Berkeley residents have a rare chance to weigh in on the fate of their waste. This month, the City of Berkeley will host three public workshops to get community input and share information about the upcoming redesign of the Berkeley recycling and waste transfer station. The facility, located at Second and Gilman streets in West Berkeley, is where trash is sorted, with recycleables, compostables and re-useables being removed from the waste that’s sent to a landfill by the Altamont Pass. The goal of the redesign is to recover more materials that can be recycled or re-used — so that less ends up in landfills.
The city has a goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2020, but currently it only diverts around 75 percent of its waste. Berkeley Waste and Recycling manager Greg Apa told the East Bay Times that “Berkeley is one of the few cities in the state and the only one in the Bay Area that handles its own commercial and residential garbage, recycling and green waste collection; Other Bay Area cities contract with outside companies.”
What would you like to see in this new facility? Should it be solar powered? Should it give free compost? What other household items do you want to be able to recycle?
Come share your ideas and take part in the process! Here are some talking points we hope Sierra Club members can share:
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Above all, flexibility is essential. Just the last decade has seen big shifts in the volumes and types of materials collected.
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Provide space for reuse/salvage.
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To reduce methane climate change impacts, the next few years will see a big push to increase composting, so the facility should be sized accordingly.
Here is the workshop schedule:
Session 1: Ideas to paper
Wednesday, January 16, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Session 2: Analyze first night’s outcomes
Thursday, January 17: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Session 3: Recap
Friday, January 18: 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Once the community outreach phase is complete in July 2019, the environmental review process is expected to take up to three years. Final engineering and construction would take an additional three years. This project will serve our community for many years, so we have to get it right off the bat!
Questions? Email our Zero Waste Committee chair Alfred Twu at alfredtwu@gmail.com.
Photo courtesy seaotter22 via Flickr Creative Commons.