California reaches recycling goal

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Friday, August 25, 2006 9:49 PM PDT ∞

Terry Dickson of San Diego removes plant debris from the back of his trailer at the Miramar Landfill Greenery area Friday. Near by, the California Integrated Waste Management Board and San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, announce that the achievement of a statewide solid waste diversion goal had been met at a small news conference.
JAMIE SCOTT LYTLE Staff Photographer
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SAN DIEGO ---- It took five years longer than it was supposed to, but California is now in compliance with a landmark 1989 law that required half of waste headed for landfills to be recycled or reused, state officials announced Friday in a news conference at San Diego's Miramar Landfill.

"It's great to be here in America's Finest City to make one of our greatest announcements," said Margo Reid Brown, chairwoman of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the agency charged with enforcing the law.

"Simply put, you did it California," Brown said, under a tent set up between a mountain of tree limbs and piles of tree trunks, plywood and wood pallets. "You have cut your trash in half and have achieved the mandate. And let me tell you, many people didn't believe it could be done."

Lanny Clavecilla, a state waste board spokesman, said by telephone from Sacramento that California recorded a recycling rate of 52 percent for 2005, up from 48 percent the year before. Clavecilla said agency officials are just now making the announcement because the calculation was based on reports filed by cities and counties with the state earlier this month.

Under the nation's toughest recycling law ---- which mandated specific targets be met within specified time frames while other states chose to set goals ---- California was supposed to reach the 50 percent mark by the year 2000, state officials said. There also was an earlier mandate to hit 25 percent by 1995.

Rosalie Mule, a board member with waste management experience in San Diego and Riverside counties, said California would have reached the 50 percent target earlier had it not been for the housing boom, which flooded the state with construction waste, and the proliferation of computers and cell phones.

A law that went into effect earlier this year requires electronic devices such as computers to be recycled because they contain hazardous chemicals.

"The nature of our waste stream has changed dramatically in the last 15 years," Mule said. "We've found markets for so many of these materials that once were considered waste."

Lorraine Van Kekerix, the agency's acting deputy director for diversion, planning and local assistance, said the state does not intend to stop at 50 percent, now that no mandatory targets remain. But doing that, she said, will require coming up with ways to recycle construction debris, which accounts for 20 percent of waste statewide, and discarded food items, which account for 30 percent.

Most cities in North County and Southwest Riverside County were doing well in their own efforts to hit the 50 percent target until the housing boom saddled them with tons of construction debris, Mule said. The state's most recent estimates for recycling rates show the established, mostly built-out communities in compliance or close to it, and the newer, fast-growing cities behind.

According to the state, recycling rates are 56 percent for Del Mar and Poway, 49 percent in Solana Beach, Canyon Lake and Carlsbad, 48 percent in Encinitas, 47 percent in Escondido, 46 percent in Temecula, 39 percent in Oceanside, 37 percent in Vista, 36 percent in San Marcos and Murrieta, and 13 percent in Lake Elsinore. Van Kekerix stressed those were preliminary numbers subject to revision.

Teri Fazzio, recreation-tourism manager for Lake Elsinore, said her city takes issue with the state's estimate. Officials there believe the city's rate is closer to 36 percent.

At the same time, Lake Elsinore readily acknowledges that ballooning construction debris has dragged its recycling rate.

"We were at 50, and then it went down when all of this construction started in the city," Fazzio said.

Over on the coast, Oceanside Councilwoman Shari Mackin said her city knows it has work to do ---- and already is doing it. Mackin said the city launched programs to emphasize to schoolchildren and business owners the need to recycle, and for the first time this summer set out recycling containers on its beaches and at its harbor.

"I hope to see that (39 percent) number change," Mackin said. "We've got to get it up to that 50 percent, and we will do it."

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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