A recent investigation into what happens to San Francisco’s recycling brought largely positive news: 81 percent of what residents deposit into their blue bins is recycled. That rate is among the highest in the nation. But the bigger picture of waste disposal in San Francisco is not so rosy. The city is far from reaching its ultimate goal of zero waste — and officials say it may never get there if manufacturers don’t change their ways.
The San Francisco civil grand jury conducted its investigation in the wake of China’s 2017 decision to severely limit the type and quality of foreign recyclables it would accept. Most plastics were banned, and other waste was required to be almost pure. The little bits of food, liquid and other non-recyclable material that inevitably end up in processed bales of recyclables could make up no more than 0.5 percent of the total. Recycling facilities around the world scrambled to meet the new standards or find alternative markets. More material ended up in landfills and incinerators, and some facilities closed altogether.
San Francisco suffered less than others. In the years before China’s ban went into effect, Recology — the privately-owned company that has a monopoly over residential and commercial waste collection in the city — typically recycled around 85% of the waste from the blue bins. That number has dipped only a few percentage points since. However, San Francisco still creates a lot of trash. In 2018, just under half of all waste collected by Recology ended up in landfills and incinerators.
One reason the city has been able to maintain a relatively high rate of recycling is Recology’s state-of-the-art sorting machines, which produce higher-quality bales of material, according to the company. That equipment has enabled Recology to continue shipping San Francisco’s recyclables around the world, even as markets tighten their requirements.