Heading for zero

Jem Curtis (9) enjoys a Black Peak Gelato in a compostable PotatoPak container. Under San...
Jem Curtis (9) enjoys a Black Peak Gelato in a compostable PotatoPak container. Under San Francisco law, all takeaway food must be sold in recyclable or compostable containers. In New Zealand, some companies such as Black Peak Gelato, in Wanaka, choose to use compostable containers off their own bat. Photo by Simon Williams.
In San Francisco, they have decided zero waste should mean what it says.

I have recently been to the national conference for the waste and recycling industries, WasteMINZ.

Coming from the recycling side of the fence, there are some unwritten rules about etiquette.

Women need a handbag big enough to hold a reusable cup (who knows where the guys keep theirs?).

Holding back on the buffet is recommended, because throwing out food is definitely uncool after three presentations on reducing food waste.

If you end up with a pile of bitter, stalky lettuce on your plate, you're obliged to eat it all, even while wondering how many of the stalky bits are ending up stuck between your teeth.

There is something relaxing about being with people who work with waste every day.

They're pretty down-to-earth. I like that it's acceptable to examine the contents of the rubbish, recycling and composting bins, and to pick things out and reassign them.

In fact, it can be an opportunity to bond with someone you've just met.

Doing this at other events and airports, I've found, can earn you some very strange looks.

Like many conferences, the opening speeches were somewhat soporific.

That was until Jared Blumenfeld got up to talk about San Francisco's goal to get to zero waste by 2020.

Jared is the former head of San Francisco's department of the environment and is now the Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator for the Pacific southwest.

He talked about the changes that San Francisco has made to move towards zero waste and how it has measured progress.

There were two things about his story that made the New Zealand audience sit up and take notice.

The first was that San Francisco sees zero waste as a realistic goal. Although many councils and organisations in New Zealand refer to zero waste, it's as an aspirational target not as a realistic goal.

Zero waste means exactly what it sounds like: no waste is sent to landfill or incinerated.

A pretty hairy, scary goal, especially if you're talking about getting there by 2020.

When you set a radical goal, you give yourself some room (and incentives) to take radical action.

The second thing that got the room buzzing was San Francisco's willingness to set mandatory rules.

That included restricting the sale of some controversial products that create a lot of waste.

Free plastic bags, gone!

Retail stores and food establishments can only use ''compliant'' bags (certified compostable bags, paper bags with recycled content or reusable bags), and they have to charge at least 10 cents for them.

Small single-use water bottles have been banned from outlets run by the city (e.g. parks and zoos) and large non-sporting events. Instead, the city plans to install more drinking fountains where bottles can be refilled.

Polystyrene food takeaway containers have also been wiped out at the stroke of a pen!

Every container used for takeaway food in San Francisco must be recyclable or compostable.

If you can feel an uncontrollable fear of a nanny state welling up inside, this law could be the last straw.

San Francisco's Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance requires San Francisco residents and businesses to properly separate recyclables and compostables and keep them out of the landfill.

Yes, residents and businesses don't get to choose to recycle and compost, they are required to do it under city laws, and to do it well.

Anyone who fails to comply, will be warned, educated and possibly even fined.

We think of the United States as the home of unfettered capitalism, so it's kind of weird to see an American city restricting what companies can sell, use or give away.

It's fair to say that trying to replicate those rules in a New Zealand town would cause an uproar. But San Francisco makes a good case for taking action.

Officials estimated that tens of millions of single-serve water bottles were being used in San Francisco, and were ending up in their landfill and recycling stream each year.

They also said it takes up to 2000 times more energy to produce bottled water than tap water, and it takes three litres of water to create one litre of bottled water in PET plastic.

It's not hard to argue that all of those resources could be used more productively.

San Francisco currently claims to recycle and compost 80% of its waste.

Even if that's a generous estimate, the city has come a long way since 2001, when it diverted 41% from landfill, a figure similar to Wanaka's diversion rate.

To make that huge jump, the city has worked with every sector of the community, from residents to the construction and hospitality industries.

It just shows what you can do with a scarily big goal, truckloads of commitment and energy, and a few mandatory rules.

 -Gina Dempster works for Wanaka Wastebusters. Every week in this column, one of a team of writers tackles issues of sustainability.

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