
small farms and landscape supply yards.
San Francisco is the only city in the country to
require composting; Seattle requires residents to have a compost bin,
but does not require that all food waste be disposed of in the compost.
San Francisco's compost system can handle many more types of
materials than a backyard compost system; the city accepts not only
plant materials, but also dairy, meat, pizza boxes, paper food
containers, waxed cardboard and milk containers, untreated wood, etc.
Read more about composting and recycling guidelines at SFRecycling.com. Read more about the new law.
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