Saturday, February 13, 2010

In January 2009, the Key West City Commission passed an ordinance that made recycling mandatory for residences. The ordinance contained no immediate enforcement measures, leaving time for education and acclimation by residents. It was a first step.

Volunteers went to work. Members of GLEE (Green Living and Energy Education) delivered recycling information door to door all over the city. "Ms. Green" answered recycling questions in Solares Hill, The Citizen's Sunday magazine. Columnist and "green" advocate Chris Belland penned a regular column, also in Solares Hill. US1- Radio News Director Bill Becker conducted multiple on-air interviews about recycling. Environmental activist Erika Biddle established a twice-weekly Internet radio show on KONK Community Radio called the Eco-centric View.

There were some missteps. A request for proposals for bids on waste collection and haul-out was held up until it was too late to issue. Instead, an existing contract with Waste Management Inc. was extended for five years, to December 2014.

It was then the City Commission, headed by newly elected Mayor Craig Cates, recognized the need for better planning. Cates called for a solid waste master plan to be developed with the assistance of experts in the field. A request for qualifications for a solid waste consultant was sent out.

One of the more interesting events in the city's educational outreach was a public workshop on the concept of "zero waste," presented by Eric Lombardi of Ecocycle, a Boulder, Colo., firm known for its work in the waste-recovery field. Zero waste focuses on a goal of nothing burned and nothing buried in landfills.

While it's unlikely that Key West will ever accomplish zero waste, the concept offers some interesting components that may help the city -- and the Florida Keys -- reach the statewide goal outlined by Gov. Charlie Crist of recycling 75 percent of the waste stream by 2020.

Lombardi's hypothetical 10-year plan to reach zero waste can be mined for many ideas that can be applied locally.

The first stage of the plan focuses on reaching a 50 percent waste reduction, building the necessary recycling infrastructure, enacting regulations and educating consumers. Every home and business would receive three waste bins. One bin would be for "green waste" -- palm fronds, leaves, wood chips and food scraps -- that would be turned into soil with an anaerobic digester. A second bin would be for recyclable materials such as aluminum, other metals, paper and many plastics. A third bin would be for whatever trash is left over.

The plan calls for a pay-as-you-throw system -- residents are charged for the unrecycled waste they discard. Those with less unrecycled trash would have a lower garbage bill.

The second phase of the hypothetical plan ramps up to a 70-percent waste reduction. Mandatory recycling for all residences and businesses is implemented, and scheduled pickups for trash are reduced. Pickups for recycled materials and green waste, meanwhile, are increased.

Others ideas include encouraging businesses -- and local governments -- to use recycled goods as raw materials, and to reduce the number of hard-to-recycle items sold.

Today the concept seems like a far reach, especially when you consider the city's dismal recycling rate of 7-10 percent. Nonetheless, with cities elsewhere in the country boasting rates of 70-plus percent, the trail has already been blazed. We hope to see the city incorporate many of these proven solutions into the city's solid waste master plan.

-- The Citizen