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<br /> The end of garbage - March 19, 2007 Page 2 of 4
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<br /> This utopian vision is a long way off. But the changing economics of waste disposal, technical advances, and grass-
<br /> roots activism - along with the feverish desire of big companies to appear green - are bringing it closer than you
<br /> might think.
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<br /> San Francisco offers a glimpse of the future. Norcal Waste Systems, the city's trash hauler, provides customers
<br /> with color-coded 32-gallon carts known as the Fantastic Three - a blue cart into which they can throw paper, glass,
<br /> plastics, and metal for recycling; a green cart for food and yard waste; and a black cart that's destined for the
<br /> landfill. (Remember, in cowboy movies the bad guys wore black.) Norcal also recycles tires, mattresses, and light
<br /> bulbs. "The other garbage companies think we're nuts," says Mike Sangiacomo, Norcal's CEO.
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<br /> Sangiacomo, 58, has been trash-talking for years. His dad collected garbage back in the days when sanitation men
<br /> were called scavengers because they salvaged bottles, rags - "anything they could come up with that had value,"
<br /> he says. Now he's trying to return the waste industry to its roots.
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<br /> Technology is a big help. Norval operates a $38 million facility that disaggregates all the recyclables in those blue
<br /> bins. Conveyor belts, powerful magnets, and giant vacuums separate computer paper from newsprint, plastic jugs
<br /> from water bottles, and steel and tin cans from aluminum. Materials are then sold to global commodity markets -
<br /> and we do mean global.
<br /> Wastepaper, for example, is the U.S.'s No. 1 export by volume to China, according to PIERS Global Intelligence
<br /> Solutions, which tracks trade. Ships that bring products from China to the U.S. return with wastepaper, which
<br /> becomes packaging for goods made in China.
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<br /> A second innovation is the city's handling of food scraps. Another Norcal facility grinds all that up with yard waste
<br /> and cures it for three months. Banana peels, onion skins, fish heads, and other detritus are thus transformed into a
<br /> nutrient-rich product dubbed Four Course Compost, which sells for $8 to $10 per cubic yard.
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<br /> One satisfied customer is winemaker Kathleen Inman, who knows that all good wine - her 2004 Olivet Grange pinot
<br /> noir retails at $42 a bottle - begins in good soil. She spreads Four Course Compost on her ten-acre vineyard in
<br /> Sonoma County's Russian River Valley. "I was very taken by the concept of bringing into my vineyard what would
<br /> normally go into a landfill," Inman explains. 'When someone enjoys the wine at a table, they are completing the
<br /> recycling circle."
<br /> Driving this virtuous cycle are market incentives. San Franciscans get about $5 off the standard $22-a-month
<br /> collection rate if they can make do with a smaller black bin, sending less to the landfill. Merchants earn discounts for
<br /> recycling, and Norcal gets bonuses for keeping waste out of landfills.
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<br /> Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city's environment department, says, "The most important thing we do is
<br /> incentivize people financially to do the right thing and make it more expensive for them to do the wrong thing." This
<br /> "pay as you throw" pricing scheme drives up recycling rates sharply, studies show. But only about 20% of
<br /> Americans pay for trash collection based on how much they discard. No wonder we're an effluent society.
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<br /> While the concept of zero waste is as old as nature, recycling is newer. In 1968, Madison, Wis., became the first
<br /> U.S. city to offer curbside recycling, for newspapers. Recycling got a boost with Earth Day in 1970, and again after
<br /> the EPA imposed strict regulations on landfills in 1991. When done right, recycling saves energy, preserves natural
<br /> resources, reduces greenhouse-gas emissions, and keeps toxins from leaking out of landfills.
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<br /> So why doesn't everyone do it? Because it's often cheaper to throw things away. The economics of recycling
<br /> depend on landfill fees, the price of oil and other commodities, and the demand for recycled goods. Paper, for
<br /> example, works well: About 52% of paper consumed in the U.S. is recovered for recycling, and 36% of the fiber that
<br /> goes into new paper comes from recycled sources. By contrast, less than 25% of plastic bottles are recycled, and
<br /> we use five billion a year.
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<br /> http://cnnmoney.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=The+end+of+garbage+... 3/10/2008
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