Designed to work like an airport; the new facility treats discards as if they are suitcases

Urban Ore’s design team has proposed a rebuild of our 1983-vintage transfer station.  It was designed to feed a garbage burner that was never built, and it is old and run down.  We even hired two local architects to work with us.  We produced dozens of images showing the new buildings and how they would work.

This new system we have proposed could take us well above 90% diversion if it was run right.  At first, Public Works refused to even look at our ideas.  Later, they let us present to them, but nothing happened for years.

At the December 2011 Zero Waste Commission, there was zero interest from staff in any Berkeley rebuild; their approach was still to cut, cut, cut.  But by its January 2012 meeting, the Public Works Department was showing a more friendly face.

While cautiously grateful for this welcome change, I believe that even more change is called for.  Almost more than a physical rebuild, Berkeley needs a new agency to run its discard management system.  In most cities since the sanitary landfill took over the way discards were handled after WW II, Public Works became the traditional home of “waste management” as a profession.  That’s certainly true of Berkeley, whose Public Works Department nearly got council to build a mass-burn garbage incinerator at Second and Gilman, until recyclers and citizens put a stop to it.

Back then, our slogan against the waste burner was “Give Recycling a Chance!”  As we predicted, after the incinerator was rejected, recyclers’ enterprises grew and grew, and new enterprises were formed.  But management stayed the same.

Berkeley boasts the fourth-highest diversion of fifteen cities in Alameda County, 76%.  (The lowest is 59%; highest is 83%.  Berkeley’s waste managers don’t have that much waste to manage anymore.  This waste deficit is one reason why all of Berkeley’s private-sector recyclers came under attack from Public Works in 2011. Up to then, their way of paying for many of the city’s recycling costs was to use waste fees, but waste fees were declining.   In 2010, Public Works suddenly fell deep into deficit mode after being profitable for years.  Council was told by Public Works that the reason for this deficit was we recyclers had done “too good a job.”

In mid-2011, an outside consultant was brought in at a cost to the cash-starved Public Works Department of around $80,000.  His recommendation was to automate everything possible, and let displaced city employees, 27 in all, take over all 3 of private sector recycling contractors, including Urban Ore’s transfer station salvage program. This was a shock and a crisis we had to meet, and fast.

City employees were understandably torn by this tactic, which didn’t work out but ended up hurting them anyway, because the SEIU employee pool got downsized and is scheduled to be downsized some more.   The private sector recyclers battled back, and survived.  But in the scrum, ideas for making more money, for increasing rather than decreasing labor, for a vastly expanded customer interface at the City’s priceless regional transfer station asset, were shelved in favor of cuts in service.

Then key staff pushing this line left the city, and we got a new City Manager and a new head of Public Works.  This ushered in a new era of friendliness.

Some elements of the needed change are already in place.  The City’s discard management system is an Enterprise Fund. There are at least six “enterprises” (3 city-owned, 3 privately owned) that make up the bulk of Berkeley’s ecology of commerce.

The problem is not the people running the system, it’s the structure.  It’s an election year, and candidates are looking for ideas they can make into a winning message.  What we are proposing is basic applied sociology, like Urban Ore.

So, dear reader, shouldn’t we create a new agency to champion the transfer station rebuild and to take us all the way to the city’s professed goal of zero waste to landfill?

Packer truck dumps garbage at landfill. Is this good to compost?

There are many nuances in the new garbage-to-energy initiatives. In May a conference is coming to San Francisco put on by the new wave of wasting enthusiasts who claim their high-tech schemes are “sustainable.”  Last September I went to a bioconversion conference where the enthusiasts claimed the maximum we can recycle is 65% of discards (they dispute today’s higher claims by San Francisco, Berkeley, and other cities).  So that makes it okay to mash the remainder together and put it into a digester.  The processes generate methane, which can be burned for energy.  They call it “sustainable” energy and the digestate can be landfilled.

Some of my questions are: doesn’t this put a lid on recycling? Doesn’t this set of technologies require 20-30-year put-or-pay contracts for the discard supply? Doesn’t it require 20-30-year contracts for the methane or electricity demand? Doesn’t it require community assistance in siting and overcoming local resistance? Doesn’t it assume high-nitrogen feedstock, which would discourage clean composting of yard debris and food? If it receives MSW, doesn’t it mix in toxics from under the kitchen sink? What’s the chemical composition of the digestate if the feedstock is MSW? The products must be as variable as the MSW batches.

One speaker last September was from Germany. He said there are many digestion plants around Germany. He was the only speaker, however, who accepted only clean yard debris and food. He said his digestate could be used as soil amendment. He wouldn’t give me an opinion about composting MSW; he only talked about his own operation.

Dan Knapp went to a BioCycle conference in Wisconsin in November that featured digestion of clean manures from dairies. Those operations looked very interesting and indeed sustainable.

Garbage in, garbage out.

We receive lots of amazing art daily! Come find your masterpiece today!

Move into a new apartment? Have a large loft that has bare walls? A fan of classic prints or original weirdo outsider art?

Well the Urban Ore Arts and Media Department is the place for you!

From children’s finger paintings to lost masterpieces, you can find it here. We put out carts of artwork several times a week.

High end pieces can be found in our Gallery, alongside antique furniture, housewares and antiquarian books. Come take a look often, because our stock rotates daily.

Buddy Boyd of Gibson's Recycling Depot and some of the Urban Ore staff in Florianopolis, Brazil.

This past October, Urban Ore had the honor of being invited to the 7th annual Zero Waste International Alliance Zero Waste Dialog in beautiful Florianopolis, Brazil!

Download a copy of the Lone Recycler (11.6MB pdf) for an exciting tale of Zero Waste.

The Lone Recycler is a comic book dating all the way back to 1984. It was created by Nancy Gorrell, a children’s illustrator and longtime friend of Urban Ore. It was written in response to the growing threat of incinerator proposals in the Bay Area. Although the comic book is suitable for children, it also ties into our Policy Planning work. You can download a 11.6MB pdf copy of the Lone Recycler by simply clicking on the image above. It is great for children to read and the message is still very relevant. Includes a coloring page as well.

Since then many people have suggested adding Rs to the hierarchy, and good Rs, too, such as “Rethink” or “Rot” or “Refuse” (emphasis on the second syllable). But I’m fond of the original three. They are simple and have the ring of fundamental structure, like Readin, ‘Ritin’ and ‘Rithmatic. Three is a near-magical number that turns up in the structure of religion, mathematics, musical chords, and other important places. The three-legged milking stool doesn’t rock unevenly the way a four-legged stool can.

Theres no real need for more Rs. All the original 3 can be subdivided and incorporate the newer suggestions. Compost (“Rot”) is a form of Recycling, applied to yard debris. Refuse (accent on the second syllable) is a subset of Reduce, as is Extended Producer Responsibility.

The 3Rs are all phrased as imperatives, commands, so just saying them makes a clear imprint on our brains to do it. This clarity is lost if we fog up the intention with a fluctuating number of Rs. Making them imperatives is far superior to more passive frameworks, such as California’s vague and confusing not-a-mantra “Source Reduction, Recycling and Composting, and Transformation.”

Me for the 3 Rs!

Some of our more hard to find items can be found on our Ebay page.

Happen to have an old Chrystler? Are you missing a stereo in that Chrystler? Well we have it here for you. We try and make some of the rarer items we receive more widely available via our Ebay store. Oftentimes, when there is not a local market for interesting merchandise, we try and give it a chance in cyberspace. Maybe someone in Japan would like the Urban Ore experience as well.

Sleek Danish Modern design to warm up your cottage.

We recently received this one-of-a-kind woodburning stove into our General Store. As you can see, it has a nice Danish Modern design as it was made in Denmark. See for yourself in these photos. This stove has since sold. Congrats to the new owner!

The proof is in the cast iron. Genuine Danish design for your modern collection.