--Patty Garbarino, President, Marin Sanitary
Cutting Edge Technology
- Innovating to End Waste
- Diverting Waste
- Reducing Emissions
- Leading the Battle
- A Family’s Vision of Zero Waste
Marin Sanitary Service (MSS) innovates at every level of its operations to reduce global warming pollution, push recycling rates to new heights, and drastically cut the amount of waste that goes to the landfill. In doing so, MSS exceeds regulatory requirements and acts as a leader in the waste diversion field in California and the United States. In 1989 California passed AB 939, a law mandating that each local jurisdiction be required to meet diversion goals of 25 percent by 1995 and 50 percent by the year 2000. Determined to exceed regulatory expectations, MSS achieved the 50 percent diversion goal in 1996, four years ahead of schedule. In 2008, MSS’s recycling rate was 62 percent.
MSS is determined to continue pushing the edge of the envelope. Waste audits have determined that food waste and contaminated paper represent the largest category of waste still going to the landfill. As a result, MSS has instituted the following technologies and programs:
State-of-the-art user-friendly carts and specialized trucks reduce recycling contamination and increase recycling rates. The carts keep glass, cans, and plastics separate from paper in order to prevent clean, dry paper from becoming soiled by residues left on other recyclables. Before this system was adopted, more than 30 percent of the refuse still sent to the landfill was contaminated paper. Paper recycling also results in increased carbon sequestration by forests since fewer trees need to be harvested for wood and paper products.
Bio-Cell Food Waste Composting
A quarter of the food prepared in the U.S. each year is thrown out – approximately 96 billion pounds. (1)In landfills, food scraps decompose releasing methane, a GHG twenty times more potent than CO2. MSS is partnering with local agencies in a Commercial Food Waste to Energy (F2E)/Composting program to keep food waste from the landfill. A pilot residential food waste composting program will begin in early 2010.
The Nation’s Most Sophisticated Recycling Technology
Ton for ton, recycling reduces more pollution, saves more energy, and reduces more GHGs than any other activity except source reduction. (2) The Marin Recycling Center boasts a customized system of screens, conveyors, blowers, and magnets, which along with manual sorting, separate recycled materials. Sophisticated video scanning devices identify harmful ceramics and sort and bale paper by type. Receiving, processing, and transforming large volumes of waste paper, bottles, cans and concrete in this manner reduces the demand for raw or virgin materials, while re-manufacturing with recycled materials generally reduces overall energy use.
Working to address new and anticipated state, regional and federal environmental regulatory action, MSS innovates beyond compliance to reduce its reliance on electricity produced from fossil fuels and to reduce vehicle emissions through the following technologies:
California's solid waste collection vehicle rule was passed in September 2003 to reduce cancer-causing particulate matter and smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions (3) that exacerbate the affect of global warming from diesel-fueled waste collection trucks. The rule requires owners use technologies that best reduce emissions, following a phased-in schedule from 2004-2010. MSS is one of twenty collection services in California certified in early compliance, targeting completion earlier than required. MSS has already replaced most vehicles with 2008 models or installed DPF muffler Donaldson filters on its fleet of 42 vehicles.
In September 2008, MSS installed 840 photovoltaic modules on the company’s Recycling Center. The installation saves MSS $49,000 per year and replaces 100 percent of the facility’s electricity needs, reducing MSS’s over all energy usage by 18 percent. The installation provides insulation from rapidly rising energy rates.
MSS is developing biomass gasification as a sustainable option for generating the remainder of power needed after the solar installation. Biomass gasification is a complex thermochemical process, in which woodchips or other biomass materials are converted into a gas that is combusted to generate electricity.
In 2006, the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) recognized and honored MSS’s leadership when announcing that the state had exceeded the 50 percent statewide diversion goal. According to members of CIWMB, MSS programs served as models when AB 939 was written.
A leader in pollution prevention, MSS voluntarily reports its global warming emissions. In 2006, MSS became the first independent garbage hauler to register, become verified and named a Climate Action Leader by the California Climate Action Registry (CCAR). CCAR’s mission is to standardize and centralize high quality data into a GHG registry to support voluntary and mandatory reporting programs across North America. MSS uses the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Waste Reduction Model (WARM) to calculate the emissions impacts for 34 separate categories of waste material.
In 2008, MSS was awarded the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award in the “Climate Change” category for innovative and forward-thinking approaches that reduce GHGs and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on public health and California’s vast natural resources.
MSS is the driving force behind Marin County’s exceptional recycling rate of 75 percent - higher than any county in the state and leading in the nation. This achievement has had a profound impact on the environment. MSS’s recycling rate far surpasses the state mandate, is 20 percent higher than the state average, and 35 percent higher than the national average. Annually, MSS saves the equivalent of two million trees and 900 million gallons of water.
Global Warming Pollution Prevention
According to the CCAR database, in 2006 MSS’s recycling, composting, and furnishing biomass energy feedstock resulted in avoided indirect emissions of 78,330 metric tons of CO2 equivalent – comparable to taking 16,955 cars off of the road. GHG emissions avoided through MSS waste management practices are 19 times greater than the emissions produced primarily from fleet vehicles. (4) These findings show that MSS has a negative GHG impact, making the company a carbon sink. Since 1990, MSS has recycled over 2.2 million tons of garbage, representing a reduction of almost 4 million metric tons of GHGs. The recent solar panel installation prevents the release of 218,042 lbs of GHG emissions per year and will avoid 3,270 tons of GHG emissions over the next 30 years.
A Family’s Vision of Zero Waste
MSS was founded on the principle of zero waste. As a new immigrant from Italy, Chairman Joe Garbarino’s father formed the first scavengers association in 1948. Hauling garbage in giant burlap bags on their backs over the steep hills of San Francisco, the Garbarino’s quickly learned that people threw away more than they should, and most of it could be reused. Soon they were scouring and selling soda bottles back to Coca Cola and wine bottles back to Napa wineries. A business was launched, and a vision born.
Since 1956 MSS has led the way toward a more sustainable future. Early on the Garbarino’s saw plastic as a major environmental challenge and lobbied the legislature for extended producer responsibility (EPR).
In the late eighties, Californians sent over 90 percent of their garbage to landfills.
MSS has pioneered state-of-the-art recycling methods, technologies, and programs to reverse that habit. Beginning in 1980, MSS instituted the first countywide curbside recycling program in the nation and opened the country’s first indoor dump to recover and recycle commercial, construction, and demolition waste.
1. http://www.epa.state.oh.us/ocapp/food_scrap/Newman-slides.pdf
2. http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/01/reduction_of_gr.html
3. http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/SWCV/SWCV.htm
4. Assumptions and methodological details are presented in the report entitled MSS_WARM results_CY2006.pdf. Available upon request