and the crv program ranges between 5% and 9%, to give you a context of what our total effort are to achieve the version. notwithstanding all these great efforts in san francisco, there is still about 400,000 tons per year still going to a landfill. about 150,000 tons of organic going into the black bins still. 50,000 tons of paper still going into the black bins. about 5,000 tons of crv containers are still going into the black bands. so there is still rising again amount of work that needs to be done to achieve the zero waste goals that san francisco has. there are a couple of options that certainly our office is working on. we need to continue our programs. we need to work with manufacturers to find solutions for products that are hard to recycle, certainly the more

toxic type of batteries, light fixtures, things like that. invest in new infrastructure. a lot of this will get as to the 90%, but that 10% it still is going to be problematic. a couple of things that are happening at the state level. ab 1 was passed to require apartment buildings in california to begin recycling by july of this year. that is a significant effort statewide. i mentioned that the state legislature is looking at increasing the crv failure, which is an important aspect. we need to look at supermarkets and other stores to ensure that there is greater equality in terms of crv redemption centers to comply with the bottle bill. we think that a higher crv value will create economic opportunities in economic

businesses were the idea of having recycling centers in different stores everywhere really creates an economic value. clearly, dollars are being raised. from our department, we believe that having crv recycling centers dispersed throughout the city is an important tool in our efforts, and we continue to support those efforts. with that, supervisors, and wanted to give you a very high level understanding of kind of how we get to zero ways, were the different parts fit in, and myself and kevin from our office are here to answer questions after the presentations. supervisor olague: thank you. i would like to hear from recology at this point. >> good morning. my name is paul, the

community relations person for recology in san francisco. the illegal buyback operators are the number-one source of complaints from customers. through phone calls to our customer service to permit, through our website, and at community meetings. i am sure supervisors have heard it at their community meetings. these complaints are a source of frustration for our customers. sunset, scavenger, and golden gate recycling or service providers. we're not an enforcement agency or policy-making board. our role is to meet the needs of our customers in a manner that provides for great service and complies with all laws, rules, and regulations. through our recycling and composting programs, we play an important role in helping the city achieved its zero waste goals. under mandates the city and state law, the material put into a recycling bin because the property of the city's recycling program and is used to help offset some of the costs of the program. i have a sticker here that would put on to the bins with that

focus. we recommend some steps for our customers to take to help limit the theft of the curbside material. one recommendation and probably the most important one we have is folks not to confront the recycling poachers. we have had reports of aggressive poachers and actually people being attacked. not worth it for a little bit of recyclables to get into it with somebody. the other thing is you can call the police non-emergency number at 553-0123 to report resecting theft. you can file a report online at recologysf.com. for call our customer service center at 330-1300. i can put one of these yellow stickers on the lid of your blue been. folks can request one by e-mail and we will mail went to them or you can give us a call or do it

online. you know, the theft of the curbside material, it is primarily a curbside issue. you know, we have hundreds of thousands of commercial customers in apartments that we go inside to get, and that is not really a problem for them. it is the folks that bring their material out to the curb that are impacted by this. we asked folks to try and bring their bins out as close to the election time as possible to give people less time to get into them or to do it in the middle of the night. it really is a curbside issue, and it is based in just about every large city. the blue cart recycling program still continues to thrive, and we generate 500 tons to 600 tons of material every day. that goes to pier 96 for processing. we will continue to work in partnership with all these city agencies. dpw, dph, and others to find new

ways to address issues such as this while continuing the quest for 101 4th street -- for zero waste. this is the first six months of complaints for this year, and these are the 2011 complaint. about 1000 planes a year that we receive, either the website for our customer service center. supervisor olague: thank you. i would like to hear from regina who will speak to the small business impacts of the convenient zone mandate. >> good morning, supervisors. the state law requires the convenience is on be established, and this is a half mile radius of any supermarket

with annual gross receipts of $2 million more. in the event that there is no recycling center or that the supermarket does not provide the means of buyback or redemption, then all businesses that sell crv products are required to buy back and provide reduction in their stores. so businesses do have an option if they do not want to do -- provide for in th-store redemption. they can be relieved of this obligation. it is about a total of 50 two thousand dollars a year. currently, san francisco has 53 supermarkets, according to the california division of recycling's website, and the list of stores that fall within the $2 million or more

requirement, currently, san francisco has 53 support -- 53 sir mark -- supermarkets with convenience zones but a 27% are exempt from redemption. what this means is that any corner store or a small grocery store that is located in a convenient zone and is not served by a reduction recycling center, they are required by law to do a buyback. for an example in the south of market area, there's not a redemption center in the half mile zone radius for costco ro trader joes and they are exempt. for the small grocers in corner stores in this area, they had to turn away individuals who are coming in with bags for crv redemption. they do not have the storage

space to store large volumes of bottles and cans. there is a cleanliness and health issue with large bags being brought into the store. and the only area where they can facilitate the redemption is at the cash register, and this interferes and causes a great amount of disruption to servicing paying customers. these stores did receive notices of noncompliance from the state. and these businesses cannot afford to pay the $100 a year in lieu of doing this in-store at redemption. they did get -- they finally were able to work with the state to get an exemption, but it did take them six months and a lot of time to do that. my message here referring to our small businesses is that before we take any significant steps,

if we're to take any significant steps to reduce our recycling centers that are currently in operation, and want to make sure that we, as a city, understand the potential ripple effects it may have on our small retailers. also, i really appreciate that we are taking a look at this and that, i think for you, supervisor olague, are interested in looking at other sort of entrepreneurialism ideas with working with this issue. so i want to say our office or much encourages that. we're happy to work with you on that. and to take a look at the other issues around small businesses that are created such as when their garbage is interfered, when is at curbside, and that they are receiving a fine as a result of that. i do not think that is the best solution in resolving a situation, so our office and i

are really happy to work with you to find a greater solution to this. supervisor olague: great, because there was a merchant or a restaurant manager that first came to us with this issue, because he was leaving his recycling on the corner and was having problems with having to clean up the sidewalks every morning. so it is those types of issues that, you know, i am hoping we can work with your office on. i know that some of the recycling centers that come to mind is certainly the one on market and the safeway center. there is the hank recycling center which probably services a bunch of the small businesses in the haight. those are some of these services the which it probably think twice before removing. >> correct. understanding that removal of those will then put the burden

on the small businesses to comply with the state regulation. supervisor olague: and because it is not "their fault" that people are sort of leaving, you know, some things on the sidewalk, i do not think they should be fined. . >> and often with these types of state regulations, there really designed and developed with a more suburban environment in mind. so i think, working with sfe and recology if we need to work with the state to create special requirements to san francisco due to our unique city, i am happy to work on that as well. supervisor olague: grade, thank you. i'd like to open it up for public comment at this time. with 81 like to speak to this issue? -- would anyone like to speak to this issue?

>> tom is my name. i am president. -- i am a resident of the fillmore heritage, which is a condo complex. what i am concerned about is the noise when the illegal scheme address come in the middle of the night right outside my window -- the illegal scavengers, in the middle of the night right outside my window, and it weeks me up during the middle of the night. the reason these guys have access is because recology forces the businesses in the buildings and the homeowners association to leave the recycling out on the streets in these dumpsters.

what would be preferred iis if they could collect it from the secure loading docks we have at the building. that building was recently designed and built. but for some reason, recology refuses to collect from those loading docks. they say it is further than 100 feet away or they do not have access. [bell rings] because there is only one man on the trek to the time. what needs to happen is that recology needs to collect from the secure loading docks that are made for that purpose. that would also solve the new since of -- new sense of

homeless people scattering trash and visibility problems and the other issues. [bell rings] supervisor olague: thank you. we have a representative here today, so we will check with them on that. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. i am executive director of civic center community benefit district. i want to thank supervisor awlaki. we had the meeting with members of her office. members of recology. someone who has been working at the van ness, our office on the first floor across from the house for the blind. every day between 43:30 to 6:30, the caravan starts. there is heated arguments about

how much of the cans are worth, and there are pushing and shoving, and i am worried about the escalation of potential violence. i think that is bad for any neighborhood, whether it is near the civic center or in any of the neighborhood. i do not have the answers to solve the problems, but i want to put that out there because i think it is a misperception that it is the elderly lady pushing her cart and picking up cans and bottles on the side of the road. yes, she is doing that, but there's also an element of danger because other people see the value of cans and bottles. i think there is the financial incentive. until you can figure out a way to make that work or not work, we're still going to have that problem. we also get e-mails and phone calls from residents and merchants in this area about the late night scavenging. [bell rings] not everyone has a loading dock. i think that is a great idea for apartment buildings. that is what they do in my

apartment building. but the small businesses do not have loading docks. there has to be some way to make this work, but i thank you for bringing this to the committee and i look forward to working with you on it. thank you. supervisor olague: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. i'm tyrone, a resident of hayes valley. along with myself and a couple other members, we were able to come together and start a community owned and operated business. we specialize in doing recycling and composting in low- income housing units, multi- family units. i am here today to speak on the importance of having an opportunity to do some recycling in the neighborhood where, especially coming up in the projects and stuff, it was really dirty, and having the opportunity along with my neighbors and people that live with me and grew up with me to get back to our community in a

different way. we have three sites are in now and are trying to expand. we started from nothing and have come together as young men and women and have business development means, developing relationships with recology, department of environment, oewd. we started with seven or eight employees. we have 17 to 18 employees now. we are in charge of the marketing process. these brochures are uniform. and we just want to be a part of the fight to help san francisco reach the zero waste initiative by 2020. >> i am dave, co-founder fort greene streets. i wanted to kind of piggyback what he was saying. we also educate neighbors, too, about what to do with their waste. we also deal with the recycling

poachers. we deal with those issues, too. we have to lock our bins because of some of that. we have to protect the waste that we sort. to recology and the department of environment, there were instrumental on educating us so we can educate our neighbors about what to do with the waste and how important it is to recycle and to integrate that into their homes. like he said, it is taking place at three sites. two in the western addition and one in the mission district. we can definitely -- we share some of those frustrations with recology as well. >> hello. my name is shannon. i am fairly new to marine streets. my experience has been very pleasant.

they give me the opportunity to work on the marketing team as we have been sorting the bins, we figured out the going door to door, using valley recycling, is a good way to educate residents. also, let them know the importance of recycling, as well as composting. we have been very successful with diverting the amount of waste that is going out. i am going to show you guys. >> can they bring that in a little bit bigger to show our successes? you can pass it around. i wanted to close and say that

we have worked over two years now trying to get the model down and we're doing a really good job. we have had success at all three sites. it is a plea to supervisors so we can work with you guys so we can expand it and get into other low-income properties throughout the city and put some folks to work and reduce the waste. supervisor olague: yeah, yes are really impressed by your program. i think it is a shining example of what we can be doing more in the city. what i am hoping to do is maybe had a conversation, either in the public forum or the private, you know, to meet with some of the interested parties here today. recology, small business people, and the cbc, civic center. it would be great if you guys could be part of the conversation so we can figure out more solutions. some will be legislative, and

some may just be partnerships. even though your focus is on public housing, perhaps a conversation with the cbc, there might be ways of assisting on hayes street, who knows. that would be great. so definitely we will have to have a meeting or a second hearing to look at solutions. thank you for being here and doing great work. >> thank you for having us. >> good morning, supervisors. how're you doing this morning? i live in the tenderloin. i was complaining a lot about the scavengers going into the blue bins and the trash being everywhere. thank heavens we have the people that walk around the city in the tenderloin. they be in the blue jumpsuits.

not sure who pays for that, but they do a great job. i do not know, maybe the recycling people can do like the post office does, have a master key. i heard that only one person is on a truck. i just found that out. and they can go in there and pull the recycling bins out. like what was said, everybody don't put the recycling in the blue bins. the use the other ones also. but maybe that is the trick. maybe there can be a master key. especially when there is a side gate that they come out of. i want to thank the captain out of the tenderloin police department because he is really working with the people in the area. you can just give him a call and he will come out. also, the people with the trucks, maybe license of them.

because you license the food trucks. because you are taking business away from the regular sit-down restaurants anyway, so you license the trucks selling the food out there, so you might as well license the people that be around city hall here buying their recycling things. why not? that is about it. the thing is, there's just trash everywhere. i do not know if you remember when frank jordan was in office, but there was a big rat population. [bell rings] rats everywhere on market street. in the end, we got rid of the big also celebrate, especially when walking in the tenderloin at night. i don't be afraid of the drug dealers. i'd be afraid of threats coming at me. they're coming back because there is so much trash.

so please look into this, you know, and find ways we can work with it, because i think this city is losing money and i do not know how much the city gets. you know, if they are getting money for have or whatever, but i would like to find out exactly how much. [bell rings] supervisor olague: thank you. >> good morning. i need a translator. supervisor olague: ok. >> good morning, supervisors. i work at a recycling center.

i would like to remind you of the important and implemental worked as some members of the chinese community performed by picking up bottles and cans from the city's streets, parks, and commercial establishments. those people pick up the recyclable items from sunset, chinatown, and this is illegal.

it affects my job at the recycling center. unfortunately, this activity has been confused with criminal behavior, such as the recyclable threat. it affects the recycling center and makes me lose my job.

please support more recycling centers in the city and do not lead this will close before replacement can be opened. thank you. supervisor olague: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. i am executive director of bayview hunters point foundation for community improvement. human waste is always complex, and by virtue of being human, it is political. no one knows that more intimately than those of us who live in bayview. we have the sewage treatment plant. we are home to recology and several other kinds of bottles and cans to a large

metal. it is interesting that when you push on one part of the system, other parts of the system support. if -- other parts of the system squirt. if you went to bayview hundred. today, what you would find around candlestick park in areas south of the third street is folks to dump their stuff there because they can do it undetected. this is a problem that is more complex than just the four clubs we see in our committee picking up bottles and cans. this has to do with the complexity of human waste that we need to address comprehensively. so i support comments from the small business. we need to look at this in a way of involving communities to my community-based organizations. it is clear that there is a retail value in moving in this direction, but we must do it in a way that enables those of