SACRAMENTO, CA-

As I look through the glass window on the observation deck I count 26 workers sorting through discarded paper, plastic bottles, soda cans and wine bottles as they whiz by on a conveyor belt.

I’m watching this and wondering how they can possibly be sure they’re getting everything sorted into the right slots, but then my tour guide tells me that each person on the sorting line is assigned one item so they don’t have to concentrate on too many things as the mounds of recyclables pass them.

One person frantically searches for colored glass, while another one looks for #3 plastics (PVC, found in your household through food wrapping, blister packages and vegetable oil bottles).

I’m at the Sacramento Recycling and Waste Transfer Station, the place where my trash is sent before it ends up overseas or in a landfill far enough away for Sacramentans to forget their garbage isn’t magically eliminated by the Trash Fairy.

Right now I’m in the briefing room with about 30 elementary school kids who are getting a tour of the plant, and by tour I mean they get to watch a video of what’s going on behind the glass and they get a few minutes to look through the window and see the sorting process for recyclables. They’re also given a “how-to” on recycling. The saying “If it’s clean and dry, toss it in” is drilled into their heads.

And I’m smiling because I know that if they’re learning this as a 10-year-old they’re going to go home to their parents and enforce a strict recycling regimen in their home.

In a few minutes we’ll be heading down to the hazardous waste section of the building, where men in plastic suits and gas masks don’t make me feel very at ease with the idea of HW.

But before we get there, you may want to know why I’m walking around my city’s MRF.

Well, as you know I’m interested in environmental issues, a big part of which is figuring out how to stop depleting the Earth’s natural resources. Thinking about the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) is a pretty common thing today, but I’ve always wondered what really happens to my soda bottles after they leave my house. I just never thought I’d ever get a chance to see it up close.

That was until I began reading Garbage Land: On the secret trail of trash by Elizabeth Royte.

After learning that Americans produce an average of 4.3 pounds of garbage per person per day, Royte decides to do a scientific study of her own garbage. She begins weighing her garbage before taking it out to the curb. She also empties the bag and documents the type of items that have made their way into her bin.

Side note: Although I think this could be a rewarding way to learn what I could eliminate from my daily life to lessen the waste stream, I did not perform this study on my own garbage. I say it’s because I don’t own a scale, but I’m not sure I’d have been this brave even if I did own a scale.

Royte doesn’t end her exploration of waste with weighing her kitchen garbage. Instead, the experiment leads her to begin following her trash from her home in Brooklyn, NY to her landfill in Pennsylvania (where they won’t let her in).

She hangs out with her local San Men (the guys who pick up her garbage) and visits her waste recovery station. She also visits plastic, paper and metal recycling companies. And eventually she even makes it to her sewage treatment plant.

Throughout the book she points out startling facts (only 2 percent of waste comes from you and me, the rest comes from industrial waste, or the people who make the stuff that we throw away) and vivid descriptions of the people and places she visits.

But the one thing I found lacking was a local tie-in for me. I now know the ins and outs of the New York waste stream, but I wondered what happens to my garbage. I’ve never seen a landfill, nor signs for a landfill, in all my years in Sacramento. This made me wonder if, like NYC, my city was trucking our waste out of town for someone else to deal with (we do).

Before I got started though, I tracked down Elizabeth Royte so she could share some insights with me (and so I could pass them on to you, of course).

(Photo from Royte’s Web site.)

Full disclosure: I sounded far less professional on the phone. I stumbled over what I was saying and was really nervous. I had to clean up my questions to make them readable for all of you.

Your book was published in 2005 so while I was reading the book I found myself wondering if much has changed in the past two years. Do you still follow waste issues closely?

Yes, I still try to pay attention to what’s going on. I don’t track it obssessively anymore, but I do try to look into it because I give talks at colleges and I still write some waste-related stories.

I was really surprised by the statistic that municipal waste only makes up 2 percent of the total garbage created in the United States. It seems so discouraging to know even if we reduce our waste stream, it’s only a tiny portion of the whole.

I’m a lot more optimistic about this statistic than I was when I wrote the book because if you think about it the 2 percent isn’t unrelated to the 98 percent of industrial, manufacturing and agricultural waste. It’s because of the stuff we want and need in order to live that this waste is produced. Realistically, if we reduce our waste, manufacturers will produce less. Every time you do your part you reduce upstream waste as well.

How about while you were writing the book and measuring your garbage? Was it difficult to get your family on board?

My daughter was really into it for awhile. She’d help me sort the garbage at first and watch me weigh and document everything, but she eventually got bored with it. My husband was very supportive. He was, and still is, fanatical about composting. (Royte began composting as part of her waste experiment for the book. She wasn’t as fanatical about it because it smelled bad and attracted fruit flies and vermen in the beginning. It’s a really interesting chapter if you’re interested in starting a backyard compost pile).

Was it overwhelming to write about all these different waste streams?

I really just scratched the surface. I only followed my waste to find out who took it and what they did with it. There’s so much information out there. I felt like if I kept it local it would be more manageable.

At the end of your book you talk about the concept of Zero Waste and what San Francisco is doing to try to reach a 100 percent diversion rate. Is this really a possibility for any city in the United States?

I was more skeptical then than I am now. It’s really just a matter of changing people’s minds about what’s possible. Local taxpayers are paying to move this waste, but if local governments just say, “No more,” then it will give producers an incentive to make goods that last longer and are reusable. It would also encourage them to cut back on packaging.

If we were to do one thing to cut back on waste, what would make the biggest difference?

Personally, I think composting is the best way to divert waste. Organic waste in landfills creates methane, a greenhouse gas. According the EPA, 67 percent of what we throw away can be composted. It may not be convenient, but it makes a huge difference. (In Royte’s own experience 37.7 percent of her garbage was diverted to composting. That’s not nearly as much as the EPA estimate, but it’s still a huge amount.)

Now here I am, at my own recycling and waste transfer station…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 6:36 pm and is filed under Environment, Interviews, Journalism, Pollution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.