County Moving Toward Zero Waste Future

If Sonoma County's efforts at recycling and efficiency keep their current pace, officials with the Solid Waste Advisory Group think it's entirely possible the county will not need a landfill in the future.

"By combining our efforts at recycling with emerging technologies to utilize waste, we think we can achieve 100 percent reuse in the future," said Phillip Demery, director of Sonoma County Transportation and Public Works, which oversees the group.

Demery said that he saw the county going to zero waste over the next 25 to 50 years.

The group, known as SWAG, is advising the county to build a mixed waste processing facility, that would use both mechanical and human sorting of all garbage so that everything could be reused, eliminating the need for landfills.

Speaking before the Petaluma City Council on July 18, Demery gave an update on SWAG's current efforts to save the county money by increasing the amount of items that can be reused.

"Seventy percent of the materials being thrown away can be recycled. What we want to do is increase education in the schools and institutions that focuses on everyone doing their part to recycle," he said.

Demery said Sonoma County is a leader in recycling efforts, with more than two-thirds of the area's current waste stream being reutilized and diverted from landfills. But that still leaves a third of the garbage produced in the county going into the dumps, with organic materials representing the largest amount not being recycled.

"Food waste is the largest fraction of this organic waste stream," said Demery. "When I go around and talk to cities ... everyone wants to get into a food-waste composting system."

Demery noted that Petaluma was one of the cities with mandatory recycling efforts, but said recycling efforts were much better in single family homes than in apartment or business complexes.

"We need to increase education in recycling and start face to face contact with these complexes, to show them the benefits of recycling," he said.

Apartment complexes are often not as good at recycling efforts due to the high resident turn-over, which can lead to problems in getting information out on recycling. Another practical problem with apartments and businesses is space.

"Many of the landlords have to give up parking spaces to provide adequate sized bins," said Demery at last week's meeting. That prompted councilwoman Teresa Barrett to suggest that space for recycling containers should be factored in when considering new apartment complex developments.

Demery also noted that schools are not required to recycle, and that was an opportunity the county needs to focus on.

"That is a target rich environment, " said Demery, referring to school children. "We need to get them actively engaged in recycling to start a new generation of recyclers."

Whether for practical applications, such as recycled paper or building materials, to organic soil additives and even sources of energy, the county and Petaluma city officials see a tremendous financial and environmental benefit to these efforts.

"By diverting more waste from the landfill we conserve the space within the landfills, and that represents a significant savings," said Mayor Glass.

Petaluma City Council will be asked to recommend future action for SWAG at Monday's meeting. 

Sonoma County is trying to develop a composting operation that would be able to use food waste along with green waste. Dairy and meat products are harder to recycle then vegetables and fruits, but there experimental systems in design to one day use all food waste in composting. Technologies such as anaerobic digestion and low emission thermal conversion of recyclables are currently being studied.