China, the Global Economy, and the Environment. and its impact on recycling in Santa Barbara

Transcription

1 China, the Global Economy, and the Environment and its impact on recycling in Santa Barbara

2 The Death of Recycling

3 So what? What about my blue recycling bin? A lot of things we put in our blue bins are no longer recyclable This is a bad thing This is also a good thing

4 How Recycling Works Here in Santa Barbara Spoiler Alert: Its actually recycled somewhere else.

5 Collected by Hauler

6 Brought To County Facility

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8 Shipped to Ventura (or Santa Maria)

9 Processed & Bailed

10 Shipped to China* *Mostly Close to 25% of what we shipped to China in 2015 by weight was recyclables Indirectly subsidized by our trade deficit adding to affordability

11 Processed in China Picture of 3 rd World Plastic Recycling Process goes here There are a lack of pictures.

12 Pictures of Wen an

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15 Returns as a New Product

16 I thought Recycling was a good thing What is the point of recycling?

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19 What happens if this concept is applied to Industry? It s called Industrial Ecology

20 $ Product

21 Product/Mitigation $ Product Product/Mitigation

22 $ Product

23 $ Product Consumer Waste

24 Linear System Limited Resource Product

25 Circular System the ideal

26 The Reality All industrial activity comes at both a financial and environmental cost This includes recycling and some recycling is terrible

27 The Three R s Reduce Reuse Recycle

28 Recycling is still important Aluminum is recycling is great Some big reasons why? Bauxite mining and the refining of Aluminum has a massive carbon footprint It doesn t down cycle It s recycled locally and held to local environmental laws

29 Recycling is still important Paper and cardboard Can be recycled easily Can be composted Can be used as a replacement fuel or converted into one

30 Recycling is still important It s usually better than nothing (see paper) My point: There IS a hierarchy. Some materials are better than others.

31 Back to China What did they actually do? They didn t ban all recyclables yet (that s next year 2019) in many cases they required the material to be clean the trade war has complicated things AND an expected ban is on the horizon. Imported scrap paper and plastic have to have less than 1% contamination (This seems like a ban to most recycling facilities) Plastic also has to be sorted into a single type

32 Why the change?

33 Why start with the recycling industry? Easy target Already breaking the law Smaller companies (in some cases very small) The other main polluters are energy, transportation, agriculture, and large manufacturing (closer to a finished product)

34 Externalizing Costs The Story of Stuff and business classes explain this concept We as a country have externalized the environmental costs of our consumerist society to other countries mostly China.

35 Externalizing Costs China has grown their economy at an amazing rate through externalizing costs (AKA sacrificing the health of...) Air Water Land People The US does this too, and many want to do it more. (Most countries do).

36 So what does that mean to us? What can we put in the blue bin? Until we get better at collecting and processing our recyclables No film plastic No rigid plastics aside from #1 and #2 (and some of those are probably no good either) No composites which are products made from more than one thing like paper and plastic glued together. (Except for milk cartons and Tetrapak containers a long story)

37 So what does that mean to me? What can I put in my blue bin? Clean dry paper Just paper, not plastic and paper glued together, nothing wet or dirty, no coffee cups or beverage containers Clean dry corrugated cardboard Not the cheap stuff that frozen meals or produce come in, only the good Amazon packaging stuff. No pizza boxes either because of the oil.

38 So what does that mean to me? What can I put in my blue bin? Containers made of #1 and #2 plastic that held liquid Water bottles, detergent bottles, milk jugs, soft drink bottles, anything that is CRV Wait, I thought plastics were terrible and why are these exempt? Higher value & higher quality CRV makes this particular material low in contamination These are sorted in an ideal way and the market has developed around them These specific plastics are actually recycled here in California

39 So what does that mean to me? What can I put in my blue bin? Containers that held liquid made of #1 and #2 plastic Are recycled here in California Turned into flake and made into new products locally

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41 So what does that mean to me? What can I put in my blue bin? Metal All clean metal Glass Pretty much anything that is glass

42 So what does that mean to me? What can I put in my blue bin? The hierarchy Cleaner materials Simpler materials (fewer composites) Beverage containers Materials that have developed markets (that aren t killing the planet, hopefully)

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44 When in doubt, throw it in the trash. The new normal.

45 So how will this be communicated? Slowly We have to get all of the cities, the processors, and the haulers all to agree. Running a fall campaign now about plastic bags and film plastics Waiting for the markets to settle which commodities are welcome how they need to be processed

46 The Future of Recycling It will be cleaner in the short term Other markets won t take material as dirty as China did Less externalizing cost More technology More local

47 The Future of Recycling It will be cleaner in the long term or we have failed We have an opportunity to do the right thing Already moving to find other Country s willing to externalize costs in order to make a profit. Bangladesh for plastic and SEA for paper

48 The Future of Recycling Its going to cost more, because we wont be externalizing cost Export will mean further distances SEA, and South Asia No more subsidy with Chinese trade deficit More technology for processing and mitigating enviro impacts

49 The Future of Recycling Less Recycling and that s a good thing Fewer single-use and/or toxic items Light weighting Smarter consumption reusable containers Packaging laws Focus on organics

50 The Future of Recycling Locally Plans to build more local facilities Tajiguas Resource Recovery Project

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52 The Future of Recycling Locally Local focus on organics Lowers GHGs significantly Local market Green energy State mandates It s a third of what we bury We lack other options/technologies

53 The Future of Recycling Locally More Information locally: Tajiguas Resource Recovery Project THE local recycling resource!

54 Thank you! Questions? 54