The Latest on Composting, Recycling, and Landfill In Our City

Do you think recycling and composting is important?  Do you spend the time to separate plastic bottles and banana peels?  Well, you certainly should.  According to SF Gate, on June 10th of 2009, San Francisco passed a law that you have to separate composting, recyclables, and trash.

From banana peels and plastic bottles, everything must be separated, or you might be fined $500. Some of you may be thinking, "Why would we be fined?"  The reason is, is because California is strong on recycling.  

Gavin Newsom, the 42nd mayor of San Francisco, was at the recycling center, north of San Francisco in Brisbane.  You recycling, helped the city of San Francisco 77% divergence rate (diverting landfill to recycling,composting and recycling).  

We hold the record for the best recycling city in the U.S.A.  That is a big accomplishment for a city so big.  Two thirds of the objects thrown in the trash, could be split between recycling and composting. 

The fact that plastic bags are banned from San Francisco, makes recycling easier. Recycling and composting requires jobs, so not only does it help the environment, it requires jobs.  

In 1996, 35% of objects were being split into recycling,composting,and trash.  We still held the record for the best city that recycles and composts.  Mayor Gavin Newsom was surprised to hear that we broke the record to have most of our objects to be separated, that was expected to be 70%, yet we broke it by reaching 72%.  We then had a goal to reach 75%, and also beat that, buy 2%.  "It's the kids that are teaching the adults," Mayor Gavin stated.

In 2020, San Francisco is expected to be a city where only composting and recycling bins are needed. "It's the kids that are teaching the adults," Mayor Gavin stated.

Recycling is Awsome!

In this world, there are things we need and things we want. For example, something we need is food and water, and something you want would be a game or candy.

Can you guess where all this STUFF comes from? It comes from NATURE! In fact, pretty much everything comes from nature. Since everything comes from nature, then it must harm the environment when we buy something like a cell phone or paper ... DUH!

So why don't you start recycling your supplies and remember the next time you decide to buy a new cellphone What are you going to do with your old phone? I know — you can recycle it just like this fellow is doing with all this plastic. (Read Julien G.'s post about recycling plastic and other things in San Francisco's blue bins.)

Recycle .... Worm Food

Phoebe is a phoenix that helps us reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost. She helps us by teaching to reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost. By carefully dumping our trash to the recycling bin, trash can, and the compost box. We recycle our paper, plastic bottle, and plastic container. We can dump our food scrape, dirty napkins, and dirty cardboard tray. We can dump our trash into the trash can.

SF Dump made a reindeer out of trash. I like this because they use reuse trash to make this.

Above is Phoebe the phoenix. She is the mascot to SF Recycle.

What Do Those Triangles Mean?

The seven triangles mean to recycle, but it gets confusing for people to know what type of materials go in which bin. The blue bin is for recycling, the green bin is for compost and the black bin is for trash.

If people do no separate their garbage properly, "contamination" (or mixing of materials) happens. This is a huge problem according to SF Recylcling.

Here is SF Recycle's page about recycling materials for the blue bin (it's trickier than you think — coat hangers cannot be recycled).

This triangle collects soda cans, water and salad dressing bottles, and peanut butter and jam jars.



This triangle collects water pipes, rings, milk, water and juice bottles, and shampoo bottles.



This triangle collects juice bottles, cling films, and pvc piping.




This triangle collects frozen food bags, squeezable bottles, honey, mustard, cling films, and flexible containers.



This triangle collects microwwaveable ware, kitchenware, yogurt containers, margarine tubs, and disposable cups and plates.



This triangle collects egg cartons, packing peanuts, disposable cups and plates, trays and disposable containers.



This triangle collects beverage bottles, baby bottles, and electronic casing.



Here is a Wordle highlighting key words about recycling plastic:



Image and research information from Wikipedia.

San Franciscans Top List of Nationwide Recyclers and Composters

Student: Camryn

Mayor Gavin Newsom says congratulations to San Francisco for having the highest recycling and composting rate in the nation at 77 percent. Watch the video below, then write a news story about it.

Include information about the city's goal of zero waste by 2020. What does such a goal mean? The mayor is asking for all of our help. What more can we do? Link to these handy flyers for the blue and green bins as resources to help Hillwood's neighbors and friends become recycling pros!