California is facing a garbage crisis. The bold announcement of legislators back in 2011 to reduce trash by 75% in 2020 was praised but the state still seems very far from reaching that goal.
The report by The Desert Sun illustrates the situation. California's legilators said back then that they intend to reach that objective through source-reduction, recycling, and composting. Also, workshops and "focus areas" were defined.
In this way, the 22 million tons of trash generated by the state can be eradicated.
Four years after the announcement, however, the state is nowhere nearer than it was originally was at 50% trash reduction.
What is the real reason so much volume of trash still finds its way into landfills? For one, trash that should not be in the recycle bins is always there.
Old food products in between cardboard cartons, for example, may find itself in the landfill instead of the compost pit.
When multiplied a thousand or million times over, the effect it has on increasing the volume of trash is immense. At current trash production rates, California will have enough space for its trash until 2057.
If the goal of 75% trash reduction is successful, it stretches the space enough to last until 2080.
The current efforts of the Burrtec facilities are very efficient. Each one of these recycling plants can go through When people throw away their recyclables, companies like Burrtec take care of it.
However, most trash does not make its way to these recycling centers and, instead, to landfills.
Who is to blame? Without pointing fingers too much, the trash profile of Burrtec way back in 2008 reveals that a good 2/3 of the garbage they sift through is from the commercial sector.
Even though legislation mandates a recycling bin for most businesses, this does not automatically guarantee that these same businesses will recycle well.
According to this paper, 32% or almost 1/3 of the total trash in landfills is organic waste.
The thing about landfills is that they produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is 28 times worse than carbon in heating the planet up.
Compost pits and organic waste services do not produce this same risk with methane and do not need to go through such steps as burning methane gas produced underground.
