>> and echoing, we are seeing the trend and the country, increase of resources for seeing fewer cases at the justice end, and i would advocate we spend it on prevention before cases ever get into the system. it is much more cost effective as you know. economic analysis what the cost of child abuse is to san francisco alone. we have not looked at domestic violence or elder abuse, but one year of reported cases costs our city at a very conservative number, over $226 million every year. and when you multiply that and if you really think about what we think is the prevalence rate, it's in the billions of dollars. took that and put it into prevention for domestic violence, prevention for elder abuse, prevention for child abuse, we would reap much more benefit in the community than i think we would at that other end in the criminal justice end.

>> that's helpful, thank you. that is the last question i have. i just want to thank you for this amazing presentation. and for the incredible work that you are doing. >> thank you for giving us this time. appreciate it and thank you to colten for helping schedule this, a labor of love. >> thank you, thank you. so any members of the public that wish to speak? people will have one minute. >> good morning. good morning, chair. sheehy, supervisor ronen, and supervisor safai. karen roy, director for the department of child support services and also a member of the san francisco family violence council. we have been a member, a founding member, founding department and i just wanted to support the work of this

council, and quickly give you an example of what we have experienced in the department in terms of system gap. the child support program is required to close -- close child support cases where family violence is an issue. started to see a growing number of families, parents, suffering family violence wanting child support, needing child support so brought the issue before the council and they were amazing. they helped us build out training that we then implemented. we have been able to collect over -- >> thank you. so, thank you, thank you. and again, thank you for the excellent presentation. excuse me, i need to close -- any one else who would like to

speak at public comment? public comment is closed. again, thank you for the presentation. any other comments from members of the board? colleagues, do we have a motion to file the hearing? >> supervisor sheehy: so moved. hearing is filed. mr. clerk, could you call item number 2, please? >> clerk: 2, hearing on the city's overall diversion rates, reviewing how the city plans to achieve 0 waste, if not by 2020 as publicly discussed. reviewing the methodology for calculating the diversion rate and plans for increasing overall diversion. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. i'll turn it over to my colleague, supervisor safai. >> supervisor safai: now get down to the dirty work. just want to see if everyone was listening. a lot of people are not necessarily excited about waste,

but if we are really thinking about the planet and our future, waste is something that all of us deal with on a daily basis, and produce on a daily basis. and i had the great fortune of working with the front line workers in this industry, both the teamsters and the janitors, responsible for dealing with the waste. a decade ago, i know we are going to call up director rafael from the department of the environment. over a decade ago we started this conversation about mandatory recycling and composting. if many of you in the public remember, we went from one black bin, to then two and then three, where the green and the blue bin was created, and became part of our daily routine for some people. some people ignored it for a long time, and some people still do. but in general, san francisco

began to change its culture, and began to be on the cutting edge of what it meant to be environmentally responsible. back in 2002, all the way back in 2002, 16 years ago, the board of supervisors passed a resolution stating that we would send no more than -- we would be diverting 75% of our waste from landfill. and then one year later, we came out with the goal of having 0 waste by 2020. here we are, unbelievably, it's 2018, and it came out and come to our attention that we are not going to achieve 0 waste. so, the purpose of this hearing today is to talk about how and why we are where we are. how much we no longer use the word diversion, now we talk about tonnage, interesting,

watching a program 20 years ago talking about waste management and they were talking about tonnage, so i think it's a standard term all over the united states, i think we are changing the terminology, it gives a better idea how much we are producing and sending to landfill on an annual basis. we are going to hear a presentation from the department of the environment that says how much of the tonnage could be recycled and composted. and what are some of the major challenges to achieve getting as close to 0 waste as possible. myself and supervisor katy tang had an announcement last week, it may have seemed small, and the pieces of waste that we were talking about are small, they have a major impact on the environment, and that was the hearing, the announcement that you heard about plastic straws. on average, san francisco uses about a million straws a day. and those cannot be recycled.

they fall through the cracks, literally, of the machines that do the work to sort, and recycle our waste. and so we are moving toward paper and we are also moving toward changing people's behavior in that. some coffee and some takeout places consistently give little plugs for the tops of the lids, plastic stirrers, they use single use when you get takeout food, a plastic wrapped knife, fork and spoon, use it one time. it's some of the worst plastic out there, actually. it's tremendously, tremendously awful for the environment. so, we are trying to not only stop people from using materials, and change people's behavior. it's a small way we can have a major, major impact whether we think about the amount of plastic that's in the ocean, larger, there is a confluence of plastic in the pacific ocean

larger than the state of texas. that is outrageous. and so we are going to have to do something dramatic for the future of our planet, and san francisco has led the way in many ways. we are doing tremendous work, but there are a lot of people in our city and a lot of actors in our city that just have not changed their behavior. and that's probably why we are still sending about 50%, 50% of the waste that well send to landfill could either be recycled or composted. so, i called this hearing today to talk about that, to talk about the work that goes into that amount of diversion, the amount of work that can be done, and talk about the challenges that we still face as a city and how we are going to confront that, and maybe potentially lead to more aggressive solutions to achieve those goals. the first person i would like to call up, unless my colleagues have anything to say, the director of the department of

the environment, debbie rafael. >> good evening. thank you supervisor safai for that incredible introduction and commitment to 0 waste and holding this hearing, and thank you supervisors for allowing us the opportunity to come and explain where we have been and where we need to go. my name is debbie rafael, director of the department of the environment and joined today with a number of my staff who have such tremendous expertise, i wanted them to be here so that you could get the best answers to your questions, the most on the ground, street-wise, understanding of what's going on there. i'm also joined by john porter of recology and his partners. we have staff from public works here. we are here to engage in a conversation and a brainstorm together on what we need to move forward.

so peter is going to help me with that. the so, 0 waste. 0 waste means no material to landfill or incineration. the way we think about it here is getting rid of our black bins, whether those bins be the carts in a single-family home, or the huge compactor you might see in a hospital or a large commercial office building. as supervisor safai said, this goal is not new. in 2002, actually a very important context, when the board adopted the goal of 0 waste, they emphasized some very important concepts that have been the marching orders and the underlying values of our department and of recology as well. the first is producing and consumer responsibility. to get to 0 is a shared responsibility. it's not only on the residents of san francisco and the people who work here, it's also on the people who make the things that we buy. this concept of highest and best use that when we are collecting

things for recycling, we don't want to down cycle them so they have no use after one recycling episode. we want to keep using them in the highest and best quality so that they can benefit society for years to go. so they codify, the board codifies the reduce, reuse, hierarchy. the board referred to the commission on the environment on the timing. they said all right, we know this is where we want to go and by 2010 we want to be at 75% diversion rate. but commission on the environment go deeper and tell us how fast we can get there. well, the commission on the environment being the commission that they are and were at the time, decided that what was needed was the most ambitious goal possible, and aspirational goal of 2020. they knew at the time that was going to be extremely challenging to meet. they also knew and understood

that creating urgency drives action. and that's exactly what it has done. so, if you look back at that history since 2003, in the past 15 years, this city has put forward the most forward thinking, comprehensive waste reduction policies in the united states. we get calls from cities and states around the country, around the world, to understand what we have put in place so they can follow suit. so of course, we are familiar with the single use bag ban, the strictest restrictions on styrofoam in the country. 2009 was a really key date for us. that is where the city put in place mandatory composting and recycling, meaning it's not a choice, it's an obligation. it's a requirement. and because of that law that was put in place in 2009, we have the most amazing statistic of success that any city in the world has. 99% of our businesses and our

residents have three-bin system. that's amazing. so it's not about convenience anymore, it's not about availability of the service, it's really about behavior as supervisor sheehy said. it's about getting people to do the right thing, put things in the right place. next slide. and here is both the good news and the bad news slide. so, this is the slide that my team has looked at every day and motivates them incredibly to take action. so the good news is, since we started this process, we have, we had cut disposal in half, 2008 was our low point. and, what this slide does not quite show, but happened as well, in 2008, 75% diversion rate the board asked for by 2010. managed to do that two years earlier. after ten years of decline,

things are going in the wrong direction. that the trend is now going up, though if you look at 2016, our latest date, it's leveled off. but we need to reverse that hockey stick, we need to go back down again. we are still disposing about 580,000 tons to landfill. while we are sending more to landfill, we are also sending a ton more, tons more to recycling and composting. what that is saying is that san francisco is using and buying more stuff every day. yes, more is going to landfill and more to the blue and green bins as well, and we have a very, very robust construction industry going on, so more and more construction and demolition waste is being generated, put in the right place, the wrong place as well. so, 0 waste means for us as supervisor safai said, it's about the tons. it's just, it's a metric that you cannot argue with. the tons are still going to

landfill and our focus is heavily on that. so, now what i want to do, lift up the lid, if you will, of the black bin and look inside. so, when we look inside that black, and it's not just the black bins, it's city-wide, so, not everything is getting disposed of through the black bin system, i want to be specific about that. so, when you look city-wide at what's going to landfill, and the supervisors -- supervisor safai will notice the numbers have shifted a bit since i was in his office, because we looked at them again through a tighter lens and the news, it just shifts where we know things are. but 60% of what is going to landfill has a place, it has a place in the blue bin, it has a place in the green bin. 60%. 25% of what is going to landfill also has a place, though it's not in those bins, it's construction and demolition

debris. that needs to be sorted better, that needs to end up in being reused. and this 15%, this yellow piece of the pie chart is perhaps the hardest part of all because that's the part where if we don't get the producers on board, we are never gonna, we are never gonna achieve true 0. because that's where we don't have a good place for things to go because there are things like diapers, there are things like dog poop, which certainly are not sexy, but they are problematic for us. carpet, composite materials like a piece of furniture, furniture that has foam and plastic and wood, or a chip bag that is made up of mylar and plastic. these kinds of materials our system cannot handle. and so that is why it's so important for this body to stay engaged to change the way products are made and to restrict what can be sold here

because that 15%, we are powerless at our city level to really address. it's the collective challenge. all right. so, let me -- i want to dig into three of our main challenge areas, and you are going to hear from recology's perspective as well. very much mirror what we are talking about, because we work closely together, but hear through their lens of having to deal with this on the street. so, construction and demolition, no surprise to anyone there is a 30% increase in permits pulled. ok, everywhere you look, there are cranes. in 2006, this city passed a construction and demolition debris removal and recovery ordinance, which requires demolition and construction sites to take their mixed debris and send it to a registered facility. the reason that's so important, they are approved by us as being able to sort. so they sort as much as they can

so that they minimize what goes to landfill. what's happening right now is there are some bad actors out there at construction and demolition sites that aren't sending their things to those facilities. they send them straight to landfill so the mixed debris is going straight to landfill, it's very heavy. ascribed to san francisco as our waste, and so our tons to disposal are going up dramatically because of those bad actors. and gets even worse because those landfills are not inclined to tell us who those bad actors are. they are protecting their customers. we managed to get a law passed at the state to help us with the landfills. turned out to not be nearly strong enough, so we are very much struggling with how to get that information and how to go after the bad actors. i'll come back to some of our solutions for this in a little bit. second challenge is those large generators. it's important for everyone to do the right thing, if you think about it, the large generators,

they generate the most of all three streams and we need to focus our compliance efforts there. so, large generator is a large apartment building, it's a large commercial operation, even things like hospitals, universities, hotels, shopping centers, just thinking about the complexity of their waste management and handling schemes, you can understand the challenges they face but none the less, 60% of what they have in the black bin compactor shouldn't be there so we can do better and we need to do better with that. the and finally, that thorny issue of consumption patterns. i mentioned that the whole pie is going up because san francisco is buying so much more, so not only what is building in the green bins and the blue bins, but also in the black and that's because of increases in consumption. so more recyclable, and trash.

amazon effect, everyone is familiar with the boxes coming in. fortunately, the cardboard we can handle and changed the size of the blue bin, the problem is what's inside. whether it's a meal delivery kit or something with bubble wrap coming from or styrofoam peanuts from out of state, those meal delivery kits are the bane of our existence with the gel freezer packs, styrofoam insulation and they are more and more popular. so, fully two-thirds of our litter to cups and straws, so find ways to reduce what's bought and purchased and increase reuse. so how are we addressing those challenges? those challenges are front and center in our thinking every day we come to work. and we are working on them daily. so, one of the items we are doing is we are buffing up our construction and demolition program. we are in the process of

adopting new regulations. identifying the bad actors, working with other agencies who have similar problems with landfills not disclosing information, so we are working very hard to increase the success of that program. and we have more to go on that. with recology, working on the city-wide recycling rollout, you will hear more about, i know you are both aware of it. the biggest change to the recycling program in 15 years, shrinking the black bin, expanding the blue bin, and making sure that more and more things can go in that blue bin by improving the facility at recycle central, so it can handle film wrap, so it can handle juice boxes and cartons. we understand that even with all that opportunity there still is a lot of behavior change problems. or challenges, so, we are upping our outreach and our technical assistance. we are using the money that we

get from the garbage rates to do door to door outreach, to educate 25,000 youth every year, to provide technical assistance on-site with large commercial as well as residential partners. and finally, the compliance. we have been saying please, we have been saying here is how for ten years, it's time now to ratchet things up and to say to the people who have been ignoring us or being blissfully ignorant that they can no longer do that, and so we are working very closely with recology to identify the problem properties, help them improve, yes, offer them technical assistance, but also start to ratchet up on the compliance side with letters, notices of violations, and increases of charges for, to make it more expensive to do the wrong thing. so, the road map to 0. 0 waste is clearly the right

goal. we are fully committed to that goal, it has done so much for the city and will continue to do so much for the city. so, the three key areas just to summarize this whole sort of big picture is we need to work with manufacturers to improve their products, they need to be recyclable, compostable, reusable. we need to make them reduce their waste upstream, and then we have to hold those producers accountable when there are things that we can't collect, so for example, pharmaceuticals, we can't collect them, we now have a law that makes the manufacturers of pharmaceuticals pay to take them back. that kind of producer responsibility. we do it for paint. we need to expand those areas where it does not make sense for the city to be the collector. as generation continues to increase, we are going to need to change consumption habits, this is tough. frankly, every city in the world is struggling with this, trying to figure out how to do this. we understand one very elegant way of doing it is by mandating

products or getting rid of single use products whenever possible when we know they are not necessary, when we know there is reusable replacements. we did it with bags, we'll do it with straws, let's look to what else is on the table next. is it cups, is it foodware? what is the next thing we can drive behavior change. and finally, maximizing recovery. it's making sure that recycle central in pier 96 has state of the art. that tunnel road where we are collecting our green waste is also state of the art, and that's really on recology. they are focussed very closely on making sure that they have the infrastructure needed. it's also making sure from our work that we have the best source separation. with the best source operation, we have highest and best use. they are all linked. so san francisco, as supervisor safai said, is considered to be best in class and we should not forget that. while we push ourself and say

it's not enough, we should not forget we have the best in class program. but of course, when you look at that disposal, that hockey stick, we can't rest on our laurels. we are not done. we have a long way to go. and we'll do it in partnership with you, with the board of supervisors, who work with us on this legislation, with the mayor who leads by example, and prioritizes this kind of work. we need to increase recovery and we need to overcome complacency. that is our challenge. and we do this with our commission as well, our commission is really well placed to have the deeper dive with the public, to have that kind of engagement, problem solving. and it is our intention and hope to come back to the commission and say all right, you guys set the 2020 goal. let's do a deeper dive with our colleagues in the public, and let's figure out what is that metric that we can use since we are not using diversion anymore, because diversion in 2006 went out, the state of california said it's not a good metric.

but tons to landfill is not for the person on the street. we are looking forward to the, in this year, 2018, to be the year of that deep dive with our commission. so in closing, as i intimated before, the department of the environment does not do this alone. we do this with partners. it is a collective effort and it's going to take all of us and the success depends on all of us. depends on you asking questions, you being engaged, you holding us all accountable and you challenging us to do more. we also collaborate very closely with other city departments, the department of public health and public works are our partners every step of the way. and of course, one of our key partners is recology. and now i would like to introduce john porter. [please stand by, captioning change].

>> supervisor safai: so you

talks about policies, you talks about law, you talked about behavior, but i want you to talk about what the role the folks that do the work play. what role does that play in terms of how we have achieved what we have achieved and how can we do better? >> thank you for bringing up the important role of how do we get things in the right bin because sometimes we get things in the right bin just because a person does the right thing? they know which bin to go to, but those bins, they stay in place. and if it isn't for our janitors, our custodians, our teams, this wouldn't get to the right bins at all. if we don't have the janitors on board, if they are not part of our partnership, there is no

program. that is the case if you look at some of the really successful places like at&t park where they have incredible staff who collect what is generated in the park but then also work with it afterwards, whether they're sorting it or just making sure it gets in the right bin, our janitors are key partners. they're our true zero waste champions. when they don't feel like they're part of the process, you won't have success. >> supervisor safai: right. and we'll have recology talk about this too, but we have facilities in the city of san francisco. you talked about cnd where they're doing demolition. you have people actually doing that work, sorting along with the machines. but also in the facilities that we have in san francisco that are actually doing sorting as well that recology has, so can you talk a little bit about that? >> so details on what happens at a registered facility, i would ask some of my colleagues

to do. >> supervisor safai: yeah, on a brought scale what that means because do other cities in the united states have a workforce that's dedicated to actually doing sorting? that's what i'm talking about. >> california's a pretty unique place. i like to call it the bubble inside the bubble. san francisco is the bubble inside the bubble which is the bay area. what makes hence specialized is they have staff to make sure the cement goes in one pile, the usable wood goes in another. it's critical work to take a mixed load and make it into something usable. >> supervisor safai: along with our composting, we also have those facilities, as well, the people that are doing that work. >> i'm sorry. >> supervisor safai: people that are also doing the work of recycling and composting, we also have those bins in the

city. >> if you go to pier 96 and you look at recycle central, we can only automate so much. it's people working that make sure what's coming out on the other end is quality acceptable to consumers, to markets abroad. >> supervisor safai: that's what i was saying. the thing that's interesting to me is i have a little bit of specific knowledge on this is because i was part of writing the mandatory and recycling ordinance. when we got the first draf from the mayor's office at the time, there was one reference in a seven-page document or nine-page document, one reference to the word "custodian." there was no conversation about the people that are actually doing the work. so after that, the team centers and the janitors were invited to the table, so i think along with others, we ended up with a

really well crafted piece of legislation that was thoughtful. we can come back to that later, but there's still some holes in that, but we've been talking about how we can tighten that up. >> fair enough. >> supervisor safai: okay. so i think we'd like to call up john porter from recology. you have to ask him. i'm sorry.

do you want to use this? >> yeah, sure. i'm sorry. i thought it was going to be loaded on there. >> supervisor safai: it's okay. >> that should work. >> supervisor safai: you got it? >> no -- >> supervisor safai: okay. i think that's the same version. >> hopefully, yeah. sent it yesterday, just a small change -- perfect. it'll do. wish it wasn't on paper. there would be zero waste. >> supervisor safai: please proceed. >> all right. good morning, supervisors. thank you. really appreciate the opportunity to talk about this really important topic. supervisor safai, i'm glad to hear you're so passionate about this. i'm looking forward to sharing with you the details that you asked for about, kind of what we're doing to help get to zero waste and what challenges we currently face and what are our

opportunities currently as a result. that slide that director rafael shared with you about disposal, that's primarily related to the citywide disposal. this graph that you'll see here today shows the tons that recology is touching. and as you can see, the compost and recycling participation is matching the population growth of the city. so as we're getting more residents into the city, as more people are moving here, the participation rate is continuing to grow. and that disposal number, director rafael's correct. it is flat lining. it isn't where we'd like to see it. we'd like to see it going down. i'm going to talk in a minute about what we're doing in order to improve that result and as you mentioned, kind of the first or the largest role that we've had in over 15 years since we rolled out the three streams and the expansion of

the commodities, and we're actually already seeing some positive results as part of that. so the new program, as you're familiar, is a new single-family home program where previously, the standard was 32 gal-lons trash, 32 gallons recycling, 32 gallons composting. we are now moving to that as standard. this moves all single-family residential homes to 85% diversion. we still understand there is the need for a trash bin as there are some difficult to handle materials such as diapers, animal waste, styrofoam, and those types of items. we've actually expanded the

commodities that we're accepting: textiles, for example, we would prefer it go to reuse somewhere like a goodwill or st. vincent de-paul. film and small plastic bag as well as small pieces of wood and metal can know go in the recycling bin, so really narrowing what's going into the trash and expanding recycling. we're seeing tremendous response from our customers. 78% of customers are accepting the new system, the new 16-gallon trash. and the loads that we're receiving in recycling are actually cleaner that they've been before. partnering with the department or s.f. environment, we have a large outreach program, restickering every single container and bin in the city, providing new signage, and outreach material that every customer's receiving three touches to educate them on the new commodities, the new

program, and how little should actually be sent into the trash bin. we can stay here for a minute. also, in order to prepare for that, we made a $14.7 million upgrade to our pier 96 central recycle facility, and that equipment has enabled us to accept those film plastic materials. we have a suction system where our employee owners, teamsters at pier 96 are able to take those pieces of film plastic and place them into a suction conveyance system. we've also got new magnetic belts and other items that help us accept those different commodities. and we're currently planning as part of one of the challenges that i'll discuss with you today, additional improvements to that facility to address the crisis that we're facing with, you know, national sort in

china. we'll give them a minute to -- thank you for doing this. >> supervisor safai: just keep going until they pull it up, please. >> okay. and also, in terms of, you know, our challenges, as director rafael mentioned, multifamily buildings are a real challenge. san franciscans come here from all over the world, and they're not as familiar with our programs, and we need to do as good of a job possible on educating them on our programs because, you know, when they come from other places as debbie -- director rafael mentioned, they might not have as a strong recycling and composting program. they may not receive the same amount of commodities that we accept in san francisco, so that's something that we need to focus on and get those apartment dwelling residents of san francisco engaged and knowledge of how we ---informed

of how we work in san francisco. we're building a new refuse transformation station in san francisco. it's going to expand the facility for increased participation, so as san francisco grows, we get more people, we're going to need to accept more organics tonnage. additionally, our facility was never intend today have the amount of throughput that goes through that facility, so this is going to make a safer and more efficient work environment for our employee owners, and we're really excited about kind of moving forward and kind of expand the organics participation. next slide. so in terms of talking about challenges, director rafael mentioned construction demolition. about 1 is 00,000 tons of disposal in san francisco are not touched by recology. there isn't a lot of transparency about where the source of that material is but

as we've seen this construction boom over the last eight years, you know, a significant volume of the material that's used in construction ends up in landfill. most of this material is metals, wood, drywall, you know, gypsum, all things that can be reused and repurposes, so we are looking to improve or c and d facility, our currently c and d facility. we have plans over the next several years to construct a new facility. that'll increase our throughput by 40% and recovery by 50%, so that's a huge opportunity for us. next slide. and then lastly, you may have seen this, the wall street journal had coverage on this last week.

you know, it continues to get attention across the united states. china has as of this month completely cutoff all import of recycled materials. we fortunately in san francisco have a great team of employees that have enabled us to continue to bring that material elsewhere. our material's in high demand, so we haven't negatively been impacted in san francisco by volume -- sorry, pricing. we're able to move that volume to other jurisdictions and places, but this kind of creates a larger issue for the industry as a whole. and i think fortunately, we've always been a good actor. some bad actors who maybe weren't processing material already included far too much contamination in the recyclables that they were sending to china. we need to kind of increase the education of our customers as well as improve, you know, the facility that we have in order to meet this new chinese

specification of.5 recycled paper. this has kind of resulted in an oversupply of recycled materials going to other places and decreased the price that we receive from about $120 a ton for paper to about $8. >> supervisor ronen: why don't we have the capacity in the united states to process recyclable materials? why are we sending it to china? >> that's a great question. you know, i think that first of all, these facilities are very capital intensive, and they also -- because people aren't sending them clean material, they're very dirty. and i think the united states, they saw a transition away from that processing here. there are some, you know, mils still in the united states and actually companies are now reinvesting it as a result of this, you know, change, but this transition has happened over the last 30 years and has

kind of now, we've got caught unprepared for it. we, you know, had been shipping this off to china, and we didn't have the infrastructure in the united states. i would love to be able to send all this material, keep it in the united states. i think that makes the most sense, but it is, yeah. >> supervisor safai: are you done with your presentation? >> yeah. >> supervisor safai: so i'm going to ask director rafael and you both to answer this same question. >> sure. >> supervisor safai: so -- not -- again, not to be corny, but low hanging fruit, right? there's 60% of what we send -- you can come back up, director rafael. 60% of what we're sending to landfills is compostable and recyclable. so what can we do? what are the -- some of the simple steps that we can do to capture that? i -- i'd like to hear you both

answer that. >> okay. great. so i guess the first step is, you know, there's an opportunity for processing this material. getting our customers educated as to what we can accept. now that our confideustomers k that they can put film plastic, they've got larger recycling bins that they can put the card board in. you look at our refuse transfer station, it's a lot of card board. we just need to give our customers the right side card board to get to the right place. >> supervisor safai: when it goes to you, someone's doing the work. >> if it gets in the right container. >> supervisor safai: if it gets to the right place, someone's grabbing the plastic film that you told us about, they're sorting it, pulling it out, putting it in a machine. >> correct. >> supervisor safai: you're saying if we send you more, you can do more work. >> correct. >> supervisor safai: okay. director rafael? >> obviously, there's going to be multiple answers.

low hanging fruit, that's a tough one because we've been working on this for ten years. >> supervisor safai: i was trying to be funny. >> oh, that's the pun part. >> supervisor safai: 60% -- maybe i should have had coffee for everybody. >> no, that was me. >> supervisor safai: so the 60% of what we're sending to landfill is either recycleable or compostable. that seems to be the low hanging fruit. what can we do to change the behavior? you said large buildings are large generators of waste. are they doing what they need today do? i've got calls of complaints, why are they making our trash bins so small? it's really about sorting and doing the right thing, so that's what i want to hear you talk about.

>> i want to share with you a survey we did recently just to give you a sense of the challenge of the problem because clearly, the solution is 99% of people have access to doing the right thing, so why aren't they doing the right thing? we can -- there's two sort of directions on that. we can get better at making them do the right thing, or we can take care of it afterwards, so those are the two opportunities. and then, there's a third opportunity of taking care of that black bin somehow at recology. as you -- >> supervisor safai: that's what i'm talking about. >> yeah, so you've got three insertion points. the insertion point of the individual behavior change, which is the place that our department spends most of its energy on, we do that through technical assistance by making sure people understand, have the right signs, have the bins in the right place. that is going on in a huge fashion right now. it's going on in multifamily. the challenge we have is we did a survey of a certain part of the population in san

francisco, and we said, do you know why you should recycle. off the charts, they knew. do you know how to recycle? do you know what goes in each bin? absolutely. they could name everything that goes in each bin. do you recycle? do you sort? no. okay. why don't you do it? because it's too much trouble. it's just too much work. so here, we have a system with the ultimate convenience, right? we've got -- everybody's got the bins. we have signs to show you, we have outreach campaigns, and they still don't want to do it because it's still not convenient enough, whatever that culture of convenience is here, we're up against it in a big way. so what we're looking at, how -- but we can't give up on that, it's -- all these things are an "an," not an "off." we have to keep at that, because we'll never get it all if we rely on those two other things. we keep doing that even though

we're up against people's complaceancecy. i look @and the park, commercial hotels that have commercial sorters that come and sort for people. they can't do sorting if there isn't good enough sorting, but they can do enough to get over the hump and get tremendous rates of recovery. >> supervisor safai: we know -- the three of us and others in the room, know what -- let's just make it real simple. so if i take my banana peel, and i take my soiled hamburger wrapper, and i put that in the black bin at any house or at my office, that's what we're talking about here with this 60%. >> that's exactly what we're talking about. >> supervisor safai: because when recology comes and picks it up in the black stream, no one's looking in that black stream. whatever's in that black stream is just going to landfill, is

that right? >> at this point, that is correct. >> supervisor safai: unless i put amy hands in the trash and do my own sorting, but break that down, there are janitors in at&t park and these hotels that do this work. >> and they need room. that's part of the challenges. if they're going to sort, they're going to need to have the tables, they're going to need to have the ability to sort so they can make sure what needs to happen is going in the right way. >> supervisor safai: so if we did that in a more shape or form on a more expanded basis, we have the potential of get 60% more of what's going to landfills. >> we certainly have the opportunity to make a big impact on that number. >> supervisor safai: and then what about that black stream, recology, when that black stream comes to your facility,

does anybody look at that. >> well, again, that's a complicated answer. technology, we had an extrusion press which is actually -- >> supervisor safai: what did you just say? >> an orex extrusion press. >> supervisor safai: i was about to say bless you. i didn't know what you said. >> it's a machine that basically crushes the garbage and gets all the material out of it. you had a banana peel, you threw it away. we had a perfectly of machinery that crushed the trash -- we're constantly looking at other technologies. the composting program has such high participation, we weren't getting the -- you know, the material out of the machine. it was too dry. >> supervisor safai: but why don't you? i know in other municipalities,

they have one stream and then they do all the sorting and recycling. i know they do that in other parts of the united states. so why don't you take that black stream, open it up, put it on a conveyor belt and start picking out the banana peels. >> i will tell you why. i love this question. debbie -- director rafael mentioned it earlier. you throw your banana peel and your orange, and you throw it in your card board, your paper. that banana gets on the paper, that orange gets on the card board. those materials no longer have value. china has strong import restrictions. they've actually cut it off for the month of may and june. that material gets ruined. you throw it in the trash with your animal waste, baby waste, it gets ruined. >> supervisor safai: that gets ruined, but there has to be

60%. >> those facilities, what we call it is dirty murph, they're only getting about 80% of the crv value. those facilities are not a panacea. the best way we believe is to separate the material at the source and ensure that it has the highest and best use, which is in many cases either reuse or recycleability. >> supervisor safai: so when you say at the source, you mean in the commercial building. >> sure. >> supervisor safai: in the home. those are really the only two choices other than the construction site. so there's no problem in taking the black stream when it gets to you and sorting through that? >> in our long-term plan, we do plan on having a facility. we have not seen the technology that we believe will work best. the goal is to get all the

material going in the right place. as you're pointing out, that solves 60% of the problem. in the future, once we shrink that trash can and the participation rate grows, we are going to look into a trash processing facility. those -- we're having a discussion with a company from europe today about enzymatic processing, whether we can put an enzyme into material and turning them into natural gas. that consumes a lot of energy and it's challenging. i'd rather see it go in the recycling bin or the compost bin. >> supervisor safai: now you said you have plans to create and expand facilities to do more processing. >> correct. >> supervisor safai: so that also means more work for us, more people there actually on the ground as director rafael referred to. >> yeah. it really depends -- those facilities have not been

designed yet. as of right now, the workforce, if we were to go on a trash processing, i believe we would definitely need more people than what you have today. >> supervisor safai: so i know i've dominated the questions. do you have more -- i know i have a lot, but i wanted to give you the opportunity. >> supervisor ronen: you keep going with your questions. i have a bunch of comments. >> supervisor safai: going back to the c and d, you talked about creating a new facility for that. sounds like if i demomy house, and i get one of those big bins, i've seen them all over the city, i'm not required to send it to a c and d. >> whether it's happening. >> supervisor safai: well, it sounds like it's not, given

there's these facilities that won't tell us, but we're being penalized or it's going against our number. >> we know it's happening. >> i wanted her to answer it. >> supervisor safai: are they competitors? >> no. that's a polish. we're worried about what material we receive. >> supervisor safai: okay. so what about where we're sending our -- our landfill? we have an agreement with a landfill company, a landfill facility, and what's that? how long do we have that, and will that run out at some point? >> i believe there's eight years remaining on the current landfill agreement? >> we just -- one of the first things that happened when i started is our landfill agreement expired and we started a new one. i think they are eight years. 7.5. 7.5 years. >> supervisor safai: there's also a cost associated with that. there's a significant cost because landfills are few and

far between in the area. land is much more valuable to do things with than to send trash to, so what does that mean in the context of this conversation? so what's the name of our landfill? >> hay road landfill. >> supervisor safai: hay road. and what happened to that after 7.5 years? >> we have the ability to renegotiate the contract, is my understanding. >> supervisor safai: is that the only one that we use in san francisco? >> that's correct. >> supervisor safai: and where is that? >> it's in solano county. >> and you can answer that because it's owned and operated by recology. >> supervisor safai: oh, it is? >> yeah. >> supervisor safai: that makes it easier. >> it doesn't make it easier. rather not go there. >> supervisor safai: it makes it easier to negotiate. >> no, that is not how it happens. >> yeah, yeah. the landfill contract was competitively bid. >> supervisor safai: i'm sorry. >> for the record, there was a

very, very -- >> supervisor safai: no, but it's nice that recology owns the landfill. >> supervisor ronen: can i understand this a little bit more, when you say 7.5 years, you mean that's the contract. >> on the contract. >> supervisor ronen: but eventually, the landfill fills up. how does that work? >> that's a great question. unfortunately, a lot of these landfills were permitted a long time ago, and the capacities that they were permitted well exceeded the need at that time. also, composting and recycling were pervasive, so there is a significant amount of landfill capacity left. >> supervisor ronen: how many years. >> last time i checked? >> supervisor safai: san francisco has one piece of that landfill. it's almost like a cemetery. we have a plot. other places have plots, so if we want to buy up more plots, we have to renegotiate. >> yes. >> but to your point, landfill

space, because we've been doing such a good job of generating less and others have as well, it's not the economic driver anymore. it's not the best use of that land and of that material, yeah. >> supervisor safai: okay. that's a whole other conversation. i just wanted to touch on it because i know that it's part of the goal for zero waste. it was part of the cost to the city. i know that every municipality has to consider where we send our waste, and there is a cost associated and at some point, that will run out, right, and then, we have to find new places. >> well, and the state has put a ban on organics going to landfill. >> supervisor ronen: you know, just listening to all of this, it just seems like we should have been in the enforcement compliance phase a while ago. i studied abroad when i was in college. i studied in england, and i went home to germany, and they

had zero waste in 1997. they did -- nothing went to the landfill. they washed every piece of garbage, and they sorted it out correctly, and that was what everyone did, and the expectation. and if it's true, we just need a behavior change. and a couple -- a couple of comments that i wanted to make is i volunteer my daughter's classroom, public school in san francisco. it's t.k., so these are all five year olds every week, and they have breakfast that's provided by the school, and they compost and recycle, and the kids learn and get used to sorting their trash on their own and taking the extra time to do so. so that training behavioral change is really important. i hope we're doing that in all school. >> every school. >> supervisor ronen: okay. fantastic. that's great that she's learning that. so she mimics that at home, which is fantastic.

and then, i know we have really great -- i have to do a shout out for green streets, which started in my district and is an amazing program that specifically works in public housing facilities and really works on education and behavioral change. i think we need that. i think we need more of those intensive training both for, you know, kids and in big, large complexes where that habit isn't formed. but then, i think we need compliance at this point. if we are -- if our curve is going in the wrong direction, and people say they know why it's important, and they say they know how to do it, but they're just not taking the time, well, they need to take the time. and it's time now. we've been very generous in our education, and if that's what's truly been causing the problem, then we have to do that. i don't have much faith in president trump or his administration certainly on environmental issues, but te