San Francisco: Recycle and Compost or Else!

Published on June 11th, 2009

Posted by SN in General

Green Biz – June 9, 2009:

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted today to require all businesses and residences to recycle and compost their garbage or face fines, which could lead to a lien on their property.

The ordinance, approved in a 9-2 vote, will force building owners to sign up for the city’s existing composting and recycling programs. The Board will deliver a final vote on the ordinance next week.

“Many tenants want to recycle and compost but the building does not offer the service,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “We’re going to change that.”

The city could enforce the ordinance with citations and penalties that “could not exceed $1,000, although the Directors could by regulation cap penalties at lower levels,” it said. The ordinance specifically pegs fines for buildings generating less than a cubic yard of trash per week, such as single-family homes, at less than $100.

Other cities, notably Seattle and San Diego, have mandatory recycling laws in place but fines are rarely leveled. Unpaid fines in San Francisco could lead to lien proceedings.

San Francisco generates some 2 million tons of solid waste annually, according to the city, but it also enjoys the highest waste diversion rate in the country — 70 percent. By 2020, the city wants to send no waste to landfill.

38 users responded in " San Francisco: Recycle and Compost or Else! "

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# 1 Toxic Asshead said, on June 11th, 2009 at 3:46 am

The war on simple freedom continues…

# 2 malingerer said, on June 11th, 2009 at 4:18 am

Overdue.

# 3 Sea Lawyer said, on June 11th, 2009 at 4:21 am

When you live in a state that is running a deficit larger than the GDP of many nations, the best thing to do is mandate recycling programs that usually cost more than they return.

# 4 Alfred1 said, on June 11th, 2009 at 4:36 am

Tyranny reigns in the people’s republic of San Francisco…

Perhaps they should build a wall around the city…so no refuse ever gets out…forcing 100% recycling…

AND we can build another wall around that one…lest any of them get out.

# 5 Alf said, on June 11th, 2009 at 4:48 am

Americans don’t like recycling. We like storing dead bodies in underground boxes made of toxic materials and concrete. Nature / God does it automatically but because we are out of the loop we need incentives and government mandates.

For those of the stupid persuasion: Don’t sh*t where you eat.

# 6 Angus said, on June 11th, 2009 at 5:11 am

If an individual composts their waste and resells it as fertilizer, will they have to pay a $461 vendor permit to do it?

# 7 LibertyLover said, on June 11th, 2009 at 5:19 am

#3, Deficit spending is the way out of debt. Don’t you know anything? Gosh!

[sarcasm mode off]

# 8 Patrick said, on June 11th, 2009 at 5:27 am

#6 ROFL!

# 9 Rick's Cafe said, on June 11th, 2009 at 5:29 am

Constantly amazes me that people voluntarily choose to live in a city like this.

# 10 filosofixit said, on June 11th, 2009 at 5:36 am

So you guys mean that personal freedom is about choice to pollute?

Morons!

# 11 Shenzhov said, on June 11th, 2009 at 5:40 am

“By 2020, the city wants to send no waste to landfill.”

Translation. By 2010 we intend to offer no waste service for the monthly fee we extort from businesses and consumers in San Fransisco.

Can you imagine the piles of garbage that will be accumulating in yards and businesses around the city as people heap crap into compost mounds. Dead fish, chicken nuggets, tin cans and whatever people hurl into these compost piles.

I suspect it will make no difference as San Fransisco will probably be the first city in California to legalize drugs. They will all sit around stoned having gay sex and wallowing in the stinking garbage that will certainly be piling up in the city.

It sounds romantic doesn’t it? “Ah, the consumers recycle and compost creating piles of nutrient enriched soil full of minerals and vitamins that they use to grow their roof top gardens of lush, delicious, healthy fruits and vegetables. Happy earth worms, sing and dance all while teaching the healthy children about math, science and the cycle of life in the Utopian Paradise of San Fransisco.”

# 12 Mike D said, on June 11th, 2009 at 5:45 am

Recycle – Good idea – make it practical. Government mandates usually backfire in unexpected ways. San Diego was doing a good job of implementing and making the process convenient so people will actively and willingly participate (when I lived there). On the other hand – San Francisco, while probably good intentioned, might consider San Diego’s lead. I have family in S.F and one observation is what is considered normal trash for a family, for a week, is a very small trash can (only one). I guess people are suppose to bury their excess trash, take it to another county, serve it for dinner, who knows. Make recycling practical – educate the people on how to recycle & how to deal with the volume. I have not seen anything different in S.F. – recycled collection – of some things. Other things – such as used paint cans are left to one’s imagination. People need a solution which is convenient, simple, and cheap.
Recycle – OK, let’s start with the San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. I understand they are experts in fertilizer.

# 13 chuck said, on June 11th, 2009 at 6:37 am

#10 – exactly right – personal freedom is the right to do things that other people might not agree with.

Doing exactly what you’re told to do is not freedom.

As for the recycling and composting issue, there is an obvious business opportunity here: sell recycling and composting services to people who don’t want to do it themselves.

In my apartment building, we have a recycling program – but, in fact, all we actually do is put paper in one bin, plastic containers in another, and glass bottles in another. That’s not recycling – it’s just sorting trash. Later a truck comes buy once a week and picks it up – and they do the actual recycling.

# 14 Benjamin said, on June 11th, 2009 at 6:39 am

I want three giant trash cans to take out every week instead of just one. Can you imagine what the compost trashcan will smell like? You can’t put the the yucky trash in plastic bags.

I don’t have time to sort stuff out by whatever arcane rules they have for recycling. Is an envelope with a window recyclable? Is hamburger grease compostable and if it is, what container may it be kept in?

I don’t throw that much away anyway. I take a single trash bag out every week or two. I print on both sides of paper, unless I am submitting a manuscript. I read the newspaper at the laundromat, so I never buy the paper. (Just need the coupon section anyway.) The only trash I generate is packaging, food trash, office paper, and junk mail. I called the local paper that gets delivered free into my mailbox and asked them to stop sending it so I could reduce that bit of trash and told the Jehovah’s Witnesses to take their Watchtower magazine with them so I wouldn’t have to through it away.

In my state you can’t recycle pop cans or pop bottles because we return them for a deposit. That is the main recyclable items. (The aluminum actually pays for the cost of recycling programs except in places where people get a deposit or where they can sell the aluminum.)

I walk to work and leave my pickup truck at home. (I started doing that when gas was $3.90 a gallon.) I don’t have air conditioning at home. (by choice)

I don’t want to be forced to recycle, mainly because of the sorting.

# 15 pfkad said, on June 11th, 2009 at 6:56 am

#14 Benjamin has a point. Many containers are made up of a combination of materials. Is my fruit juice carton with the pouring spout paper or plastic? What about the plastic container with the aluminum pull tab lid? Recycling can be tricky.

# 16 Benjamin said, on June 11th, 2009 at 7:39 am

Like I said, I don’t have enough time to sort garbage.

I read the article. It said waxy cardboard i compostable, but regular cardboard is recyclable. What is the difference?

Besides, between hoarding and reusing both sides of most office paper, I throw away very little trash. Mainly kitchen and bathroom trash.

# 17 MikeN said, on June 11th, 2009 at 7:56 am

sounds like slavery.

# 18 faxon said, on June 11th, 2009 at 8:28 am

Then, the city will be hiring garbage police to go around looking for violators. I live in this shit hole. I put everything in the black can every week, and I bring back my aluminum cans and get about $7.50 for a couple of small kitchen garbage bags full. SF wants you to just give them to the city, after paying a recycling fee when you buy them. This city is off of the tracks. Fuck them and fuck Al Gore.

# 19 GetSmart said, on June 11th, 2009 at 8:37 am

Welcome to the real world, where some 15 to 20% of ALL labor and energy will be expended to clean up after ourselves as we go about our lives and material production. Or we can continue living like greedy, retarded pigs, wallowing in our own waste as we run out of places to hide it. The movie “Idiocracy” had it just about right, I’m afraid.

# 20 Benjamin said, on June 11th, 2009 at 9:22 am

I see a future where we will be mining landfills for metals and other such valuables.

# 21 EdZepp said, on June 11th, 2009 at 10:21 am

Where I live in Canada you have one semi large blue bin
you put recycled stuff in 8$ a month
the city give’s you a refund for a tiny compost you put in your back yard I think its 20 or 30$ total.

# 22 brm said, on June 11th, 2009 at 11:29 am

Hey, a fine for not recycling might be alright, but a LIEN?! They’re going to take your property away if you don’t recycle? How is that fair?

# 23 bob said, on June 11th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

Um, getsmart, you completely failed to get the point of Idiocracy.

Yes, it did feature giant mountains of trash.

# 24 Rick's Cafe said, on June 11th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

#11
And what do piles of garbage attract – freeloading riff raff.

Not democrats for this example, but cute little chipmunks and squirrels and cute by not so pleasant skunks and not so cute nor pleasant coyotes and dog packs.

With a never ending “food source”, there will be all sorts of riff raff belling up to get the free meal they will soon come to believe they are entitled to…followed shortly by PETA protecting the ‘rights’ of those little rats.

# 25 Buzz said, on June 11th, 2009 at 2:53 pm

I liked her other shirt: Will fuck for Jesus!

# 26 Hugh Ripper said, on June 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

I bet the same people who whine about personal freedom when told to recycle and reduce waste are the same people who defend a granny tazing cop because the granny exercised personal freedom (ok the granny was an asshole but you get my drift).

Deal with your own waste. Don’t make it someone else’s problem. Citing personal freedom to avoid personal responsibility is a cop out.

In my suburb in Oz we have a fairly sensible recycling program which just requires keeping plastic, metal and paper separate, and the local council provides a big wheely bin to dump it all in. There is also a wheely bin for garden waste if you need it.

# 27 SOYLENT GREEN: IT'S SAN FRANCISCANS! said, on June 12th, 2009 at 4:55 am

San Francisco: The Stench by the Bay

Why doesn’t someone tie a plastic shopping bag over the philandering mayor’s head until he’s “GREEN” and then compost his remains?

It would decrease SF’s carbon dioxide.

# 28 Mr. Fusion said, on June 12th, 2009 at 5:53 am

Just to add to Hugh’s comment, I believe those complaining about “personal freedoms” are the same that complain about saddling our children with debt. Hey, guess what. All that garbage your “personal freedom” makes is being left to OUR children. Grow up and start thinking past your own greedy assholes for once.

# 29 Rick's Cafe said, on June 12th, 2009 at 7:39 am

#26
Personal Freedom….simple rules that apply to everyone – equally. No one gets a free ride because of their age and no one has to carry a heavier burden because a nutcase wants to be seen as politically correct.

Nothing complicated or hard to understand – unless your trying to see thru the glasses Mr.Fusion is wearing. And then life gets so confusing all you can do is bully and threaten people who disagree.

# 30 Mr. Fusion said, on June 12th, 2009 at 9:23 am

#28, Rick,

You fail to see that your “personal freedom” stops at our right to live free from your garbage.

# 31 KwadGuy said, on June 12th, 2009 at 12:20 pm

Tell you what: If you want to enforce these recycling rules because it makes you feel good to force ME to follow them, then we should go all the way and enforce ALL these freedom limiting rules. A) Put a 1000% tax on alcohol, because we should reduce the number of drunks and then the number of deaths due to drunk driving. Make it too expensive to be a drunk.
2) You cannot have anything but fluroescent lamps in your home. Sorry if you hate that light, sorry if it doesn’t jive with your aesthetic taste. (And trust me, I’ve been in tons of homes in San Francisco where the PC nuts living in them refuse to use fluroscents because ‘I can’t stand them…’
C) No more cars. Cars are not green. Cars must be outlawed in San Francisco. No parking in San Francisco, no driving in San Francisco. Want to own a car? Then park it outside the city and take Muni or the bus to your car when you need it.
D) No bakeries. Bakeries produce things loaded with sugar (which non of us need) and carbs (which make us fat and we can’t have that). So bakeries are gone.
E) No coffee. It’s filled with aromatics and carinogens. Protect people from themselves if they won’t do it for themselves.

# 32 Mr. Fusion said, on June 12th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

#31, Kwad,

Do you have issues because people don’t want to live with your garbage? You do sound like the type of asshole that gleefully throw refuse out the window of you SUV not caring whose lawn it lands on.

# 33 Rick's Cafe said, on June 12th, 2009 at 4:44 pm

Isn’t it funny what a mean, uneducated, illiterate, foulmouthed, arrogant asshole anyone becomes who doesn’t bend over and follow the latest and newest whim of the left/liberals.

Kind of funny – I never seen any right-wing nuts on major networks, night after night, week after week, publicly chastising or badmouthing the few people who …. say, for one of many examples….. don’t want to own a firearm. Those mean, nasty right wing nuts, how dare they let ya all live in peace – that’s being so very mean.

What a shame that the ‘party of everyone’ can’t be at peace with those who disagree with them.

# 34 Mr. Fusion said, on June 12th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

#33, Rick,

I never seen any right-wing nuts on major networks, night after night, week after week, publicly chastising or badmouthing the few people

Really? I watched a few minutes of Bill O’Reilly tonight. The restaurant had him on. He was calling Joan Walsh a baby murderer and a few other names. Why? Because she supported the activities of a physician performing a legal operation.

Then he had Glenn Beck on to whine about Paul Klugman and criticize a Nobel Prize winner in Economics for not knowing anything about economics. At that point I asked the manager to please change the channel.

Which is one of the main reasons I don’t watch FOX SPEWS. All they know how to do is cry.

A couple of nights ago I caught a few minutes of Hannity while flipping around. He had Ann Coulter on to comment on the Letterman / Palin spat. She had nothing nice to say about the whole thing. You do remember Coulter, the one who said those who lost loved ones on 9/11 didn’t really lose anything? The same harpy who called Al Gore a Fag, said Elizabeth Edwards deserved to have her tit cut off, who told a disabled Viet Nam Vet “People like you caused us to lose the war”, but the best being while at the 2004 Democrat convention describing some females, “corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons.”

Of course, if I were to touch on Boss Limpdick, Micheal Savage, or some wing nut I’ll go for it. All right wing broadcasters are filled with hate.

# 35 888 said, on June 12th, 2009 at 9:54 pm

With prices for recyclables (metals etc) drop all over the world now I’m surprised they push it this year – instead 2-3 years ago…

In other words:
City of SF wants to collect recyclable materials at the moment of their lowest prices in past few years.
I couldn’t find any per-dollar data for SF, but I found this one for Toronto:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/02/04/8255421-sun.html

“Now tonnes of blue bin items have dropped by hundreds of dollars. Aluminum cans dropped from a summer high of $2,209 a tonne to $1,089 last month. Margarine tubs dropped from a September high of $295 a tonne to a stunning $6 a tonne last month.”
You bet same/sim. prices are in SF area.

Property taxes in SF are about to jump 15-20%, wanna bet?

# 36 Rick's Cafe said, on June 13th, 2009 at 6:50 am

I think I just proved my point.

# 37 Mr. Fusion said, on June 13th, 2009 at 7:55 am

#36, Rick,

Only a right wing nut can be lose so badly and still claim they won the fight. Which partly explains why they are such losers.

# 38 Rick's Cafe said, on June 14th, 2009 at 7:03 pm

cause I was sharing ideas….not fighting.

As I said in #36, it’s apparent the only information you’ve shared is that it appears you (and others)are bitter, foul mouthed and scared of anyone who thinks differently than you. Granted, while this may not be true, it’s the appearance that’s presented.

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