LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – California's overall recycling rate dropped last year, and on the local level results for diversion were mixed.
Numbers provided by CalRecycle showed that as the state's economy improved in 2015, Californians sent more material to landfills than the previous year, with the disposal increase accompanied by a drop in the statewide recycling rate.
Disposal rates generally increase during economic upturn, said CalRecycle, nothing that California’s statewide diversion rate of 63 percent – the proportion of waste that is diverted from landfills – continues to outpace the 50 percent diversion mandate set in law for local jurisdictions.
CalRecycle said California disposed of 33.2 million tons of material in 2015, compared to 31.2 million tons in 2014 for residential, business and industry sectors.
Those numbers amount to Californians disposing of an average of 4.7 pounds of material per person per day, up from 4.5 pounds per person per day in 2014.
The state said about 40 percent of the increased disposal was organic material – such as food waste and grasses – which readily decomposes and generates greenhouse gases such as methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
If the additional two million tons of material that went to landfills in 2015 had instead been recycled or composted, CalRecycle said greenhouse gas emissions would have been reduced by about two million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
On the local level, Clearlake's per person disposal rate was 4.3 pounds in 2015, according to CalRecycle data.
In Lakeport, residents had the best rate of removing recyclables from the waste stream in 2015, 6.1 pounds per person per day, CalRecycle said.
The unincorporated county's numbers were far lower, and didn't reach the statewide rate. CalRecycle said the county's diversion rate was 3.4 pounds per person per day.
State data indicated that the county and two cities had maintained the same diversion rates for several years.
While more specific data wasn't available to establish trends, CalRecycle's reports indicated that all three local jurisdictions were meeting the required disposal rates.
CalRecycle officials increased disposal and missed opportunities to use organic material challenge California’s ability to achieve environmental goals such as combating climate change.
“Disposal-related greenhouse gases, and the public health and environmental problems they produce, don’t take a break whether the economy is up or down,” said Scott Smithline, director of the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery.
Landfilling is typically considered cheaper than recycling. However, Smithline said the costs of recycling do not accurately reflect the money saved by reduced greenhouse gas emissions, money saved by using recycled feedstock as opposed to virgin feedstock in material production, and the money saved on water and fertilizer for agricultural production when organic material is recycled into compost and applied to soil, making it more nutrient-rich and better able to retain moisture.
Smithline said the low cost of dumping recyclable material into landfills undercuts all of these benefits.
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State data shows recycling rates down; local rates vary
- Elizabeth Larson
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