The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
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2 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
About the authors: This document was authored and edited by a cross-sector, county-wide team of 30 thought leaders and community advocates brought together through Thrive Alliance’s Environment & Sustainability Community to form a Thrive Impact Group. The Community has been meeting since 2018, unifying environment and sustainability organizations from four sectors: business, government, nonprofit, and youth.
Main Author • Doug Silverstein, Environment & Sustainability Lead, Thrive Alliance
Collaborating Authors • Daniel Arad, Leader, Nueva High School • Cambria Bartlett, Co-founder & Chapter Leader, Heirs to Our Oceans • Shay Barton, Chapter Leader, Heirs to Our Oceans • Emily Berglund, Program Director, Heirs to Our Oceans • Shell Cleave, Founder, Sea Hugger • Richard Edminster, resident of City of San Carlos • Daisy Fong, resident of City of Pacifica and Economic Development Committee member • Jennifer Lee, Environmental Regulatory Compliance Manager, City of Burlingame • Matthew Mills, student, Crystal Springs Uplands High School • Juan Miranda, Environmental Education Fellow, RethinkWaste • Ava Peyton, Co-president Surfrider Foundation, Menlo-Atherton High School • Petra Silton, Director of Education & Advocacy, Thrive Alliance • Veronika Vostinak, Sustainability Analyst, City of Half Moon Bay • Alejandra Warren, Founder, Plastic Free Pacifica • Kimberly Williams, Secretary, Surfrider Foundation’s San Mateo County Chapter
Graphics & design: Camille Kay, Carlmont High School (Belmont, CA), Ilan Listgarten, Menlo School (Atherton, CA), and Alexandra Szczerba, Sacred Heart Preparatory (Atherton, CA)
About Thrive Alliance: Thrive unites the voices and influence of San Mateo County nonprofits, helps build their capacity, and enables effective cross-sector collaboration. In doing so, Thrive has created a robust, trusted network of 200+ nonprofit organizations, government entities, foundations, businesses, and community leaders with a shared commitment to strengthening the nonprofit sector and improving quality of life. www.thrivealliance.org, Redwood City, CA.
Providing feedback: We invite community feedback on this document and the topic of single- use plastics in San Mateo County for integration into future Thrive Action Group efforts. Please send written remarks to [email protected].
Getting involved: We invite community participation and philanthropic investment in future efforts of this Thrive Action Group. Please send inquiries to [email protected].
Reaching the authors: Contact Doug Silverstein at [email protected] or 650-346-8945.
3 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Table of Contents Executive Summary 6 I. Collective Impact 9 Existing Collaboration 9 Collective Impact Approach 10 II. The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County 14 Upstream—From Origin to Burlingame 16 Downstream—From Burlingame to Final Destination 18 III. Defining Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County 24 Beverage Bottles and Lids 27 Product Packaging 28 Bags, Shipping Materials, and Cigarette Butts 31 IV. Six Downstream Plastic Waste Challenges in San Mateo County 34 Challenge 1—Plastic Production, Consumption and Waste are Growing 34 Challenge 2—Plastic Recycling Markets and Processes are Broken 37 Challenge 3—Recycling Education, Compliance, and Contamination Rates 41 Challenge 4—Ox Mountain Landfill is at 70% Capacity 42 Challenge 5—Plastics Dominate Litter on Beaches, Streets, and Open Spaces 43 Challenge 6—Plastic Disposal & Litter in Low-income Communities 47 V. Indirect Costs – Waste Disposal & Litter Cleanup 50 Municipal Solid Waste Management Costs to Bill Payers 51 Litter Cleanup: Cities & Towns 51 Litter Cleanup: Beaches 54 Litter Cleanup: Marine Environments 55 Litter Cleanup: Waterways and Highways 57 VI. Indirect Costs – Human Health 58 Health and Ocean Pollution in SMC 59 Outside San Mateo County—Health and Pollution 61 VI. Focus on Food Facilities 64 Restaurants 65 Schools 72 VII. Alternatives to Single-Use Plastics 78 Alternatives for Foodservice Single-use Plastics 78 Compostables for Food Facilities 79 Reusables for Food Facilities 80 Reusables for Other Single-Use Plastics 81 VIII. Pathways for Change—Policy and Programs 83 Policy 84
4 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
San Mateo County Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance of 2020 84 Berkeley, Palo Alto, and San Francisco 86 Current State and Federal Action 88 Existing Local, State, & Federal Policy 89 Incentive Programs 90 Education Programs Error! Bookmark not defined. IX. Conclusion & Next Steps 93 X. Acknowledgements 94 Appendix A – Single-use Plastic Consumption in SMC 95 Appendix B – Single-use Plastic Costs in SMC 97
5 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Executive Summary This is our story. We are 16 San Mateo County residents passionate about fostering happy and healthy environments that can be sustained for future generations. We are beachcombers, hikers, swimmers, and travelers; consultants, engineers, marketers, and project managers; as well as grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren.
We love San Mateo County (SMC) and are passionate about its wellbeing. We invite you to learn what we uncovered in this three-month research project on the impacts of single-use plastics right here in our 455 square miles of rugged Pacific coastline, windy Bay shores, steep mountain trails, and technology innovation hub.
This paper is intended for SMC policymakers, leaders, and interested members of the public to: ● Educate the community and government decision makers on the negative impacts of single-use plastics in SMC ● Provide language and frameworks for further discussion ● Highlight alternatives and solutions
Single-use plastics are fast-consumed plastics typically used while eating, and for food, beverage and consumer product packaging. They are manufactured from chemicals extracted from oil, natural gas, and coal, and shaped into products of different color, size, durability, and weight. They are primarily found in SMC restaurants and foodservice locations, grocery and other stores, and in packaging of shipped goods.
These items account for nearly 50% of all plastic waste1 and can be grouped into six categories: foodservice, beverage bottles and lids, bags, product packaging, shipping materials, and cigarette butts made of cellulose acetate plastic fiber.
Through extensive research from April to July 2020, our Thrive Impact Group uncovered significant challenges and indirect costs to SMC from single-use plastics: before their consumption (upstream), during consumption, and after consumption (downstream). The indirect costs result from disposal to landfills, litter cleanup, pollution (air, climate, food, land, and water), and pollution-related human health issues.
We estimate SMC generates approximately 42,000 tons of single-use plastics waste each year that is disposed to landfill, to recyclers, or littered in the environment. See Table 1 and Appendix A for more explanation. This is approximately the equivalent of 30,000 Mini-Coopers or 275,000 refrigerators. Per person, the waste amounts to 107 pounds per year, or approximately 5,000 half-liter water bottles or 8,800 plastic grocery bags.
The indirect costs to society result from the consumption and disposal of single-use plastics in SMC but are not included in the point of sale price. We estimate the annual indirect costs to the County of these 42,000 tons to be (see Table 2 and Appendix B for more explanation): ● Disposal of non-recyclable single-use plastics consumed in SMC—$3.1 million
1 Single-use Plastics – A Road to Sustainability, UN environment, 2018, http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11822/25496 6 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
● Litter cleanup of single-use plastics in SMC—$5.9 million ● Ocean pollution cleanup from single-use plastics—$277 million ● Climate change impact from single-use plastics— SMC’s share of global 850 million tons of greenhouse gases or 189 coal plants2 ● Human health consequences of single-use plastics—undetermined; research shows exposure to toxins can cause disease from the single-use plastics lifecycle stages3: ○ Production – ocean pollution > fish > ingestion ○ Consumption – food contact to plastic > ingestion ○ End-of-Life (recycling, litter, incineration) - ocean pollution > fish > ingestion
By reducing use of single-use plastics and replacing them with reusable items in SMC, residents and restaurant owners will benefit. We estimate possible annual savings as follows: ● Residents—$203.1 million from switching to reusable coffee cups and water bottles ● Restaurant owners—$19.2 million from switching to reusable foodware ● Schools—$383,333 from switching to reusable foodware ● Corporate Cafeterias—undetermined
The total avoided costs and added savings could be up to $508 million per year in San Mateo County alone. That is about one-sixth of the entire County’s annual operating budget4. In addition, significant environmental benefits would accrue outside of SMC by reducing the upstream environmental harm of plastics production and the downstream environmental harm of litter and pollution.
Add tables 1 & 2
Table 1 - xxx
Table 2 - xxx
2 Plastic and Climate – The Hidden Cost of a Plastic Planet, Center for International Environmental Law, 5/3/19, https://www.ciel.org/plasticandclimate/ 3 Plastic & Health - The hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, Center for International Environmental Law, February 2019, https://www.ciel.org/plasticandhealth/ 4 County Releases FY 2019-20 Recommended Budget for Adoption, County of San Mateo, 9/10/19, https://cmo.smcgov.org/blog/2019-09-10/county-releases-fy-2019-20-recommended-budget-adoption 7 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
How might we achieve this? Actionable solutions come in the form of local policy changes, incentive programs, and public education, and could include: ● Local policies addressing disposable single-use plastics at restaurants, schools, business cafeterias, and stores. ● Innovative business development focused on plastic-free packaging at retail outlets, and reusable item supply and delivery services where single-use plastics are distributed. ● Countywide programs that help consumers replace disposable water bottles and coffee cups with reusables.
The cost and pervasiveness of single-use plastics in SMC results from decades of cultural, economic, and policy actions. Significantly reducing single-use plastics will require more than one solution as well as cross-sector collaboration of business, government, nonprofit, and youth leaders. While change won’t be fast or easy, we feel it can be non-disruptive as well as economic and environmentally beneficial.
SIDEBAR 1
Top 10 Learnings from This Project (upstream to downstream)
1. 99% of single-use plastics ingredients are fossil fuels, mostly plentiful fracked natural gas and oil. 2. Other ingredients, depending on desired use, are any of thousands of toxic chemicals. 3. Plastics are produced in and near massive petrochemical plants and tanks that release toxins and greenhouse gases equivalent to dozens of coal- fired power plants. 4. Highly pollutive production is mostly in low-income areas; dozens within 80 miles of New Orleans; often in black communities; and with high rates of cancer, heart, and respiratory disease. 5. More than two-thirds of litter in local streets and beaches is from single- use plastic items. 6. Environmental impacts of single-use plastics litter in developing countries, often U.S. produced and consumed, have devastating health and prosperity impacts. 7. Of used plastic, only 2% is effectively recycled, 8% is downcycled into low- value items like carpets or landscaping materials, and 90% ends up in landfills, incinerators or the environment. 8. Since the 2018 shift in China’s recycling import policies, SMC jurisdictions pay up to $70/ton for disposal of single-use plastic that we previously received payment for. 9. Some plastics take 450 years to degrade into micro and nanoparticles that never fully disappear. 10. Humans ingest 5 grams of single-use plastic a week, plus the toxins clinging to them, from ocean fish, bottled water, and other foods.
8 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
I. Collective Impact
Existing Collaboration SMC sustainability leaders, enthusiasts, and residents have been increasingly collaborating to address environmental issues where we live and work. For over a decade, cross-sector cooperation among business, government, nonprofit, and youth has led to innovative resource conservation practices across the disciplines of energy, food, land, transit, waste, and water (see Sidebar 2).
Unfortunately, the County’s sustainability challenges seemingly grow faster than the many shared projects can address. Greenhouse gas emissions and natural resource use, collectively known as ecological footprint, exceed sustainable levels by 400 to 500%, according to research from Bioregional5, UC Berkeley6, and Global Footprint Network7.
5 One Planet Living: making it easier to live happily and sustainably, Bioregional, 6/7/20, https://www.bioregional.com/one-planet-living 6 Consumption-Based Greenhouse Gas Inventories- San Francisco Bay Area, University of California, Berkeley’s CoolClimate Network, 1/6/2016, https://coolclimate.org/inventory 7 Open Data Platform, Global Footprint Network, 2020, https://data.footprintnetwork.org/?_ga=2.147232564.2078323542.1592325770- 2122396080.1592325770#/ 9 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Meanwhile, large challenges loom, including the transition to carbon-free homes and transit, the impact of food waste and landfill methane, and the consequences of environmental pollution in low-income communities. Growing awareness of these struggles, past, present, and future, and the existential threats from climate change, has prompted SMC students to march to lawmakers’ offices8 and voice concerns at public meetings.
Figure 1: Pescadero High School Student, Sophie, at the March 2019 SF Youth Climate Strike rally in Union Square
Collective Impact Approach With the conviction that new cross-sector partnerships are needed to address a myriad of growing and interconnected ecological challenges, and after 18 months convening diverse environment and sustainability leaders to unify their voices and influence, Thrive Alliance formed an Impact Group in January 2020. We elected to study the large and concerning resource conservation issue of pervasive single-use plastics in SMC as a first topic to tackle.
The focus on single-use plastics originated from perceived challenges and opportunities by Thrive leadership as follows: ● High visibility, cross-community challenge with robust public support ● Strong youth interest including students seeking climate change action ● Recent introduction of federal, state, and local governmental policies ● Significant existing research and innovation on challenges and alternatives ● Cross-discipline, multi-stakeholder interest
Furthermore, as single-use plastics is a symptom of larger waste management issues, learnings from this project may help transition countywide commerce to a more circular economy.
By April, the group included 30 members ready to test a collective impact approach, defined by John Kania & Mark Kramer as “the commitment of a group of important actors from different
8 San Mateo students walk out for global climate strike, ABC7News, 9/20/19, https://abc7news.com/society/san-mateo-students-walk-out-for-global-climate-strike-/5555951/ 10 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem9.” With strong community support, Thrive formally launched the Reduce & Rethink Single-use Plastics in SMC Impact Group with diverse participation: ● Cross-sector—business (1), government (11), nonprofit (12), youth (6) ● Cross-discipline—beach and marine conservation (10), climate change (4), litter (4), waste management (12)
These individuals are affiliated with the following 25 organizations: ● Business—Byrd's Filling Station ● Government—City of Burlingame, City of Half Moon Bay, City of Millbrae, City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County, RethinkWaste, San Francisco Bay Water Quality Control Board, San Mateo Resource Conservation District, San Mateo County Community College District, County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability ● Nonprofit—Grassroots Ecology, Marine Science Institute, Pacific Beach Coalition, Plastic Free Pacifica, Save our Shores, Sea Hugger, SUPER (Single-Use Plastic Elimination or Reduction), Surfrider Foundation’s San Mateo County Chapter, The Nature Conservancy, Thrive Alliance ● Youth—Crystal Springs Uplands High School, Heirs to Our Oceans, Menlo-Atherton High School, Nueva High School
From April to July, the Impact Group conducted research for this paper to educate the community and government decision makers on the negative impacts of single-use plastics in SMC, provide language and frameworks for further discussion, and highlight alternatives and solutions.
By December 2020, we aim to identify and propose viable solutions to reduce the impacts of single-use plastic in the form of local policy changes, incentive programs, and public education.
We would be remiss if we did not mention that immediately after our launch, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted this project. Since then, a resurgence of plastic bags, food takeout packaging, and disposable gloves and masks have flooded our waste systems. To make matters worse, coffee shops rejected handling customers’ reusable cups, policy makers placed a temporary ban on reusable bags in six Bay Area counties10, and some U.S.-based waste haulers temporarily halted recycling programs11, though not in SMC.
Prior to the pandemic, cities around the world were adopting plastic bag bans. Statewide plastic straw waste awareness was increasing. Bay Area consumers were going a step further by creating a new social norm of bringing their own reusable cups to coffee shops and bubble tea sellers.
9 Collective Impact, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011, https://ssir.org/articles/entry/collective_impact 10 Six Bay Area counties ban use of reusable bags at grocery stores, SF Chronicle, 4/7/2020 https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Six-Bay-Area-counties-ban-use-of-reusable-bags-at- 15182959.php 11 Municipalities suspend recycling due to coronavirus impact on prison labor, broader safety concerns, WasteDive, 3/18/20, https://www.wastedive.com/news/recycling-mrfs-prison-labor- suspensions-coronavirus-covid-19/574301/ 11 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
In SMC, Genentech12 cafeterias moved away from disposable utensils and containers. Oracle Green Teams replaced paper coffee cups with reusable mugs. The City of Pacifica was the first in the County to adopt an ordinance to ban plastic straws, stirrers, and cutlery13 on 10/22/18. Recently, the County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability advanced a new Disposable Foodservice Ordinance14 that has been adopted by councilmembers in Atherton15 (6/17/20), Burlingame16 (5/4/20), and South San Francisco17 (3/25/20), and the Board of Supervisors for unincorporated SMC18 (2/25/20).
12 Institutional Case Study: Genentech’s Café B33, Rethink Disposable, 2017, https://www.rethinkdisposable.org/file/358/download?token=SqpkwA7E 13 Ordinance No. 838-C.S, City of Pacifica, 11/13/18, https://www.cityofpacifica.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=14937 14 Disposable Foodservice Ware Ordinance, San Mateo County Office of Sustainability, June 2020, https://www.smcsustainability.org/disposable-food-service-ware-ordinance/ 15 City Council meeting minutes, Town of Atherton, 6/17/20, https://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3383 16 Disposable Foodservice Ware, City of Burlingame, 2020, https://www.burlingame.org/departments/sustainability/disposable_food_service_ware.php 17 City of South San Francisco Regulates the Use of Disposable Foodservice Ware by Food Facilities, ssf.net, 2020 https://www.ssf.net/home/showdocument?id=18884 18 County supervisors adopt ban on non-compostable foodware, The Almanac, 3/14/2020, https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2020/03/14/county-supervisors-adopt-ban-on-noncompostable- foodware 12 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 2
Examples of Recent Innovative Resource Conservation Practices in SMC
● Climate—Broad community advocacy helped pass the 8/17/19 County of San Mateo Board of Supervisors’ Climate Emergency Declaration19 pursuing carbon neutral emissions by 2045 (See Figure 2). ● Energy—2016 collaborative launch of Peninsula Clean Energy by city and county elected officials and staff, with strong public advisory, which now provides near carbon-free electricity for buildings and transit. ● Food—Cross-sector San Mateo County Food System Alliance, formed in 2006, now directs healthy and vibrant food, farming, and fishing advancements. ● Land—Public-private land acquisition and preservation, leveraging 2014 Measure AA funds, now guides public and ecosystem health. ● Transit—Bike, pedestrian, and affordable transit advocates partner with government and philanthropy on programs and policies, like 2018 Measure W, to address safety and congestion. ● Waste—County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability’s 2019-2020 4Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot–Compost) Grants Program supports nonprofit action on plastic, organic, and other waste. ● Water—Menlo Park’s West Bay Sanitary District is now working with a private golf club to recycle water for course irrigation and other corporate and industrial uses.
Figure 2: San Mateo County Board of Supervisors Meeting – September 17, 2019
19 Board of Supervisors Declare Climate Emergency in San Mateo County, County of San Mateo, 9/17/19, https://cmo.smcgov.org/blog/2019-09-17/board-supervisors-declare-climate-emergency-san- mateo-county 13 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
II. The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County Single-use plastics are fast-consumed plastics typically used while eating, and for food, beverage and consumer product packaging. They are manufactured from chemicals extracted from oil, natural gas, and coal, and shaped into products of different color, size, durability, and weight. These items account for nearly 50% of all plastic waste20 and can be grouped into six categories: foodservice, beverage bottles and lids, bags, product packaging, shipping materials and cigarette butts that are made of cellulose acetate plastic fiber.
This is the story of single-use plastics in San Mateo County—where they come from, how they are used, and what happens thereafter.
To tell the story, we need to establish a common language of the five stages of single-use plastic products’ lifecycle and where they occur: 1. Extraction—of raw materials, mainly fossil fuels, from the earth (outside SMC) 2. Production—from chemicals to plastic products (outside SMC) 3. Distribution—from factory to consumer (starts outside, ends in SMC) 4. Consumption—of the fast-used plastic products (in SMC)
20 Single-use Plastics – A Road to Sustainability, UN environment, 2018, http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11822/25496 14 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
5. End-of-Life—from user to final resting point (starts in SMC, ends both in and outside SMC)
Figure 3: Plastic Production Lifecycle
The following two terms can be used to further simplify the story: ● Upstream—everything before consumption ● Downstream—everything after consumption
Most of the lifecycle of single-use plastics that we observe locally is in the consumption stage. Yet before and after, plastics travel across the U.S. and around the globe creating significant indirect costs in the form of air, climate, food, land, and water pollution, and pollution-related human health issues.
Now, to visualize the story, imagine you are far above SMC looking down at the story of single- use plastics. Below in Burlingame21, a friend of yours, Chris, orders food to-go from a fast- casual restaurant and is given a plastic bag with his food packaged in a plastic container, a set of plastic utensils wrapped in a plastic bag, and a hand wipe in a plastic-lined aluminum pouch. Chris then stops by a supermarket to get a soda in a plastic bottle and a candy bar in a plastic wrapper and returns home to eat.
21 This story applies to the 12 member agencies of the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (SBWMA), a joint powers authority also known as RethinkWaste: Town of Atherton, City of Belmont, City of Burlingame, City of East Palo Alto, City of Foster City, Town of Hillsborough, City of Menlo Park, City of Redwood City, City of San Carlos, City of San Mateo, the County of San Mateo and the West Bay Sanitary District. 15 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
NEED TO ADD BAG Figure 4: Chris' Items
By using the plastic packaging for these food, beverage and hand wipe items, the plastics are pulled through their lifecycle, from distribution to end-of-life, in less than an hour. Let’s take a closer look at the lifecycle of these items.
Upstream—From Origin to Burlingame Well before reaching Burlingame, there are environmental pollution and human health costs for each plastic item. The negative impacts come from the extraction of fossil fuels used as raw materials, the non-renewable energy used, and toxic waste generated to manufacture the items, and the fuel used to transport the items from factory to consumer.
Extraction (outside SMC)—While many similar paths exist, the fossil fuel ingredient in Chris’ food, soda, candy, and hand wipe packaging might have been fracked from the land in North Dakota, then propelled through the Dakota Access and Bayou Bridge pipelines in the Midlands, before arriving at an ethane cracker plant in St. James, Louisiana, about 60 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans.22
Production (outside SMC)—99%23 of plastic raw ingredients come from oil or natural gas. The single-use plastic packaging for Chris’ items might have been manufactured at this southern Louisiana cracker plant, owned by a chemical or oil company, that uses high heat to crack ethane into material for their final product.
Distribution (starts outside, ends in SMC)—The plastic packaging products are then flown, shipped, or trucked to facilities that package products for consumers, and are then transported
22 Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is Getting Even More Toxic — But Residents Are Fighting Back, Rolling Stone, Oct 30 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/louisiana-cancer-alley- getting-more-toxic-905534/ 23 Fossil Fuels & Plastic, Center for International Environmental Law, June 2020, https://www.ciel.org/issue/fossil-fuels-plastic 16 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County to foodservice or retail locations in SMC like the two locations Chris patronized, all using fossil fuel powered vehicles.
While well out of Chris’ vantage and influence, fracking and cracker plant locations, unfortunately, tend to be located in lower income areas, and release both toxins and greenhouse gases into the environment. One area with a highly concentrated number of cracker plants is known as Cancer Alley, an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and is labeled for its elevated toxic emissions which are known to cause asthma, cancer, cardiovascular and heart disease, and developmental disorders.
Table—Plastic Product Lifecycle with Locations and Impacts – NEED TO REPLACE??
Lifecycle Stage & Pollution Climate Health Locations Impact Impact
Air Food Land Water Raw Material Extraction (Upstream) Oil or natural gas drilling or fracking Production (Upstream) Crackers plants’ extreme -- -- heat turns ethane gas into resins & plastics Distribution (Upstream) By air, land or water to ------
foodservice locations, stores, business and homes
Consumption
At all distribution locations ------plus open spaces End-of-Life (Downstream) To 1) recycling plants, 2) incineration plants, 3)
landfills, 4) environment
17 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Downstream—From Burlingame to Final Destination After finishing dinner, soda, and candy bar, and unwrapping the hand wipe, all of Chris’ plastic packaging enters the waste stream, within an hour of being pulled from the distribution stage of its lifecycle. These plastic items will end up in either ● Recycling plants ● Incinerators ● Landfills ● Public spaces, waterways, and waterbodies as litter
As an aspirational recycler, Chris puts the container with black bottom and clear top, soda bottle and lid, utensils, and restaurant plastic bag in the blue recycling bin supplied by the private waste management company Recology San Mateo County that serves Burlingame residents. In the black bin, also supplied by Recology, Chris puts the plastic candy wrapper, utensil plastic bag, and hand wipe pouch. Figure 5: Journey of Products at End-of-Life
Unfortunately, not all SMC residents, like Chris, place their plastics in the correct bins. In this case, the black container bottom, utensils, and restaurant plastic bag should have gone in the black bin. In other cases, pouches and wrappers may end up in blue recycling bins, while clear plastic containers and bottle lids might end up in the black bin.
Table 3 – Chris’ single use plastic items – by recyclability, bin & destination
Even worse, some of these lightweight plastic items escape both bins and become litter on streets and open spaces and might end up in storm drains that flow to the San Francisco Bay or Pacific Ocean. Of equal concern, some plastics shipped to recyclers outside the County may be incinerated or littered, rather than melted into raw materials for new plastic products. While uncommon for plastic waste generated in SMC, it still may happen if the receiving recycling business chooses not to repurpose all materials accepted, and instead discards the plastic in a manner that pollutes the environment.
18 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
There are a variety of downstream pathways for Chris’ consumed plastic packaging and this seemingly simple story is actually quite multifaceted.
Below is a more detailed explanation of the possible downstream paths when entering the waste stream in any of the 12 RethinkWaste member agencies, all serviced by Recology San Mateo County, including Atherton, Belmont, Burlingame, East Palo Alto, Foster City, Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo, West Bay Sanitary District and parts of unincorporated SMC. These jurisdictions collectively account for 60% of the County’s population.
In the remaining 10 cities—Brisbane, Colma, Daly City, Half Moon Bay, Millbrae, Pacifica, Portola Valley, San Bruno, South San Francisco, and Woodside—the seven other waste haulers in the County (GreenWaste, Kunz Valley Trash, Recology of the Coast, Recology Peninsula Services, Recology San Bruno, Republic Services of Daly City, Republic Services of Half Moon Bay, and South San Francisco Scavenger) may use alternate locations.
SIDEBAR 3
Recycling plastics, what the numbers mean
Figure 6: Seven Types of Plastics
19 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Path 1. Soda bottle & container lid (recycling symbol 1-2) in Blue Bins → Sent Outside SMC—Once placed in the blue bin with other recyclable items including cardboard, glass, metals, and mixed-paper, the plastic items with recycling symbols 1-2, such as the soda bottle and container lid, are hauled to the materials recovery facility (MRF, sometimes pronounced ‘merf’) at the Shoreway Environmental Center owned by RethinkWaste in San Carlos. They are then sorted and bundled with other plastics with recycling symbols 1-2, shipped to a recycling plant in the U.S. or abroad (none exist in SMC), and then take three possible paths: ● 1A. Effectively recycled—melted into raw material that is of similar quality and for similar plastic products ● 1B. Downcycled—melted into raw materials of lesser value and for lower-quality plastic products that must be disposed, not recycled ● 1C. Polluted into the environment via: ○ Incineration—heated to extract energy which pollutes air and water, and results in toxic ash that must be buried in special landfills24 ○ Litter—released into public spaces, waterways, or waterbodies ○ Landfill—redirected to landfill if deemed unworthy of recycling
Based on CalRecycle reports, we estimate single-use plastics with recycling symbols 1-2 to be approximately 33% of all single-use plastics in our waste stream25 26. Unfortunately, they are seldom effectively recycled. In fact, path 1B (downcycled) is four times more likely than 1A as “plastic polymer chains get shorter when they are recycled, which means the quality deteriorates.” Plastic bottles, specifically, can only be recycled back into bottles a few times before ending up as clothing, construction materials, or other products that are seldom reprocessed and end up in landfill.27
While path 1C (polluted into the environment) is uncommon for plastic waste generated in SMC, it still may occur if the receiving recycling business chooses not to repurpose all materials accepted, and instead discards the plastic in a manner that pollutes the environment.
Path 2. Container bottom and carry bag (recycling symbols 3-7) in Blue Bins → Landfilled near Half Moon Bay—The other 67% of single-use plastics in SMC are not recyclable since China dramatically changed recycling import policies in 2018 (see Sidebar 3). They first go to the MRF in San Carlos where they are then sent to the transfer station next door, then subsequently loaded in large haul trucks for a 12-mile trip over Highway 92 to the Ox Mountain landfill near Half Moon Bay, SMC’s only landfill.
24 In Singapore, where trash becomes ash, plastics are still a problem, The World, 6/6/18, https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-06-06/singapore-where-trash-becomes-ash-plastics-are-still-problem 25 CalRecycle, 2018 Disposal-Facility-Based Characterization of Solid Waste in California, 2020, https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/Index 26 CalRecycle Waste Characterization Web Tool: Commercial Waste Stream—Material Type Data Export, CalRecycle, 6/18/20, www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/WasteCharacterization/MaterialTypeStreams%3fcy%3d41%26lg%3d1041%26b g%3d%26mtf%3d 27 BRANDED Vol. II—Identifying the World’s Top Corporate Plastic Polluters, Break Free From Plastic, 9/21/2019, www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2019/9/23/break-free-from-plastic-conducts- massive-global-brand-audit-actions 20 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 4
China National Sword Policy, 2018
RethinkWaste, 2020 Over the past several years, China’s National Sword and related international policies have drastically curtailed export markets for recyclable commodities generated in the United States. On March 1, 2018, China established a highly stringent standard for the amount of allowable physical contaminants in recyclable commodities. Subsequently, several other major importing countries of recyclable commodities in Southeast Asia have followed suit or have expressed intent to do so. As a result, the value of exported recyclable commodities has plummeted, and in some cases, now has a negative value (exporters pay importers to receive goods). [ 2020 Long Range Plan (2020–2024)28]
CalRecycle, 2019 The National Sword policy was put in place to halt the environmental damages caused by the importation of scrap plastics. Images and stories of the environmental harm and human health impacts from mishandled or contaminated plastic residue in Southeast Asia captured the attention and concern of the global community. The coverage highlighted the practice of developed countries shipping hard-to-recycle plastics causing environmental damages to developing countries. [2018 California Exports of Recyclable Materials September 16, 201929]
Path 3. Utensils, utensil bag, hand wipe pouch & candy bar wrapper (recycling symbols 3-7) in Black Bins → Landfilled near Half Moon Bay—Any plastic with recycling symbols 1-7 erroneously placed in black bins are hauled to the San Carlos transfer station and then trucked 12 miles to the Ox Mountain landfill for disposal. Unfortunately, none are screened for possible recycling and those with that are eligible (symbols 1-2) will instead go to landfill.
Path 4. Littered in SMC—Even responsible people sometimes overpack their trash or recycling bin or drop a piece of plastic waste outside. This lightweight item is then carried onto streets or waterways, and sometimes collected before entering a water stream that feeds into a local creek and ultimately to the San Francisco Bay or Pacific Ocean. Collection, usually part of a city or county’s pollution prevention program (see Sidebar 4), is conducted manually by city staff or volunteers at beach cleanups, machine-assisted street cleaning vehicles, or vacuum trucks that suck the debris from inside a storm drain.
28 RethinkWaste Board Resources, RethinkWaste, 2020, https://rethinkwaste.org/about/board-of- directors/board-resources/ 29 Publication Summary—2018 California Exports of Recyclable Materials, CalRecycle, 9/16/19, https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/Details/1657 21 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 5
San Mateo Countywide Water Pollution Prevention Program (SMCWPPP)
The Federal Clean Water Act and the California Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act require that urban areas discharging stormwater into the San Francisco Bay or the Pacific Ocean receive a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to show they are conducting activities that prevent harmful pollutants from being dumped or washed by stormwater runoff, into the stormwater system, and then discharged into local water bodies.
The San Mateo Countywide Water Pollution Prevention Program (SMCWPPP) was established in 1990 to reduce the pollution carried by stormwater into local creeks, the San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. The program is a partnership of the City/County Association of Governments (C/CAG), each incorporated city and town in the county, and the County of San Mateo, which share a common NPDES permit. More info: https://ccag.ca.gov/programs/stormwater/
Viewing from above SMC, which path did Chris’ single-use plastics take? In this story, we would need more information to make that determination.
Items with recycling symbol #1-2 only make up 33% of all single-use plastics in our waste stream, and knowing 67% of plastics in the blue bin and 100% of plastics in the black bin go to local landfills, our estimate is that 15% of all plastics is effectively recycled or downcycled while the rest is landfilled.
Now back on the ground in Burlingame, you tap Chris on the shoulder catch up as follows:
You: “Hey Chris, why don’t we take a look at Recology San Mateo County’s website to see which plastic items go into the blue bins and which go into the black bins. Then we can re-sort last night’s plastic packaging and correct any errors. Oh, and let’s make sure you close your bins tight.”
Chris: “What? You mean some of the plastics I put in the blue bin will not get recycled?”
You: “Well, I’m not sure!” (You’re now dreaming of the soda bottle returning to a supermarket shelf nearby.)
You: “But there’s a good chance some of those items will be melted down under extreme heat and turned into carpets or clothing that when disposed, regretfully will go to landfill. That’s called downcycling.”
22 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Unfortunately, because of the China National Sword policies and with our current recycling systems in SMC very few of you recycling dreams may come true. Rather, a more effective pathway for SMC is a shift to a new story without any dependence on recycling markets. One where Chris outright refuses single-use plastics and shifts entirely over to reusable items.
Now, let’s widen our view single-use plastic waste streams across the county. Figure 7 shows the 20 cities, 8 waste haulers, 3 transfer stations, 2 MRFs, and 1 landfill in SMC. Outside our borders, a small portion of disposed waste is sent outside of SMC, primarily for residents of Portola Valley and Woodside, and about 25% of curbside recycling goes outside SMC, mainly for residents of Broadmoor, Daly City, El Granada, Half Moon Bay, Pacifica, Portola Valley, San Bruno, and Woodside.
Figure 7: Map of waste management companies in SMC
23 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
III. Defining Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County Single-use plastics are fast-consumed plastics typically used while eating, and for food, beverage and consumer product packaging. They are manufactured from chemicals extracted from oil, natural gas, and coal, and shaped into products of different color, size, durability, and weight. They are primarily found in SMC restaurants and foodservice locations, grocery and other stores, and in packaging of shipped goods.
How much do we use in SMC each year? We can look to our waste streams – both properly managed and littered waste – and see approximately 42,000 tons of single-use plastics are consumed annually.
And what percentage is recycled? As shown in Section II, the post-consumption value of each type of single use plastic varies. based on color, size, and quality. For single-use plastics placed in a blue bin in Recology San Mateo County’s geography, those with recycling symbols 3-7s have no resale value and sent to landfill. Those with recycling symbols 1-2 currently generate post-use revenue and are sold to recyclers unless they are: • Black – cannot be scanned and are sent to landfill • Small – skip through scanners and are sent to landfill (HOW SMALL?) • Other?
24 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Based on CalRecycle reports, we estimate … 1-2 about 33% of all single-use plastics in our waste stream and the rest are 67%3031.
PIE CHART 1-2 -- beverage bottles, clear cups, and milk jugs 3-7 such as bags, food tubs, party cups and utensils,
As a framework for further discussion, we classified single-use plastics in the following six categories: 1. Foodservice 2. Beverage bottles and lids 3. Carrier and produce bags 4. Product packaging 5. Shipping materials 6. Cigarette butts
Figure 8: Six Categories of Single-Use Plastics
Below are explanations of each category, specific to SMC.
Foodservice
30 CalRecycle, 2018 Disposal-Facility-Based Characterization of Solid Waste in California, 2020, https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/Index 31 CalRecycle Waste Characterization Web Tool: Commercial Waste Stream—Material Type Data Export, CalRecycle, 6/18/20, www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/WasteCharacterization/MaterialTypeStreams%3fcy%3d41%26lg%3d1041%26bg%3d%26mtf%3d 25 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
These single-use plastic items are mainly to serve prepared food or beverages for take-out, dine in, or delivery are found in restaurants, school and corporate cafeterias, markets, hospitals, and at events. They consist of cups, plateware, take-out containers & bags, accessories, and condiment packages.
Extrapolating information from a February 2020 study funded by The Overbrook Foundation32, we believe these to be about 15% of all single-use plastics in SMC. Also, from the report, 75% of foodservice disposables are for takeout, 20% for dine-in, and the rest for delivery. However, our research cited in Section VI shows a current shift towards delivery.
Table 4 - Foodservice single-use plastics recyclability, based on authors’ estimates, by likelihood of PET (#1) or HDPE (#2) material
Single-Use Plastic Item Often Sometimes Never Recyclable in Recyclable in Recyclable in SMC SMC SMC Cold beverage cups & lids X Hot beverage cups (plastic lined) & lids X Plateware - plates, bowls and trays X Take-away containers of all sizes X Take-away bags of all sizes X Accessories - utensils, straws, stirrers, X stoppers, toothpicks Condiment packages X
Cold beverage cups and lids are the highest volume in the foodservice category, often carry symbols #1-2 and thus are often recyclable. Hot beverage cups mostly include a plastic paper lining and are only sometimes recyclable.
SF Environment 300 million disposable cups are used in San Francisco estimates (883,000 population) each year.33 The City of Berkeley estimates the city use 40 million single use cups are used in the Berkeley (122,000 population) every year34. Based on this data, we estimate more than 250 million disposable cups are used in SMC (775,000 population) each year., Recycling Advocates estimates that 50 million disposable coffee cups are used in the Portland Metro (2.5 million residents) area per year35. Based on this data, we estimate of 95% of disposable cups used in SMC are for cold beverages and 5% are for hot beverages, all used at food facilities, events, and at home,
32 The Dirty Truth About Disposable Foodware, The Overbrook Foundation, February 2020, https://www.upstreamsolutions.org/blogs/the-dirty-truth-about-disposable-foodware 33 New Ordinance Tackles Plastic Waste and Litter, Makes Dining in San Francisco More Eco- friendly, SF Environment, June 2020, https://sfenvironment.org/news/update/the-plastic-and-litter- reduction-ordinance-will-eliminate-sources-of-litter-while-making-the-san-francisco-dining-experience- more 34 Referral Response: Berkeley Single Use Foodware and Litter Reduction Ordinance, City of Berkeley, 1/22/19, http://berkeley.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=5&clip_id=3945&meta_id=282898 35 Single Use Coffee Cup Reduction, Recycling Advocates, June 2020, http://www.recyclingadvocates.org/single-use-coffee-cup-reduction/ 26 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Cold bubble tea beverages have become very common in retail shopping locations in SMC and are popular with teenagers. Fortune Business Insights projects global market growth of 8% per year through 2026 for bubble tea retail sales36. Typically, these beverages are served in non- recyclable plastic cups, accompanied by plastic lids and plastic straws. We foresee the segment’s single-use plastics cups waste to be a growing challenge for SMC.
With the growth of restaurant take-away and delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also believe the takeaway containers and bags category is growing fast. Furthermore, based on our personal experience, we believe some take out order for a family of four can contain as many as 20 plastic containers of different sizes and shapes. These orders often contain many sets of utensils without the chance for the purchaser to request they not be included.
While all items in this category are pervasive and result in large indirect costs for SMC, each has readily available replacements, including compostable or reusable items, which are explored further in Section VII.
Beverage Bottles and Lids Across the globe, around 500 billion plastic beverage bottles are used and disposed of every year, equivalent to 1 million bottles every minute. Coca Cola alone produced 117 billion plastic bottles in 2018 using approximately 3 billion kilograms of plastic, the highest of all consumer product companies.37 Others include Pepsi Co and Nestle.
Water is the most purchased plastic bottled beverage in the U.S., with 2,000 sold every second. The bottles are the third highest trash item found on beaches worldwide. They are PET (#1) as are their lids and can be recycled if they are placed into the proper receptacle and hauled to an MFR that can sort, bundle and ship them to a recycling plant.
Table 5 - Beverage bottle and Lids single-use plastics recyclability, based on authors’ estimates, by likelihood of PET (#1) or HDPE (#2) material
Single-Use Plastic Item Often Sometimes Never Recyclable in Recyclable in Recyclable in SMC SMC SMC Water bottles and lids X Soda and other beverage bottles X Soda and other beverage lids X
Not surprisingly, there is a simple replacement—a reusable water bottle, which is even more effective when there is access to refill fountains.
36 Bubble Tea Market Analysis, Growth, Trends, Report Forecast 2026, Fortune Business Insights, 5/21/20, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/05/21/2037203/0/en/Bubble-Tea-Market- Analysis-Growth-Trends-Report-Forecast-2026-Fortune-Business-Insights.html 37 How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades, Rolling Stone Magazine, 3/3/20, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/plastic-problem-recycling- myth-big-oil-950957/ 27 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Soda bottles are typically PET (#1) and readily recyclable. Globally, Coca Cola reports that only 52% of their bottles are recycled each year38. In California, CalRecycle states 9.2 billion (67.5%) of 12.4 billion bottles sold statewide in 2019 [WHAT ARE 2018 Figure 9: NUMBERS & SOURCE- ASK SALLY) were recycled. Extrapolating to SMC, 170 millions of 245 million bottles sold were recycled.
Furthermore, plastic bottles can only be recycled a few times into the same quality of plastics. After that they can be turned into other nonrecyclable products that will eventually end up in landfill. Figure 7:
Unfortunately, soda bottle caps are usually made from polypropylene (#5) and are not recyclable. Additionally, unrecyclable caps are found on glass and carton beverage containers, and, therefore, far exceed the number of bottles consumed each year.
Product Packaging
Many single-sue plastics for food and product packaging are highly engineered and designed for specialized purposes. As many durable products may be designed without consideration of Figure 10 – Save Our Shores graphic packaging options or number of items shipped at a time, they may be over-packaged and with poorly designed packaging. As such, single-use plastic packaging types have proliferated and are harder to classify; and the actions to reduce their pervasiveness may be less obvious. As such, they are also much harder to recycle, if at all.
38 Sustainable Business, Coca Cola, June 2020, https://www.coca-colacompany.com/sustainable- business 28 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 11: Trader Joe’s Plastic Packaging Cookies (Leonie Leonida, The Daily Californian, 8/27/19)
Figure 12: Trader Joe’s Austin, TX Plastic Packaging Cheese (Madbetty.com)
Figure 13: Vegetables at Trader Joe’s are wrapped in plastic (Mariel Garza /Los Angeles Times, 4/11/19)
29 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Herein lies a massive challenge single-use plastics packaging types and amounts. For these items, municipalities and taxpayers end up subsidizing increased waste management fees for over-packaged and poorly designed products and single-use packaging that are placed in blue bins, sent to an MRF, and then reclassified as disposable waste. One approach to addressing this concern is to place the responsibly of disposing of products and packaging on the original manufacturer. This concept is called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
Referencing these items, the B.A.N. LIST 2.0 publication states:
“Recycling must always come second, after reduction. The new narrative is about less waste, not solely waste management on the citizens’ dime,”
“Extended Producer Responsivity (EPR) is about corporations transforming their product delivery systems to align with a circular economy,” and
It is imperative that corporations step up to the plate, be accountable for product design failures, and work on the solutions outlined in this report. B.A.N. List 2.0 is about equitable accountability between industry, government, and consumers. With shared responsibility, solutions will come.”
As stated by Break Free From Plastics’ annual waste collection report, the following 2019 Top 10 Global Polluters by original manufacturer are Coca Cola, Nestle, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Unilever, Mars, PG&E, Colgate-Palmolive, Phillip Morris, and Perfetti Van Mille 39.
Table 6 - Product packaging and other single-use plastics recyclability by likelihood of being made of PET (#1) or HDPE (#2)
Single-Use Plastic Item Often Sometimes Never Recyclable Recyclable Recyclable Food packaging containers, films and X wrappers Consumer product packaging X Packing materials X Food bags for produce and baked goods X Cigarette butts X
Because of this complexity and proliferation, CalRecycle has changed their categorization of plastics over the years, recently using one framework with 11 classifications including three just for plastic film: • Non-Bag Commercial and Industrial Packaging Film used for large-scale packaging or transport packaging, • Film Products used for purposes other than packaging, and • Other Film for all other that does not fit into any other type.
39 BRANDED Vol. II—Identifying the World’s Top Corporate Plastic Polluters, Break Free From Plastic, 9/21/2019, www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2019/9/23/break-free-from-plastic-conducts- massive-global-brand-audit-actions 30 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
The framework’s Miscellaneous Plastic Containers is exhaustively defined as plastic containers made of types of plastic other than HDPE or PETE with or without a CRV label. Items may be made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), or mixed resins. When marked for identification, these items may bear the number 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 in the triangular recycling symbol. This type also includes plastic containers that do not have the triangular recycling symbol. Examples include hardware and fastener packaging, food containers such as bottles for salad dressings and vegetable oils, flexible and brittle yogurt cups, syrup bottles, margarine tubs, microwave food trays, and clamshell-shaped fast food containers. This type also includes some shampoo containers, vitamin bottles, foam egg cartons, and clamshell-like muffin containers.
The other seven classifications are PETE Plastic Containers, HDPE Plastic Containers, Plastic Trash Bags, Plastic Grocery and Other Merchandise Bags, Durable Plastic Items - #2 and #5 Bulky Rigids Durable Plastic Items, and Remainder / Composite Plastic.
[Based on the table Sally constructed, we can provide #s & %s for non-food SUP. Some #s were surprising like the garbage bags (20%!). This is good to be able to say plastic grocery / merchandise bags are 4%. Also packaging/shipping films are 31%! Another huge portion, which we need product companies to work on reducing that waste.)
Bags, Shipping Materials, and Cigarette Butts Of these three types of single-use plastics section, almost none of its items are recyclable and thus must be hauled to landfills at a considerable cost to the consumer, business, and local residents.
No ifs, ands, or...BUT TS Bags The truth about cigarette butts
Cigarette butts are the 3 OUT OF 4 The BAN 2.0 - Better Alternatives Now report calls plastic bags “escape TRASH SMOKERS #1ITEM 98% found on beaches of all butts artists,” for “blowing out of trash cans, landfills, getting stuck in trees and report they are made of WORLDWIDE litter their PLASTIC which means cigarette butts they take tall fences, as well as clogging storm water drains, all of which They aren’t just YEARS to are added costs to municipal waste management and create urban blight.” litter. They’re DECOMPOSE They contain TOXIC CHEMICALS Plastic cause damage to sea and land animals upon ingestion, and including TOXIC WASTE ARSENIC & NICOTINE OVER polluting water bodies -- lakes, rivers, beaches, and ocean. They can also that leach into 4.5 our ocean and can TRILLION butts are HARM MARINE LIFE thrown away damage MRF machinery and cause shutdowns. SAVEOURSHORES.ORG each year
Sources for this document include the Truth Initiative, Santa Cruz Tobacco Education Coalition, and the Ocean Conservancy Recology San Mateo County’s Which Bin webpage states “Most grocery Figure 14 – Save Our Shores graphic stores take back plastic bags for recycling. If you cannot take them back, please reuse them and then toss them in the garbage cart.”
CalRecycle website states “California does require major grocery stores to have plastic bag collection bins on site through the At-Store Recycling Program.” A different page states “The At- Store Recycling Program remained in effect until January 1, 2020, when it was repealed (Public Resources Code Chapter 5.1 sections 42250 through 42257).” As of this writing, the authors are unsure if bags delivered to a grocery store are recycled and for what purpose.
31 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Fortunately, plastic carry out bags have been banned at all California retailers. However, they are still widely distributed at restaurants. And produce bags are still readily available at all grocery stores.
Shipping Materials
Amazon.com combined with our culture of convenience has multiplied the amount of packages delivered to our homes and businesses, and a corresponding amount of plastic – bubble lined mailers envelopes, “air pillows”, and bags. A new survey commissioned by Oceana found that 54% of polled Amazon customers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada have been doing more online shopping throughout the pandemic.
“When asked to comment on Oceana’s survey, Amazon said it's moving to packaging that's compatible with either the paper or plastic recycling streams. In North America, Amazon said it's working to double the number of fully recyclable cushioned mailers, and in Europe it's expanding its use of paper mailing bags and paperboard envelops.
"We are looking across our entire operations network to incorporate more of our own recycled plastic in products, packaging, and operational processes," Amazon said.”40
Cigarette Butts
While CalRecycle does not include cigarette butts in their plastic categorization, they include cellulose acetate plastic fiber and are not recyclable in SMC. TerraCycle does recycle cigarette butts but must be shipped outside SMC to do so41. Furthermore, butts are littered into the environment at high volumes and also include toxic chemicals including arsenic, nicotine, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals that can harm the ocean and enter our marine life food systems42.
There is already proposed state legislation (SB 424) to ban cigarettes with filters which also deals with problematic smoking related products like e-cigarettes and batteries.
40 Amazon packages are awash in plastic. How much of it is actually recyclable?, Oceana, 7/27/20, https://oceana.org/blog/amazon-packages-are-awash-plastic-how-much-it-actually-recyclable 41 Cigarette Waste Recycling Program. TerraCycle, June 2020, https://www.terracycle.com/en- US/brigades/cigarette-waste-recycling#how-it-works 42 Toxicity of cigarette butts, and their chemical components, to marine and freshwater fish, 5/20/11, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3088407/ 32 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 6
Plastics BAN List – Worst Offenders and Better Alternatives43
# 1. Food Wrappers & Containers - Beyond the sheer number of littered cigarette butts, food wrappers and other food packaging are the most prevalent item found in California’s environment. From potato chip bags and candy wrappers, to cookie and cracker trays, single- use disposable packaging is everywhere. The impacts are seen on California’s beaches and in the trillions of plastic particles floating in the ocean, where they accumulate toxic chemicals and are ingested by marine wildlife.
Better Alternatives - Grocers and food-service establishments can help by encouraging the bulk purchase of snacks and other foods in reusable containers. Made-to-order snacks and baked goods can be delivered with a minimum of non-plastic, biodegradable packaging. Consumers can help by eating less processed, pre-packaged foods and choosing healthier options. We recognize that plastic helps to provide important product protection through sealing out contaminants that can spoil food. Innovation can play a critical role. Consumer goods and foodservice companies should invest in truly biodegradable packaging technologies that allow comparable levels of product protection—without harm.
# 7. Cigarettes Because cigarettes are purchased in packs of 20, for the purposes of this report, we assessed their prevalence by the pack. The ubiquity of cigarette butts, despite increases in municipal ordinances to curb smoking in public spaces, suggests that the public still misunderstands what they are made of, as well as their toxicity and persistence. Cigarette butts are made from fibrous cellulose acetate and other plastics; they are non-biodegradable and deliver toxics [arsenic and nicotine] to the environment.
Better Alternatives Obviously—for so many reasons—the best alternative is not to smoke. However, for those that do, there are biodegradable cigarette filters that can replace plastic. In light of this design opportunity, cigarette companies should aggressively switch to biodegradable filters, and policymakers should look into requiring cigarette companies to make the switch.
43 Plastics BAN List, 5 Gyres, Surfrider Foundation, Clean Production Action, and UPSTREAM, November 2016, https://www.5gyres.org/publications 33 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
IV. Six Downstream Plastic Waste Challenges in San Mateo County There are significant negative impacts of single-use plastics throughout its lifecycle. Locally, we have more control over the downstream challenges and outcomes than we do the upstream concerns. Here are six identified downstream challenges that can be addressed through reduction of single-use plastic consumption.
Challenge 1—Plastic Production, Consumption and Waste are Growing Locally and nationally, plastic waste has grown faster than other waste as it replaces more readily recyclable, reusable, and less harmful materials such as cardboard, glass, metal and mixed paper. This trend is expected to continue. Increases in plastic use are accelerating indirect costs borne by SMC.
In the United States according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data, plastic waste generated grew 1.7% annually from 2010 to 2017 versus 0.9% for all municipal waste
34 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County generated. As a percent of total waste generated during that period, plastic grew from 12.5% to 13.2%.44
Figure 15: Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2016 and 2017 Tables and Figures, US EPA, November 2019, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019- 11/documents/2016_and_2017_facts_and_figures_data_tables_0.pdf
44 National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, June 2020, https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and- recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials 35 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
In California, according to CalRecycle data, plastic waste disposed grew 7.1% annually from 2013 to 2018 versus 5.0% for all municipal waste disposed. As a percent of total waste disposed during that period, plastic waste disposed grew from 10.4% to 11.5%.4546
Applying these CalRecycle statewide percentages to SMC, plastic waste disposed grew 2.8% annually from 2013 to 2018 versus 1.9% for all municipal waste disposed. Thus, plastic waste grew seven times faster than SMC’s population growth of 0.4%47 over that period.
Statements from local experts supporting plastics replacement of other less harmful materials include:
“Eighty percent of the food in the grocery store is packaged in plastic… That was not the case 10 years ago.”48 - Robert Reed, Public Relations Manager, Recology (2019)
“You can see the range of things that are coming out of people’s houses. Fifteen years ago, this would have had a lot more aluminum, a lot more glass. It’s amazing how many things have moved to plastic.”49 - Martin Bourque, Executive Director, Ecology Center (2019)
According to xx, plastic production is expected to quadruple by 2050 from 2015, an annual compounded rate of 4% for 30 years.
45 CalRecycle, 2018 Disposal-Facility-Based Characterization of Solid Waste in California, 2020, https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/Index 46 CalRecycle does not include cigarette butts in waste characterization studies and disposal volumes 47 California Demographics, Cubit, 6/5/2020, https://www.california-demographics.com/san-mateo- county-demographics 48 San Francisco’s Quest to Make Landfills Obsolete, Politico, 11/21/19, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/11/21/san-francisco-recycling-sustainability-trash-landfills-070075 49 Story of Plastic (Martin Bourque), The Story of Stuff Project, 10/6/19, https://www.storyofplastic.org 36 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 16 – Plastic production expected growth 2015-2050, Break Free From Plastic, 9/21/2019, www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2019/9/23/break-free-from-plastic-conducts-massive-global-brand-audit-actions
Challenge 2—Plastic Recycling Markets and Processes are Broken Only 33% of locally consumed single-use plastic waste in SMC is currently being recycled which is consistent with global historical rates and is not expected to increase.
According to the July 2019 San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury waste management report50, “in February 2018 the Chinese National Sword policy came into effect” which included “restricted import license allowances and outright bans on import of certain mixed grades of recyclables.” The report continues, “Furthermore, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India have all added new imported recyclables restrictions.”
As a result, plastic waste generated with symbol 3-7 is now being sent to landfill in most of our County. RethinkWaste (also known as South Bayside Waste Management Authority, a local government agency that oversees waste management practices for 60% of SMC’s population) explains in their brochure51 :
“Plastics #3-7 are all versions of hard plastic which are very difficult to recycle. There is currently no market for the material when it is deconstructed… Currently RethinkWaste is still accepting plastics #1-7, but once plastics #1-2 are sorted out, plastics #3-7 are directed to the transfer station and sent to the landfill.”
50 Planning for the County’s Waste Management Challenges, The Superior Court of California—San Mateo County, 7/30/19, http://www.sanmateocourt.org/court_divisions/grand_jury/2018.php 51 THE HARD FACTS ABOUT PLASTICS, RethinkWaste, October 2019, https://rethinkwaste.org/2019/10/18/the-hard-facts-about-plastic/ 37 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Corroborating this trend is local waste management expert Martin Bourque, the Executive Director at Berkeley’s Ecology Center:
“Most of the single-use plastic foodware has no value in today’s recycling markets. With China’s ban on importing plastic scrap, cities are actually paying to get rid of it… We cannot recycle our way out of the disposable foodware problem. We have to focus on reduction.”52 - Martin Bourque (2019)
“At the same time (plastic waste) tons are going up and up and up, the price is going down and down and down to the point where now, it’s costing us fifty bucks a ton to get rid of it.”53 - Martin Bourque (2019)
Given the rapidly declining cost of virgin plastic due to low natural gas and oil prices and high availability from domestic fracking, there is small chance of new domestic recycling facilities for any plastic and we expect items with recycling symbols #3-7 to continue to be landfilled in SMC54.
According to data from the energy research firm Wood Mackenzie, “in Europe, recycled plastic cost 95 percent more than new plastic in May (2019), up from 35 percent a year earlier... In the U.S., the premium has risen to 22 percent from seven percent.”55
And if we look globally, while SMC has better outcomes, sadly around the world, the likely destinations for single-use plastics in 2015, according to United Nation research were56: ● Effectively recycled—2% ● Downcycled—8% (cannot be further recycled) ● Incinerated, landfilled, and littered—90%
Those statistics are from before China’s policy changes in 2018, so they are likely worse now. We are greatly concerned with the 90% of plastics that are incinerated, landfilled, and littered that take up to 450 years to disintegrate57 and the resulting negative impacts of environmental pollution cost from dirty air, climate, food, land, and water and the human health costs from diseases caused by environmental pollution.
52 Berkeley Officials Pass Non-Compostable Food Container Ban, Paper Cup Fee. Californians Against Waste, 1/23/19, https://www.cawrecycles.org/recycling-news/wa3dcyc2jw47kap6s2fz6k89ndmtp5 53 The Story of Plastic: Where Your Recycled Plastic Ends Up, The Story of Stuff Project, 4/21/19, https://youtu.be/urFZ5o0az_4 54 In the War Against Plastic, America Is a Big Threat, Bloomberg News, 10/05/19, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-06/america-s-shale-boom-is-a-threat-to-recycled- plastic-bottles 55 How Coronavirus Complicated the Quest for a Greener Plastic Bottle, Wall Street Journal, 6/24/20, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-coronavirus-complicated-the-quest-for-a-greener-plastic- bottle-11593005945 56 UNEP, SINGLE-USE-PLASTICS: A Roadmap for Sustainability, 2018, https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/25496 57 The stark truth about how long your plastic footprint will last on the planet, The Telegraph, 1/1/18, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/10/stark-truth-long-plastic-footprint-will-last-planet/ 38 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 17: Global Flow of Plastic Packaging Waste, 2015
A new report that measures the progress of 50 large companies in the beverage, quick-service restaurant, consumer packaged goods, and retail sectors on action needed to reduce plastic pollution states the following:
Strapped recycling system needs massive infusion of producer funding. The U.S. curbside recycling system is performing poorly, capturing just 32% of recyclable materials available for processing from U.S. homes. The system needs an estimated $12 billion in new investment to perform properly, but cities cannot afford to finance it, and only about $870 million—about 7%—appears to have been invested to date. Companies should be investing up to 1% of their annual revenue toward capturing the products they put on the market. Only four companies—Nestlé Waters NA, Campbell Soup Company, Colgate-Palmolive Company, and Target Corporation—disclosed a percentage of annual revenue contributed toward recycling infrastructure, and none were close to 1%.
39 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 7
Benefits and Reality of Recycled Plastics Use58
For all materials, using the highest levels of recycled content possible is essential to decouple from finite virgin feedstocks. Another benefit is that the energy savings from using recycled materials in beverage containers is significant. Making cans from recycled aluminum instead of virgin ore requires 90% less energy and 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than creating a can from new metal, and a recycled can could be back on the shelf of a store in 60 days. Plastic bottles made from recycled PET use 84% less energy and emit 71% fewer greenhouse gases than those made with virgin PET.
Figure 18 – “Recycled Content Used in Company-Wide Plastic Packaging in 2018” from Waste and Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership,
58 Waste and Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership, As You Sow, 6/17/20, https://www.asyousow.org/reports/waste-and-opportunity-2020-searching-corporate-leadership 40 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Challenge 3—Recycling Education, Compliance, and Contamination Rates Consumer recycling education and compliance is costly and challenging. In SMC, there are eight main waste haulers—GreenWaste, Kunz Valley Trash, Recology of the Coast, Recology Peninsula Services, Recology San Bruno, Recology San Mateo County, Republic Services of Daly City, Republic Services of Half Moon Bay, and South San Francisco Scavenger—each with their own curbside recycling rules because of varying MRF sorting technologies, which are expensive and logistically difficult to change. Contributing to this challenge is what referenced reports call the “throwaway culture” or “culture of convenience” which describes a propensity for consumers to not thoughtfully consider recycling or reuse.
Anecdotally, we see extreme difficult in educating the county’s residents, workers and visitors about which items should be put in which bins. A recent 90-minute video presentation by the County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability entitled “Recycling in the COVID-19 Era” and featuring a local recycling expert59 highlights this complexity. While it was well attended by interested and sustainability-minded community members, they had dozens of questions that required detailed explanations on recycling practices in different parts of the county.
Furthermore, the challenges placed on consumer waste recycling for all 775,000 county residents is illustrated by the hundreds of residential, commercial, and school district brochures, videos, bin labels, website search tools, and instructional materials for the eight waste haulers and more than 21 county jurisdictions.
The end result is that many residents and commercial customers simply do not put their waste in the correct bin. We estimate 6300 tons per year of eligible plastic with recycling symbols #1-2 are being placed into the black bin, and that food soiled plastics in blue bins may contaminate other recyclable products.
59 Recycling in the COVID 19 Era—Featuring Laura McKaughan, San Mateo County Office of Sustainability, 5/27/20, https://youtu.be/flOVhGAZKvM 41 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 19: Recology transfer station South San Francisco
Challenge 4—Ox Mountain Landfill is at 70% Capacity Summarizing the previous three challenges, plastic consumption is growing each year, market changes have forced items with recycling symbols #3-7 to landfill, and many recyclables with symbol #1-2 end up there as well. Collectively, these accelerate the utilization of the Ox Mountain landfill, which currently contains an estimated 42 millions of its 60.5 million cubic yards of total waste capacity, or 70%, and is projected to be full by 203960. Strategies to divert additional disposed single-use plastic waste could both extend landfill longevity and have positive climate change impacts.
Ox Mountain is the only landfill in our county and the disposal site for about 80% of the County’s waste based on CalRecycle Facility Reports and Waste Characterization Studies. In 2019, disposed waste from RethinkWaste’s 12 jurisdictions was moved on 9200 truckloads or 25 per day over the 12 miles from the San Carlos Shoreway Environmental Center transfer station to Ox Mountain landfill61. According to the aforementioned Grand Jury report, “a new or expanded landfill could easily take 10 to 15 years to secure required approvals and permits.”
Additionally, according to our research, shipping waste outside the county would increases RethinkWaste’s currently disposal rate per ton by more than 15%, based on two 2019 landfill services bids to RethinkWaste, one from Republic Services that ships waste to Ox Mountain, and one from Waste Management Inc. that hauls waste 42 miles to the Kirby Canyon Landfill in
60 Report of Landfill Activity letter from Republic Services to the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability, 7/16/19 https://ccag.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Ox-Mountain-Landfill-Capacity.pdf 61 Shoreway Environmental Center Shoreway Facility Operations Monthly Reporting December 2019, South Bay Recycling, 1/15/2020, https://rethinkwaste.org/about/service-area-map-providers/south- bay-recycling/ 42 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
San Jose, or 3.5 times further. This rate increase, if The Waste Management Inc. bid had to be accepted, would have added $20 million to RethinkWaste’s costs over 10 years.62
Shipping waste Kirby Canyon Landfill would also increase greenhouse gas emissions from the additional miles traveled, as well as road and truck deterioration costs, and truck tire debris that is made of plastic rubber and flows into our waters6364.
Challenge 5—Plastics Dominate Litter on Beaches, Streets, and Open Spaces Some plastics used in SMC never make it to any bin and end up in streets, waterways including storm drains, creeks, rivers, and streams, and on beaches. If not captured, plastics then wash into the San Francisco Bay or the Pacific Ocean. Science, a prestigious peer reviewed journal, shows 1% of single-use plastics waste generated each year in the United States is littered and end up in the oceans65. We believe SMC’s rates are similar and that total litter in SMC is 5% of waste generated each year as local jurisdictions’ permits expect stormwater treatment systems to capture 80% of all waste before it flows to the Bay66.
Importantly, plastics represent the largest percentage of littered items by volume and weight in all these locations by a wide margin according to dozens of global, regional, and local cleanup and litter reports. By volume, plastics account for about 75% of litter on beaches and 40-75% on streets and waterways.
Globally, the well-regarded Ocean Conservancy’s 2019 The Beach and Beyond report on their annual beach cleaning efforts states that “2017 became the first year that all of the top-ten most commonly found items during the International Coastal Cleanup were made of plastic.” It continues, “unfortunately—but not surprisingly—the trend continued in 2018.”67
Across California, the most well-known cleanup is California Coastal Commission’s Coastal Cleanup Day, an annual waterway and land litter awareness event held on the third Saturday of every September. In 2019, its cleanups in SMC attracted 5,245 volunteers that collectively picked up 35,111 pounds of trash and recyclable materials.68 In a report of all trash statewide
62 Board of Directors Full Packet, RethinkWaste, 5/23/19, https://rethinkwaste.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/07/052319-full-packet.original.pdf 63 San Francisco Bay Microplastics Project Executive Summary, San Francisco Estuary Institute and 5 Gyres Institute, 9/2019, https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/biblio_files/MicroplasticsExecutiveSummary.pdf 64 Huge amounts of plastic, much of it from car tires, washing into SF Bay, study finds, SF Chronicle, 10/2/19 https://www.sfchronicle.com/environment/article/Huge-amounts-of-plastic-much-of-it- from-car-14487157.php 65 Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean, Science Magazine, 2/13/15, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768 66 San Francisco Bay Region Municipal Regional Stormwater NPDES Permit, California Regional Water Quality Control Board, 11/19/15, https://www.flowstobay.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2015- NPDES-Permit.pdf 67 The Beach and Beyond, Ocean Conservancy, 9/4/19, https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2019/09/04/beach-beyond-breaking-2018-international-coastal- cleanup-results/ 68 Coastal Cleanup Day, https://www.smchealth.org/general-information/coastal-cleanup-day 43 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County collected from 1989 to 2017, the top 6 items, and total of 77% of all collected by volume, were plastics, including food wrappers and containers, caps and lids, bags and bottles, as well as cups, plates, utensils, and straws.
Table 7 - California Coastal Cleanup Trash Report
Top Ten 1988-201769 Count Percentage #1. Cigarettes/Cigarette Filters 7,535,411 36.96% #2. Food Wrappers/Containers 2,193,018 10.76% #3. Caps/Lids 1,861,923 9.13% #4. Bags (paper and plastic) 1,572,241 7.71% #5. Cups/Plates/Utensils 1,113,129 5.46% #6. Straws/Stirrers 863,481 4.24% #7. Glass Beverage Bottles 679,709 3.33% #8. Plastic Beverage Bottles 554,825 2.72% #9. Beverage Cans 496,117 2.43% #10. Construction Material 367,729 1.80% TOTAL PLASTICS 15,694,028 76.98%
Figure 20: Poplar Beach Plastic Pick up, Half Moon Bay California (Surfrider)
69 California Coastal Cleanup Day History, California Coastal Commission, June 200 https://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/ccd/history.html 44 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Most pertinent to our research are the following Bay Area publications that report 40-75% of local environmental litter by volume is plastics. This litter presents significant cleanup costs to our businesses, schools, and nonprofits that host cleanup events, and especially cities to comply with stormwater runoff contamination regulations, from the California State Water Resources Control Board, which get progressively more expensive to meet every five years.
Table 8 – Percent Plastics by Volume in SMC Litter Reports
SMC Geography Reporting Entity Year % Plastic by Volume City/County Association of SMC Watersheds 2007 ~ 60% Governments in SMC70 City/County Association of SMC Urban Creeks Governments in SMC71 2008 ~ 65% ~40% (not including cigarette South San Francisco Clean Water Action 2011 butts “too numerous to count”)
Table 9 - Percent Plastics by Volume in Bay Area Litter Reports
Bay Area Geography Reporting Entity Year % Plastic by Volume
Various Bay Area Bay Area Stormwater 2014 65% Locations Management Agencies Assn Alameda County Waste Alameda County 2014 59% Management Authority
Santa Clara Santa Clara Valley Urban 2016 75% Runoff Pollution Prevention
Figure 21 - Percent of trash characterized - 2016 Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Report
70 Trash Assessments in Six Watersheds in San Mateo County, flowstobay.org, August 2007, https://www.flowstobay.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2006-2007trashrtas-rpt.pdf 71 Trash Assessments in Urban Creeks in San Mateo County, flowstobay.org, August 2008, https://www.flowstobay.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2007-2008trashrtas-rpt.pdf 45 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 8
Spotlight on Pacific Beach Coalition
The Pacific Beach Coalition (PBC), started in 1997 in Pacifica, is dedicated to preserving the ocean, coastal habitat, and wildlife, and ending litter through advocacy, education, community building, and citizen action. In 2019, 13,672 Pacific Beach Coalition volunteers collected 23,731 pounds of trash during 269 beach cleanups.
For toddlers to seniors and students to executives, PBC’s education programs deliver inspiration to youth, schools and the general public. Their annual calendar features meaningful opportunities to learn including film nights, community workshops, education initiatives, outreach, policy and advocacy, and school assemblies. They also have a unique environmental education event held in the Bay Area each year— their Earth Day of Action and EcoFest in April. More info: www.pacificbeachcoalition.org/about-us/
Figure 22: Poplar Beach Plastic Waste from Half Moon Bay, California (Surfrider)
46 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 9
Break Free From Plastics
Break Free From Plastics, a global NGO, every year produces a multi-organizational and collaborative report72 that details the consumer brands and parent companies behind single-use plastic waste. The report is a detailed analysis of waste collected from beaches, streets, homes, offices, and parks across the globe and then recording the brands and consumer product companies associated with the waste.
Fast moving consumer goods companies rely on plastic to deliver their products to us. Their business models depend on cheap plastics and on not having to pay for the indirect costs of collection or disposal. The result of this model is that communities around the world are left to shoulder the cost of irresponsible company decisions.
On World Clean Up Day on September 21, 2019, individuals and organizations around the world mobilized their communities to conduct clean-ups and brand audits by engaging 72,541 volunteers in 51 countries to conduct 484 brand audits. These volunteers collected 476,423 pieces of plastic waste, 43% of which was marked with a clear consumer brand. This year’s analysis revealed the following as the 2019 Top 10 Global Polluters: Coca Cola, Nestle, PepsiCo, Mondelez International, Unilever, Mars, PG&E, Colgate-Palmolive, Phillip Morris, and Perfetti Van Mille.
Challenge 6—Plastic Disposal & Litter in Low-income Communities Single-use plastic waste generates significant inequities outside SMC and possibly inside as well. Across the globe, there’s ample evidence that plastic waste causes disproportionate impacts to low-income communities that more often live next to upstream extraction and production facilities and downstream incinerators, landfills, and areas littered by plastic waste.
In SMC, the story is less clear. To investigate how plastic disposal and litter impact low-income communities, we contacted seven community-based organizations to ask these questions: ● What inequities are single-use plastics causing or perpetuating in the communities you work with? ● Are there existing efforts in your community to reduce reliance on single-use plastics? ● What concerns would you have if your community is required to decrease single-use plastics and find replacements like compostable or reusable items?
72 BRANDED Vol. II—Identifying the World’s Top Corporate Plastic Polluters, Break Free From Plastic, 9/21/2019, www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2019/9/23/break-free-from-plastic-conducts- massive-global-brand-audit-actions 47 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
As of the publishing of this report, we are still compiling data from: Acterra, El Concilio of San Mateo County, Nuestra Casa of East Palo Alto, Puente de la Costa Sur of Pescadero, Siena Youth Center of Redwood City, Youth Leadership Institute of San Mateo, and Youth United for Community Action of East Palo Alto.
We also contacted the County of San Mateo Department of Health to ask the following questions: ● Does the Department have a concern for county residents’ health from impacts of the abundance of single-use plastics in our community and food systems? ● Are there any planned initiatives to address this concern? ● Do you see the concern equally across the county or a higher risk in certain communities including those with higher vulnerability index scores?
Our contact acknowledged the department’s concerns of single-use plastics on environmental pollution and wildlife, but not currently to human health. Furthermore, they stated the department might consider reviewing this connection to human health, but not while staffing resources are responding to the challenges of COVID-19.
In all, the combination of these six downstream challenges amounts to significant indirect costs in SMC that are reviewed in the next section.
48 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 10
Crucial Factors Driving Concerns About Growing Plastic Pollution from Waste and Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership73
• Plastic production is set to quadruple by 2050, yet only 14% of plastic packaging is recycled globally, just 13% is recycled in U.S. • The vast majority (72%) of plastic packaging is not recovered: 40% is landfilled, and a massive 32% leaks out of the collection system by being either illegally dumped or mismanaged, feeding the ocean plastics problem. • A million plastic bottles are purchased globally every minute,6 and only about 6% are estimated to be recycled.7 Plastic bottles are the third most common item found in ocean debris. • One recent study attributes a range of health harms to plastic waste, estimating that from 400,000 to one million people die annually from diseases and illnesses caused by plastic pollution, including uncollected rubbish dumped or burned near homes. • Oceans contain far more broken up plastic than previously believed—with an estimated 155 million tons of plastic by 2025 and 4.8 million to 12.7 million tons added annually, equivalent to a garbage truck load every minute. • Oceans will contain more plastic than fish by 2050 if no actions are taken to reduce the flow of plastics into waterways. • Carbon pollution coming from plastics. Global growth projections for plastic production and use show that, by 2050, greenhouse gas emissions from plastic could reach 56 gigatons, or up to 13% of Earth’s entire remaining carbon budget. • Plastic pollution now concerns Americans as much as or more so than climate change, according to one recent poll.
73 Waste and Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership, As You Sow, 6/17/20, https://www.asyousow.org/reports/waste-and-opportunity-2020-searching-corporate-leadership 49 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
V. Indirect Costs – Waste Disposal & Litter Cleanup Indirect costs, or externalities, are present in almost all industries and are commonly addressed through policy or incentive programs. As explained by the International Monetary Fund, indirect costs are not included in the “price of the products,” and “affect people not directly involved in the transactions.” This creates “differences between private returns or costs and the returns or costs to society as a whole.74”
Single-use plastics in SMC include significant indirect costs to residents, businesses, and government. Some of these costs are easier to quantify, such as waste disposal and litter cleanup costs that might otherwise smaller if single-use plastic consumption was reduced. Others are more difficult, including climate and ocean pollution and human health. Currently none of these indirect costs are included in the sale price of single-use plastics, forcing these costs on society as a whole rather than the purchaser.
Table V-1 lists the SMC estimated direct & indirect costs due to SUPs. [ Insert revised version of Exec Sum Table 2 here.]
74 What Are Externalities?, International Monetary Fund, December 2010, https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2010/12/basics.htm 50 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Municipal Solid Waste Management Costs to Bill Payers Approximately 33% of single-use plastics bear symbols #1-2 and are currently recycled in SMC. They create a revenue stream for the County, if they are properly recycled. RethinkWaste, which oversees recycling for 60% of the county’s population, reports revenue of $5,397,694 for 2019 for all recyclables, which includes plastics, aluminum, glass, and metal containers. Assuming plastics are 20% of recycling revenue75, then total income from plastics recyclables should be approximately $1.3 million.
County residents and business customers pay for the cost of disposal for the remaining 67% of single-use plastics. We estimate potential cost savings to be more than $3.1 million, or $121 2020 tipping fee per ton cost from RethinkWaste to Recology San Mateo County76 multiplied by xx tons, from diversion of these single-use plastics away from landfills through source control, shifting to compostables and reusables, and better sorting and recycling.
This disposal cost will likely increase 5% in 2021 due to projected RethinkWaste tipping fee increases, more significantly in nine years (2029) when RethinkWaste renews its landfill and transportation contract with Republic Services which was recently renewed at a 17.5% increase from its previous agreement, and substantially in 19 years (2039) when Ox Mountain landfill is projected to be at 100% capacity.
Litter Cleanup: Cities & Towns Our research shows approximately 4% of single-use plastics waste generated each year in SMC is litter77. This results in significant abatement program costs to each SMC jurisdiction, to capture it before reaching the SF Bay or Pacific Ocean, as mandated by Federal and State law.
Nationally, each municipality, and the County for unincorporated areas, is responsible for litter cleanups in their own jurisdiction. Cities and counties all over the San Francisco Bay Area share a common National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. As stated in the Flows to Bay website78:
The Federal Clean Water Act and the California Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act require that large urban areas discharging stormwater into the San Francisco Bay or the Pacific Ocean have an NPDES permit to prevent harmful pollutants from being dumped or washed by stormwater runoff into the stormwater system, then discharged into local water bodies.
75 National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, June 2020, https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and- recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials 76 Resolution Approving the FY20/21 SBWMA Budget and 6-Month (July 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020) Transition Budget and Capital Budget, RethinkWaste, 6/25/20, https://rethinkwaste.org/wp- content/uploads/2020/08/062520_Approved-Budget-for-FY20-21-and-6-month-transition.pdf 77 Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean, Science Magazine, 2/13/15, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768 78 About the Flows to Bay Program, https://www.flowstobay.org/about/who-we-are/about-the-flows-to- bay-program/. 51 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
In California, the Municipal Regional Permit (MRP)79 outlines State requirements to address the water quality and flow-related impacts of stormwater runoff. Some requirements are implemented directly by municipalities and others by the San Mateo Countywide Water Pollution Prevention Program (SMCWPPP) on behalf of the municipalities. This program established in 1990 is run by the City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County. The budget for this program was just over $2 million in fiscal year 2017-201880 and about $1.5 million in fiscal year 2018-201981.
The MRP permit spans construction and industrial development, illegal discharges and illicit connections, and municipal operations, and requires public education programs, and a monitoring of water quality and overall effectiveness.
One specific MRP provision is reducing trash loads from municipal storm drain systems “80 percent by July 1, 2019,” from 2009 levels and 100% no adverse impact to receiving waters by July 1, 2022. Since 2009, permittees have implemented a variety of trash reduction measures, including trash capture system installations, street sweeping, creek and shoreline cleanups, and other source control measures.
Importantly, the MRP also allows permittees to claim a load percentage reduction value, up to 10%, for jurisdiction-wide actions that reduce trash at the source. This “credit” has been claimed by many through the adoption of a plastic bag ban and a polystyrene foam ban on takeout containers.
Figure 23: Styrofoam Debris, Mussel Rock Beach, Daly City, California
79 Municipal Stormwater Program, California Waterboards, June 2020, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/sanfranciscobay/water_issues/programs/stormwater/Municipal/ 80 Financial Statements for The Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2018, City/County Association of Governments of San Mateo County, 6/30/18, https://ccag.ca.gov 81 Annual Report FY 2018-2019, City/County Associations of Government of San Mateo County, 2019, https://ccag.ca.gov/plansreportslibrary/annual-report/ 52 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
The next MRP term from 2021-2025 will maintain these credits which are imperative to meeting 100% trash load reduction as less resource-intensive challenges have been addressed. Thus, new plastic reduction regulations, such as the County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability’s Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance, adopted by Atherton, Burlingame and South San Francisco and unincorporated San Mateo County, may be good source for those credits. Another example is the recently adopted City of Berkeley Foodware and Litter Reduction Ordinance82 with the goal of replacing disposables with reusable items.
The following data for the City of Burlingame, population 30,88983, is shown as an example of how much one municipality spends on litter cleanup with plastics likely accounting for 40-75% by volume.
Table 10 - Litter Cleanup Programs and Costs in City of Burlingame for FY 2018-2019
Trash Removal Amount of Trash Estimated Staff & Amount of Area Program Collected Materials Costs Covered 3,497 gal of trash Bayfront Cleanup Day 972 gal of recyclables $1,300 2 miles of shoreline Creek cleaning 300 tons $175,000 2 creeks Illegal dumping cleanup 78 cases reported $8,500 Citywide Storm Drain inlet Maintenance 1,600 gallons $25,000 Citywide Street Sweeping Programs 4,502 cubic yards $200,000 4,888 miles swept
Contribution to CCAG 84 NPDES Program $5,600 AccessBurlingame & Adopt-a-Drain Programs unknown TOTAL $415,400
These costs are paid for by the residents of Burlingame, but they are only 3.9% of the county’s population. Assuming single-use plastics litter accounts for half of the Burlingame’s $415,400 litter cleanup program cost, and the County’s SMCWPPP, we estimate countywide litter cleanup to be over $5 million.
82 Berkeley Single-use Foodware and Litter Reduction Ordinance, City of Berkeley, June 2020, https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Public_Works/Zero_Waste/Berkeley_Single_Use_Foodware_and_Litter_R eduction_Ordinance.aspx 83 Population and Housing Unit Estimates, US Census Bureau, June 2020, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/data/tables.2019.html 84 Annual Report FY 2018-2019, City/County Associations of Government of San Mateo County, 2019, https://ccag.ca.gov/plansreportslibrary/annual-report/ 53 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 11
Litter Abatement in Burlingame & SMC
The following are pollution prevention programs and policies listed on Burlingame’s website.85”
Burlingame Programs ● AccessBurlingame—public requests form to address potholes, graffiti, streetlights, and litter. ● Adopt-a-Drain Program—individual can “adopt,” receive cleaning supplies, and keep a storm drain free of litter and leaves. ● Bayfront Cleanup Day—annual shoreline cleanup on the third Saturday of September. ● Bulky Item Collection from Recology—up to two no chare curbside collections per year for large items such as clothes washer, mattress, box spring, and electronic waste. ● Downtown Maintenance—staff cleanup and maintenance of Burlingame and Broadway Avenue. ● Storm Drain Inlet Maintenance— staff maintenance of 1,400 storm drain catch basins, clogged with leaves, litter and other debris, to prevent flooding. ● Stormwater Inspections at Commercial Facilities— NPDES Permit required commercial facilities stormwater inspections. ● Street Sweeping Program—citywide machine curbs sweep to collect trash and leaf litter.
Burlingame Policies ● Polystyrene Based Disposable Foodservice Ware Ban Ordinance (2012)—prohibits polystyrene-based (e.g., Styrofoam) single-use food containers. ● Reusable Bag Ordinance (2012)— restricts single-use carry-out bags use at certain locations. ● San Mateo County Disposable Foodservice Ware Ordinance (2020)—regulates food facility plastic and compostable disposable items including straws, containers, cups, and utensil. ● Climate Action Plan (CAP)— climate strategy with greenhouse gas emission reduction actions including waste reduction. ● New Development Requirements— roofed and enclosed dumpsters and recycling areas in new development projects.
SMC Programs • Cigarette Butt Free Business— free promotions to SMC businesses with a cigarette butt-free pledge. • Household Hazardous Waste Disposal— free hazardous waste drop off at events or County’s facilities. • San Mateo County Coastal Cleanup Day—Environmental Health Services event in partnership with the California Coastal Commission, Ocean Conservancy, and other partners.
Litter Cleanup: Beaches Three-hundred and sixteen bayside and oceanside beach cleanups were conducted in 2019 in SMC by 14,902 volunteers just from three local nonprofit organizations–Pacific Beach Coalition, Sea Hugger, and Surfrider Foundation’s San Mateo County Chapter. Other organizations conduct beach cleanups as well such as, the County of San Mateo Health Department’s
85 Pollution Prevention, City of Burlingame, June 2020, https://www.burlingame.org/departments/public_works/stormwater_management/pollution_prevention.ph p 54 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County volunteer effort that helped pick up 35,111 pounds of trash and recyclable materials in September, 201986.
Much of the beach cleanup efforts and costs that are borne by nonprofits and volunteers might otherwise need to be carried out by responsible jurisdictions. Three nonprofits provided their SMC program data (see Sidebar 9). Note that budgets do not include labor costs. If borne by jurisdictions at $17.50 per hour, the county’s current Living Wage Ordinance minimum87, and 3 hours per volunteer, we calculate the cost just for these three organizations’ cleanup efforts alone to be around $750,000 per year. We estimate 75% of total beach litter is plastic. Therefore, the single-use plastic cleanup cost to the county would be $562,500.
SIDEBAR 12
2019 SMC Beach Cleanups by Three Nonprofits
Pacific Beach Coalition www.pacificbeachcoalition.org —Cleanups at Linda Mar, Rockaway, Sharp Park, and Esplanade in Pacifica; Mussel Rock in Daly City; Pillar Point Harbor, Montara State Beach and Surfers Beach in Half Moon Bay: ● 269 total cleanups ● 13,672 volunteers ● 23,731 lbs. of trash, recycling and fishing gear ● Budget ~$72,000
Sea Hugger https://www.seahugger.org Cleanups at Dunes, Venice, Roosevelt, Surfer’s, Francis and Poplar beaches and Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, and Coyote Point Beach in San Mateo: ● 28 total cleanups ● 897 volunteers ● 472 lbs. of recycling (40% of total), trash, and fishing gear ● 59.5 gallons of microplastic sifted from sand with our Nurdle Trommel ● Budget ~$5,000
Surfrider Foundation’s San Mateo County Chapter https://smc.surfrider.org Cleanups at Dunes, Venice, Surfer’s, Francis and Poplar beaches and Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay: ● 19 total cleanups ● 333 volunteers ● 840 lbs. of trash, recycling and fishing gear ● Budget ~$2,000
Litter Cleanup: Marine Environments Even with hundreds of urban, waterway, highway, and beach cleanups each year, not all litter is captured. Instead, some ends up in the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. Once there,
86 Coastal Cleanup Day, San Mateo County Health, 2020, https://www.smchealth.org/general- information/coastal-cleanup-day 87 San Mateo County’s Living Wage Ordinance (LWO), County of San Mateo Human Resources Department, June 2020, https://hr.smcgov.org/san-mateo-county’s-living-wage-ordinance-lwo 55 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
“sunlight and currents shred plastic debris into smaller particles called microplastics, which absorb and concentrate toxic chemicals up the marine food chain.”88
SMC-based marine cleanups and prevention programs such as the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit programs by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, add to already substantial land litter cleanup costs. Here are a few current marine cleanup efforts.
In September 2019 at the Pacific shoreline, the Half Moon Bay-based nonprofit, Sea Hugger, sponsored a Seabin device from the Seabin Project to clean the marina waters in Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay. The device costs $6,000 and operates 24 hours a day and 7 days a week cleaning microplastic, macroplastic, and marine oil from the water. Average monthly counts reveal high levels of microplastic, single-use plastic items, and fishing gear.
Table 11 – Sea Hugger’s Seabin Average Monthly Contaminant Count (time period?)
Item Count Plastic Fragments (6mm+) Hard (17) Foam (18) Film (46) Plastic Cups 12 Plastic Bottle/Container Lids 5 Cigarettes 9 Paper and Cardboard 4 Nurdles (Plastic Pellets) 2 Cigar Tips 1 Plastic Bags 5 Food Wrappers 18 Plastic Utensils 1 Polystyrene Pieces (6mm+) 98 Microplastic (2mm-5mm) 348 Duct Tape Pieces 1 Rubber Fragments 1 Fishing Line & Lures 43 Plastic Rope/Net Pieces 33
Buoys and Floats 2 Oil Pad (16x8 in) 2 Pads (saturated)
Sea Hugger’s microscope analysis of a water drop from the Seabin showed 12 plastic microfibers. While not lab analyzed, the nonprofit’s founder, Shell Cleave, believes most likely came from clothing and fishing filament.
In 2020 at the Bay shoreline, Sea Hugger participated in the annual Great Global Nurdle Hunt, sponsored by the Great Nurdle Hunt organization. Nurdles are lentil-sized pellets that are the
88 Better Alternatives Now—B.A.N. List 2.0, multiple authors, 11/1/17, https://www.5gyres.org/publications 56 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County raw material for plastic production. Shockingly, Sea Hugger’s Bay shoreline results found San Mateo’s Coyote Point Park to have the highest concentration of nurdle pollution in the state.
Nurdles are also known to attract and concentrate highly toxic environmental pollutants, like DDTs and PCBs. Nurdles are frequently mistaken for food by sea life, which results in the death of millions of animals per year. As fish consume more nurdles, humans are also ingesting an increasing amount of the toxins as the nurdles rise up the food chain.
To improve awareness on this topic, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's 2019 Ocean Plastic Pollution Summit addressed the challenge of how “plastic will persist in the environment and may travel throughout the global food web forever.”89
Figure 24: Seabin in Action Figure 25: Nurdles and other plastics recovered from the ocean
Litter Cleanup: Waterways and Highways The Grassroots Ecology nonprofit, based in Palo Alto, has been tracking trash in cleanups since 2014 in San Francisquito Creek, which borders SMC, and Adobe, Barron, Matadero, and Stevens Creeks in Santa Clara County. In 2017 they developed a standardized procedure to measure trash density and types including aluminum cans, bottles, paper, and plastic bags, wrappers, take-out containers, and to-go cups. Between January 2014 and February 2020, they found plastic items in 118 of their 192 cleanups or 61% of the time.
Another litter abatement program executed in SMC includes Caltrans highways cleanups of plastic and other debris. In 2019, they collected 287,000 cubic yards of litter across all
89 Ocean Plastic Pollution Summit, Monterey Bay Aquarium, 5/10/19, https://www.seafoodwatch.org/mba/home/education/teacher-professional-development/ocean-plastic- pollution-summit 57 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County highways90 and plans to spend $400 million toward trash control and maintenance between now and 202691.
VI. Indirect Costs – Human Health The indirect pollution and health impacts of single-use plastics across their lifecycle are so well documented that it is the shocking material for award-winning big screen documentaries, television news exposés, and in-depth expository magazine articles. In fact, there are a few of these each year in all three categories. In the first four months of 2020, the notable works are Discovery Channel’s “Story of Plastic” documentary, PBS’ “Plastic Wars” television special, and Rolling Stone Magazine’s March 2020 feature story “Planet Plastic—How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades.”92 Furthermore, in 2018, National Geographic launched “Planet or Plastic?”, a multiyear initiative to reduce single-use plastics and their impact on the world's oceans.93
We have been aware of the massive problems of plastic pollution since 1997 with the discovery by Captain Charles Moore of Algalita94 of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the size of Texas and is hovering off our shores in the Pacific Ocean. It’s now known to be one of five gyres worldwide. In addition, in August 2015, the viral “Sea Turtle with Straw up its Nostril” video95 now viewed more than 39 million times, shocked the world.
Research shows that there are substantial and growing human health impacts of upstream and downstream plastics pollution. Dozens of recent articles have chronicled the microplastic and bioplastic particles in our food chain, bottled water, and even the air we breathe. Just last June, Scientific American published “Thousands of Tons of Microplastics Are Falling from the Sky” that highlights how plastics are now going “directly into our lungs.”96
And according to a WWF 2019 report, it’s estimated that the average person consumes a credit card’s worth of microplastic, about 5 grams, a week from food and beverage, including bottled
90 Caltrans, CHP Announce Joint Litter Cleanup and Enforcement Effort, Caltrans, 6/16/20, https://dot.ca.gov/news-releases/news-release-2020-014 91 Caltrans ordered to clean up the roadways or face up to $25,000-a-day fines, SF Chronicle, 2/14/19, https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Caltrans-ordered-to-clean-up-its-trash-or-face- 13615181.php 92 How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades, Rolling Stone Magazine, 3/3/20, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/plastic-problem-recycling- myth-big-oil-950957/ 93 National Geographic Launches Planet or Plastic?, a Multiyear Initiative to Reduce Single-Use Plastics and Their Impact on the World's Oceans, PR Newswire, 5/16/18, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/national-geographic-launches-planet-or-plastic-a-multiyear- initiative-to-reduce-single-use-plastics-and-their-impact-on-the-worlds-oceans-300649217.html 94 About Algalita, Algalita, June 2020, https://algalita.org/about/ 95 Sea Turtle with Straw up its Nostril, Sea Turtle Biologist, 8/10/15, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wH878t78bw 96 Thousands of Tons of Microplastics Are Falling from the Sky, Scientific American, 6/11/20, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thousands-of-tons-of-microplastics-are-falling-from-the-sky/ 58 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County water97. Confirming information can be found in the 2019 Time Magazine article “Americans Eat and Inhale Over 70,000 Plastic Particles Each Year According to a New Analysis.98” New research has also shown that microplastics can penetrate the roots of crops, traveling up the plant into the parts we eat including in carrots, lettuce, broccoli, potatoes, apples, and pears produce samples from both supermarkets and local sellers in Catania, Italy.99
Figure 26: Estimated number of plastics humans consume every week100
Health and Ocean Pollution in SMC Just off our coasts, plastic pollution is in the waters we sail and surf in, and that fish swim in. Not surprisingly, it’s in the food we eat. Currently, it is estimated that there are 100 million tons of plastic in oceans around the world101, not just in the five large gyres far from land. Sea Hugger’s coastside Seabin and bayside nurdle captures, discussed above, show high levels of microplastics on both sides of our county. An October 2019 San Francisco Estuary Institute report surveying our shores states “microplastics (particles less than 5 mm) are ubiquitous and persistent pollutants in the ocean,” and a “threat to the health of marine ecosystems.102”
When mistaken for food by sea life, microplastics kill our local marine life before reaching expected lifespans. In fact, over 1 million marine animals including mammals, fish, sharks, turtles, and birds are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean, including off our SMC coasts. If consumed microplastics don’t kill the sea life, they end up on our plates for dinner.
97 No Plastic in Nature: Assessing Plastic Ingestion from Nature to People, World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund, https://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/plastic_ingestion_press_singles.pdf 98Americans Eat and Inhale Over 70,000 Plastic Particles Each Year According to a New Analysis, Time, 6/6/19, https://time.com/5601359/microplastics-in-food-air/ 99 Our fruits and veggies are sucking up microplastics through their roots, Fast Company, 6/25/20, https://www.fastcompany.com/90521397/our-fruits-and-veggies-are-sucking-up-microplastics-through- their-roots 100 We're all eating a credit card's worth of PLASTIC each week, Daily Mail, 12/30/2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7839295/THE-REUTERS-GRAPHIC-A-plateful-plastic- Visualising-microplastic-consume.html
101 Information About Sea Turtles: Threats from Marine Debris, Sea Turtle Conservancy, June 2020, https://conserveturtles.org/information-sea-turtles-threats-marine-debris/ 102 Understanding Microplastic Levels, Pathways, and Transports, San Francisco Estuary Institute, October 2019, https://www.sfei.org/documents/understanding-microplastics 59 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
More specifically, this pollution is from liter-prone and hard to recycle single-use plastics that are designed to be used only for a short period and thus tend to break down into microplastics faster than other types. Through wear and tear, they attract and concentrate additional environmental pollutants, like DDT and PCBs, before more fully degrading. These toxins are also in the meals we eat. Other sources of microplastic marine pollution are the degradation of tires on roadways and abraded fibers from textiles and clothing.103
According to a 2019 study published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin, plastic pollution causes an estimated 1-5% decline in the benefit humans derive from oceans fisheries, aquaculture, recreational activities and global wellbeing. The resulting cost of lost benefits, known as marine ecosystem value, is up to $2.5 trillion a year104. Applying this estimate to our County’s percent of global population, our portion to lost benefits amounts to over $277 million.
Furthermore, plastic in our local waters also adds to global warming, which is projected to increase heat and droughts in our bayside communities, fires in our sky-lined mountains, and sea-level rise and floods from the airport to Bair Island and Ravenswood Preserve. According to Ocean and Climate Platform, healthy coastal ecosystems “play a mitigation role against climate change, especially by capturing carbon for their development.105” In fact, the seagrass beds and salt marshes around us are significant carbon sinks, capturing it in their calcium skeleton and storing ten times that of continental forests. Thus, plastics along our shoreline add to the greenhouse effect and warm our county.
Unfortunately, without action, the annual flow of plastic into the ocean will nearly triple by 2040, according to a 2020 report from The Pew Charitable Trusts, to between 23 million and 37 million with the middle of that range equivalent to 50 kg of plastic for every meter of coastline worldwide106.
Health & Air Pollution
Micro- and nanoparticles of plastics have also been found in 11 national parks and wilderness areas in the western U.S including Joshua Tree National Park in California107. They are likely in SMC’s air, too. They are in our agricultural soils and as microfibers in water supplies. In addition, microplastics have been found in table salt, bottled water, and sugar distributed around the world, including in SMC.
103 Understanding Microplastic Levels, Pathways, and Transports, San Francisco Estuary Institute, October 2019, https://www.sfei.org/documents/understanding-microplastics 104 Marine plastic pollution costs the world up to $2.5tn a year, researchers find, The Guardian, 4/4/19, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/04/marine-plastic-pollution-costs-the- world-up-to-25bn-a-year-researchers-find 105 The Ocean, A Carbon Sink, June 2020, Ocean & Climate Platform, https://ocean- climate.org/?page_id=3896&lang=en 106 Breaking the Plastic Wave - A Comprehensive Assessment of Pathways Towards Stopping Ocean Plastic Pollution, The Pew Charitable Trusts, 6/23/20, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research- and-analysis/articles/2020/07/23/breaking-the-plastic-wave-top-findings 107 Plastic rain in protected areas of the United States, Science, 6/12/20, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6496/1257 60 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Finally, while there is no oil or plastic production within our county borders, there is oil refining nearby and. Five oil and gas refineries are within 60 miles of SMC. Toxins from such production are known to travel up to 200 miles. Chronic exposure to ground-level ozone can impair lung function and lead to asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.108
So right here in SMC, while taking a deep breath, drinking bottled water, or enjoying fish and produce, our residents are consuming plastics every day. It is costing us millions of dollars.
Outside San Mateo County—Health and Pollution Outside of SMC, both upstream and downstream, the majority of people worldwide are exposed to plastic pollution. The consequences of single-use plastic extraction, production, distribution, consumption and end-of-life are substantial and have devastating impacts on air quality, climate change, food systems, ocean health, soil content and water tables.
As 99% of the ingredients of plastic are from fossil fuels, it is clear that plastic use is contributing to the climate change and the climate crisis. According to a 2019 Center for International Environmental Law report, “If plastic production and use grow as currently planned, by 2030, these emissions could reach 1.34 gigatons per year—equivalent to the emissions released by more than 295 new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants.109” Just in 2019, the report estimates, the production and incineration of plastic will produce more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases— equal to the emissions from 189 five-hundred-megawatt coal power plants. And at the current rate of growth, by 2050, emissions from plastic use and production could reach over 56 gigatons a year, which represents 10-13% of the remaining carbon budget and which threatens our ability to keep global warming to under 1.5 degrees Celsius110.
Extraction
Across the globe, big oil and chemical companies are extracting fossil fuels from land and oceans and producing over 300 million tons of plastic every year. Nearly 50% is for single-use purposes and utilized for just a moment before polluting the planet for several hundred years.
The first lifecycle stage is extraction and processing of non-renewable natural resources. During extraction, an astounding nine million tons of methane and other pollutants, like volatile organic compounds (VOCs), are released into our atmosphere each year creating ozone, or ground- level smog pollution.
108 Health Effects of Ozone Pollution, US EPA, June 2020, https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone- pollution/health-effects-ozone-pollution 109 Plastic & Climate: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, Center for International Environmental Law, May 2019, https://www.ciel.org/plasticandclimate/ 110 BRANDED Vol. II—Identifying the World’s Top Corporate Plastic Polluters, Break Free From Plastic, 9/21/2019, www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2019/9/23/break-free-from-plastic-conducts- massive-global-brand-audit-actions 61 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
In the United States, many plastics are now manufactured using natural gas, the extraction of which releases emissions and toxic air contaminants such as benzene, carbon monoxide, ozone, and hydrogen sulfide. Methane gas, a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide, also leaks111 during extraction and transportation.
With the world shifting away from oil and gas as an energy source, the fossil fuel industry is turning to plastic production. Right now, a massive amount of production facilities and pipelines infrastructure projects are being initiated and expanded.
Production
Within the second lifecycle stage, production, ethane cracker plants use extreme heat to “crack” the molecular bonds of ethane and separate it from natural gas to produce ethylene, the building block of plastics and other industrial products. Ethylene is further processed into a resin, which is used to produce plastic products.
One area with a highly concentrated number of cracker plants is known as Cancer Alley, an 85- mile stretch along the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and is labeled for its elevated toxic emissions which are known to cause asthma, cancer, cardiovascular and heart disease, and developmental disorders. Additionally, seven of the ten census tracts with the greatest cancer risk in the nation are found there. All have a high percentage of black residents112.
Figure 27: Sharon Lavigne (L) leads The March Against Death Alley through St. James, Louisiana on October 23rd, 2019113
111 The hidden relationship between the plastics industry and fracking in the U.S., GreenBiz, 5/24/19, https://www.greenbiz.com/article/hidden-relationship-between-plastics-industry-and-fracking-us 112 Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is Getting Even More Toxic — But Residents Are Fighting Back, Rolling Stone, Oct 30 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/louisiana-cancer-alley- getting-more-toxic-905534/ 113 Ibid. 62 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
More specifically, a newly planned set of petrochemical and cracker plants in St. James, Louisiana is expected to release 13.6 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, the equivalent of three coal-fired power plants. Nearby plants with the same owner have been in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Air Act every quarter since 2004 and 2009 respectively.
Lawsuits brought by Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, Center for Constitutional Rights, Earthjustice, and the Center for Biological Diversity are now pending. In fact, similar to the 1993 Erin Brockovich story battling PG&E’s drinking water contamination114, St. James residents have been fighting similar battles since at least 1996 as recounted in the 2001 Lifetime TV movie Take Back Our Town115.
End-of-Life
Downstream, after the-short lived consumption of these single-use items, roughly two-thirds of all plastic ever produced has been released into the environment and remains there in some form, most commonly as debris in the oceans116. By 2050, the United Nations estimates there will be more plastic than fish by weight in the ocean.
In 2015, according to the UN’s Single-use Plastics—A Roadmap to Sustainability report, 14% of plastic packaging waste was incinerated and generated electricity for nearby communities. In this process, the extreme temperature of the burners, up to 2,000 degrees, creates carbon pollution that escapes through smokestacks and is visible for miles.117 Like the fracking fields and cracker plants, incinerators are more commonly near lower income communities and communities of color and thus, perpetuate health and income inequities. Pollution does not know country, state, or county boundaries. As we put considerable amounts of plastic into our environment, it’s not surprising that it makes its way back to us.
Now having established large indirect costs of single-use plastics, the next sections explore solutions to reduce and rethink their use. A first step is to look at the foodservice industry.
114 $20 million Settlement in ‘Brockovich’ case, NBC News, 4/6/08, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23982252/ns/us_news-environment/t/million-settlement-brockovich- case/#.XuziSy05QW8 115 Take Back Our Town, Lifetime TV, 2001, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284108/ 116 Plastic & Health - The hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, Center for International Environmental Law, February 2019, https://www.ciel.org/plasticandhealth/ 117 How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades, Rolling Stone Magazine, 3/3/20, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/plastic-problem-recycling- myth-big-oil-950957/ 63 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
VI. Focus on Food Facilities Food facilities, any entity that provides prepared food for public consumption, are an important initial focus area to reduce single-use plastics. They include restaurants, coffee shops, mobile food trucks, farmers markets, food vendors at temporary events, and schools. This section provides information on initial possible change at these locations. While single-use plastics are also readily found at San Mateo County grocery and other stores, and in packaging of shipped goods, our research team did not have time to complete similar focus sections for this report.
Food service single-use plastics are distributed at almost every food facility in SMC. These items, as stated in Section III above, include cups, plateware, take-out containers & bags, accessories, and condiment packages.
For restaurants, coffee shops, and other food facility owners, these plastics are cheap, durable and readily available from existing supply chains. However, there are cheaper alternatives that increase owners’ profits while also decreasing indirect costs and negative impacts to our county and beyond. When considering the total cost of investment, switching to reusables from single- use plastics actually saves money as many business owners in SMC have already realized.
64 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Clean Water Fund’s ReThink Disposables program case studies savings (post-conversion 12 months results (disposable packaging eliminated, cost savings, waste prevented) to these businesses:
Table 12 – Case Study Results from ReThink Disposables Conversions to Reusables
An April 2020 Clean Water Fund report prepared for the County Office of Sustainability identified 3831 food facilities in the county. If all switched to reusables, they could save almost $14.6 million per year assuming a $3,846 annual savings per location (see Table 7).
In addition, if the 184 public schools with nearly 100,000 students each school year also switched to reusables, the savings could be almost $368,000, about $2000 per school according to Clean Water Action case studies. While switching to reusables is not easy and requires an upfront cost, organizations such as ReThink Disposables or a county funded restaurant ambassadors program could work with these facilities to make the change.118
Restaurants According to nationwide research, restaurants account for 70% of the disposable foodware market119 while the remainder is from schools, corporate cafes, and other locations. Of foodservice, 75% of disposables are used for take-out120, while the rest are for dine-in and delivery. However, we see this mix shifting more towards delivery.
Almost 80% of food facilities surveyed by Clean Water Action in 2019 offered take-out service, in SMC. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, a notable trend across the U.S. was a shift towards an increase in delivery and delivery-only restaurants. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic we expect the number of disposables to multiply.
Within SMC, Clean Water Action’s 2019 survey also identified almost 50% of the county’s 3831 food facilities fall in the quick-service (i.e., McDonald’s) or coffee and snack (i.e., Starbucks)
118 Resources, ReThink Disposables, June 2020, https://rethinkdisposable.org/resources 119 The Dirty Truth About Disposable Foodware, Overbrook Foundation, Feb 2020, https://www.upstreamsolutions.org/blogs/the-dirty-truth-about-disposable-foodware 120 ibid 65 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County categories121. The other half are full service, fast-casual, and food trucks. Thus, given the delivery and delivery-only trend, a prudent single-use plastics reduction strategy would need to include our five identified restaurant categories—full service, fast-casual, quick-service, coffee and snack, and food trucks.
SMC food facility challenges include rising food, labor, rent, utilities, and permit costs, labor shortages, and steep third-party app delivery fees. Labor challenges are nationwide, but the issue in SMC is magnified by even faster rising rents. Since 2017, the minimum wage for the City of San Mateo has increased by 28%122 while cost of living also rises.
Rising rental rates derive from low retail vacancies and high demand. Since 2017, Bay Area retail leases have increased by 25%123. Yet, local restaurant owners reported rental rate increases from 30% to 75%. Finally, restaurateurs are experiencing rising food costs, for example a 28% increase for vegetables and 4% for beef, as well as higher utilities, insurance and permit fees. The addition of third-party app delivery service fees of 15-30% per order and pandemic-related challenges, restaurants are facing a steep road ahead.
The large increase in delivery orders from third-party ordering apps such as Grubhub, Uber Eats, and Postmates, significantly impact restaurants’ profitability. According to an Acosta and Technomic survey, 77% of millennials ordered food delivery over the past three months compared to 51% of all U.S. diners. And 44% of millennials ordered meals from a third-party food delivery service compared to 20% for U.S. diners124. Since the increased use of delivery apps and take-out food is driven by the younger generations, this trend is expected to continue.
According to Kristen Adamowski, head of Uber’s virtual restaurants program125, “Uber Eats has helped launch 4,000 … virtual (delivery-only) restaurants worldwide, about half of them in the U.S. and Canada. The virtual restaurants will increase demand for disposable take-out food for hot and cold items, liquid and solid entrees, as well as smaller side salads, soups, appetizers and sauces.
Data shows that 82% of take-out or delivery meals are consumed at home and 16% at work, where reusable plates, cutlery, and glassware are typically available126. Restaurants can do their part and benefit by reducing unnecessary items by asking customers if they need disposables or switching to reusables.
121 Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2020, https://www.bls.gov/cew/ 122 San Mateo’s minimum wage rate to hit $15 by 2019, GovDocs.com, June 2020, https://www.govdocs.com/san-mateo-california-new-citywide-minimum-wage/ 123 San Mateo County Retail MarketView Q4 2019, Costar & CBRE Research, June 2020, https://www.cbre.us/research-and-reports/San-Mateo-County-Retail-MarketView-Q4-2019 124 Convenience is Key for US Diners, According to Acosta and Technomic’s The Why? Behind The Dine, Acosta, 7/9/18, https://www.acosta.com/news/convenience-is-key-for-us-diners-according-to- acosta-and-technomic-s-the-why-behind-the-dinetm 125 A large number of restaurants are offering delivery or take-out only, Associated Press, 10/22/19, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-growing-number-of-restaurants-are-being-conceived-only-for- delivery-or-take-out-2019-10-22 126 The Dirty Truth About Disposable Foodware, Overbrook Foundation, Feb 2020, https://www.upstreamsolutions.org/blogs/the-dirty-truth-about-disposable-foodware 66 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 28: Meal with single-use containers – Genentech Figure 29: Same Meal with Reusables – Genentech
SIDEBAR 13
Online Ordering Statistics Every Restaurateur Should Know
Consider these statistics on consumer attitudes/behavior around delivery service/takeout from Upserve’s list of 22 Online Ordering Statistics Every Restaurateur Should Know127, which point to the growing trend of more people ordering in: ● 60% of U.S. consumers order delivery or takeout once a week. ● 31% say they use these third-party delivery services at least twice a week. ● Digital ordering and delivery have grown 300% faster than dine-in traffic since 2014. ● 57% of millennials say that they have restaurant food delivered so they can watch movies and TV shows at home. ● 59% of restaurant orders from millennials are takeout or delivery. ● 87% of Americans who use third-party food delivery services agree that it makes their lives easier. ● 63% of consumers agree that it is more convenient to get delivery than dining out with a family. ● Orders placed via smartphone and mobile apps will become a $38 billion industry by 2020. ● Delivery sales could rise an annual average of more than 20% to $365 billion worldwide by 2030, from $35 billion.
127 31 Online Ordering Statistics Every Restaurateur Should Know in 2020, Upserve, 6/11/20, https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/online-ordering-statistics/ 67 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 14
Chris’ Single-Use Plastics
Let’s revisit Chris in Burlingame who now wants to stay home and binge watch “Tiger King.” He orders take-out from a popular Japanese restaurant just down the street using UberEats delivery service. Within the hour, that order arrives with one plastic container to hold the sushi, another container for miso soup, another for the salad, including a small container for the dipping sauce all in a plastic bag. For convenience, the restaurant included, three packages of soy sauce, a pair of wooden chopsticks and a half dozen napkins. After finishing his meal, the trash produced by Chris’ one order amounted to 10 separate single-use plastic items that will quickly be thrown away.
Figure 30: Chris' plastic food containers
The recently passed SMC Disposable Foodservice Ware Ordinance (see section XXX) requires restaurants to ask customers if they need a straw or cutlery before providing it to them. This and other local ordinances also target replacing single-use plastic with compostable alternatives or reusables.
These new policies have added additional cost pressures to the restaurant industry as many restaurateurs use durable, convenient and cost-effective single-use plastics in their operations and now much switch to compostables. Some restaurants have avoided these additional cost pressures by shifting to dine-in reusables. And for take-out, many restaurants recognized the level of waste created by using single-use plastics and the positive impact a shift towards reusables have on the environment.
Many local entrepreneurs, such as DishCraft, DishJoy, Dispatch Goods, Muuse, Sparkl Reusables, and Vessel are looking to help reduce the use of single-use plastics through innovation, including offering reusable services for takeout orders (see Sidebar 12).
*** ADD INFO ABOUT 8TH GRADER RECYCLING BOBA CUPS
68 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SIDEBAR 15
Reduce and Replace Foodservice Single-Use Plastics
Below are companies, products, and programs working to reduce and replace foodservice single-use plastics. Many are local:
ReThink Disposables (operations in SMC)—One mature program called ReThink Disposables, a project of the Clean Water Action nonprofit, works with restaurants to make the switch to reusables. To date, this program has helped 300 California restaurants decrease single-use plastics and is currently scheduled to help seven to 10 restaurants in SMC. Three examples of post-conversion 12 months results (disposable packaging eliminated, cost savings, waste prevented)128 include Genentech (1,010,171 items, $12,496, 11,582 pounds), Palo Alto Unified School District (436,540 items, $25,000, 8,152 pounds), and J&J Hawaiian BBQ (311,313 items, $20,517, 9,722 pounds,). More info: www.rethinkdisposable.org/. Our Thrive Impact Group met with the leaders of this program.
Genentech’s implementation included reducing utensils and two sizes of disposable containers and lids and eliminating individually packaged condiments. These actions and were proactively supported by the Palo Alto-based local foodservice vendor Bon Appetit, whose clients also include Oracle, Franklin Templeton and other large SMC companies.
Plastic Free Pacifica (Pacifica)—Another local nonprofit, Plastic Free Pacifica, is successfully applying grant funding from the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability to educate coastside restaurants of the benefits of switching to reusables. This nonprofit is run by a member of our Impact Group.
DishCraft Robotics Inc. (San Carlos)—From the Silicon Valley Business Journal, “a startup that delivers clean dishes daily to big commercial kitchens, raised $20 million in new funding to help it begin offering reusable to-go containers aimed at filling a growing need caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.” The company uses a robotic washing system to clean thousands of dirty dishes a day picked up at corporate cafeterias, school campuses, caterers and large restaurants before the Coronavirus crisis. More info: https://dishcraft.com. Our Thrive Impact Group met with the CEO.
69 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Dispatch Goods (Operations in Daly City)—From the SF Examiner, “will offer restaurants and food trucks reusable stainless-steel containers to replace disposable foodware...Customers are then encouraged to return the container to a designated drop-off location. Dispatch Goods will then wash them, and bring them back to ... use again.”129 More info: https://dispatchgoods.com. Our Thrive Impact Group met with the CEO.
DishJoy (San Francisco)—For corporate clients, DishJoy delivers dishes every evening that cleaned by commercial-grade and environmental designed washer and takes that day’s dirty dishes. More info: http://www.dishjoy.com
SUPER (South San Francisco)—From their website, “The first single-use plastic reduction solution and certification for businesses. Our SUPER™ technology helps businesses calculate their Single-Use Plastic Footprint, reduce it, and get certified for it. The process is easy, quick, and scalable. SUPER™ offers three tiers of certification: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. In addition, our data-driven procurement platform connects supply and demand for vetted alternatives to single-use plastics.” More info: https://www.super.ngo. This nonprofit is run by a member of our Impact Group.
Muuse—They supply a smart system of reusable takeaway containers. Speaking with Eater SF, Muuse COO Lizzie Horvitz explains that when a patron at a participating shop orders a drink in a 12 or 16 oz Muuse cup, they’ll download the company’s app, then scan the QR code of the cup they’re checking out. Customers won’t have to pay an additional fee. Instead they’ll get a 25-cent discount on the drink as long as they return the cup within five days. Customers will scan the QR code on return. If they lose the cup, or fail to return it within that five day period, they’ll be charged $15 via the credit card information entered into the app.”130 More info: https://www.muuse.io. Our Thrive Impact Group met with the CEO.
128 ReThink Disposables Resources, ReThink Disposables, 2020, https://www.rethinkdisposable.org/resources 129 Is reusable ware in the future of takeout food?, SF Examiner, 9/11/19, https://www.sfexaminer.com/news-columnists/is-reuseable-ware-in-the-future-of-takeout-food/ 130 Small SF Coffee Shops Join Starbucks-Backed Reusable Cup Pilot, Eater SF, 2/19/20, https://sf.eater.com/2020/2/19/21144113/starbucks-mcdonalds-muuse-andytown-wendys-blue-bottle 70 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
SPARKL Reusables— They offer a reusable takeout container program at local markets, street fairs, and events to help customers reduce waste and their impact on the environment. Their team will design a reusable system tailored to specific needs, engage and train all stakeholders (cafeteria staff, management, marketing, facilities, purchasing, etc.) to ensure the program runs smoothly and effectively, and provide ongoing sustainability metrics and monitoring of the system. More info: https://sparklsfbay.com
Vessel—As reported by the UC Berkeley paper, the Daily Cal, about its trial, “Become a member for free at vesselworks.org by just giving your email, location and a credit card to be charged to if you fail to return a cup. Once a member, the steps for becoming a frequent user are easy. You start by taking a photo of the code residing at the bottom of a metal Vessel cup. Then a link will show up on your phone to confirm your account. Just show the confirmation code to the barista, and you’re good to go! Once you finish your brew, you don’t even have to clean the cup! You just deposit it at any participating Vessel location; just make sure to return the cup within five days to avoid a $15 charge.”131 More info: https://vesselworks.org
Others to further explore include: ● Conscious Container— “Building the refillable circular glass economy” https://consciouscontainer.com ● RePack—Focused on “reusable and returnable delivery packaging designed with reuse in mind” www.originalrepack.com ● Loop—Sells “leading brands...waste free” in reusable containers where you “just pay a small fully refundable one-time deposit to borrow the package,” https://loopstore.com ● GO Box in Portland—More info: https://goboxpdx.com (ALSO GO BOX SF BAY – goboxsfbay.com / Sparkl Reusables https://sparklsfbay.com ● DeliverZero in Brooklyn ● Cup Club in the United Kingdom ● ReCup in Germany
More at https://foodprint.org/blog/reusable-takeout-containers-aim-to-take-out-trash/
131 Vessel Works: What is it, why should we care?, Daily Californian, 10/9/19, https://www.dailycal.org/2019/10/09/vessel-works-what-is-it-why-should-we-care/ 71 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Case studies from local restaurants including Comforts in San Anselmo, Hang Ten Broiler and Honolulu BBQ in Alameda, Sacred Wheel in Oakland and Subway in 11 Bay Area locations, have shown an average annual savings of $3846 per location through converting to reusables. This success is illustrated by the following owners and employee testimonials:
“By switching from expensive recyclable and compostable packaging to real dishes, I was able to save money and do the best thing for the environment. And right away customers started commenting on how happy they are with the changes!” - Jena Davidson, Co-owner, The Sacred Wheel
“We like participating in ReThink Disposable, #1 to save money, #2 because it is good for the environment and the next generation, and it is a benefit to all of us.” - Amy Eng, Owner, J&J Hawaiian BBQ
Switching to reusables makes it possible, after the payback period, for restaurants to save money.
While reusables may initially increase some costs, the return on investments (ROI) are high. However, there are challenges including potential installation of a hot water heater, dishwasher and grease capture devices, space issues, adapting to new operations, higher labor costs and a change to the customer experience. To switch, restaurants must incur a one-time investment in the purchase of reusables and infrastructure costs. Some restaurant owners may have limited space to install a dishwasher and store reusable containers. This sometimes requires restaurants to use an outside dishwashing service or reusable container system, which would add cost to their operations. Additionally, there may be added labor costs for the time to train employees on the new system and washing reusable foodware.
Finally, customer experience concerns include finding cost-effective alternatives with the same level of performance that keep food hot, secure, and maintain the restaurant's brand and reputation. This is even more critical with the rise of third-party delivery services as 76% of consumers will hold the restaurant at least partially responsible for any errors in the quality or delivery of their order.132 Despite this, hundreds of restaurants in the Bay Area have addressed and overcome these issues, and maintain positive ROIs when switching from disposables to reusables.
Schools School districts looking to become more sustainable can turn to the Plastic Free Campuses Initiative133, created by the Break Free From Plastics (BFFP) movement. The BFFP website gives detailed steps for any school campus to become plastic-free. They also offer online sessions including an Introduction to Plastic-Free Campuses, a School’s Journey to a Plastic-
132 Technomic study confirms that consumers blame restaurants for third-party delivery service mistakes, Technomic, 8/23/16, https://www.technomic.com/newsroom/technomic-study-confirms- consumers-blame-restaurants-third-party-delivery 133 Plastic Free Campuses, Break Free From Plastic, June 2020, https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/plastic-free-campus/ 72 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Free Campus, and a Student Survival Guide to Campaigning. BFFP leader Tiara Samson points out that separating plastic waste is no longer enough; it is crucial for the future of our planet that we use less plastic. Furthermore, recycling systems are deceptive: Samson reveals that over half of all plastic ever produced has been produced in the last 15 years, and that 91% of it has ended up in landfills.
Following BFFP’s guidelines, Ecolint in Geneva134 and Silliman University in Dumaguete City135 have eliminated single-use plastics from their campuses and worked to replace them with compostables and eventually reusables. Both are now plastic-free campuses. Making the switch has been beneficial to the community as well as the environment. Jan Dijkstra, Ecolint’s Sustainability Coordinator, recalls a student-run potluck where older students managed the “disposal” area, helping younger students, families and staff to properly deposit their uneaten food and utensils. One grandfather was confused, but kindly followed directions from the older students, setting an example for the community of open mindedness toward sustainability. New habits must be made to eliminate single-use plastics.
In California as a whole, plastics make up 12.7% of the waste collected from the average school136. In SMC, there are 184 public schools where nearly 100,000 students eat meals137. Therefore, it is quite possible that public school students alone could make up one sixth of the combined 600,000 workers and students who regularly eat their lunches away from home in SMC.
Meals create the most prominent single-use waste items: plastic packaging. From applesauce containers in elementary schools to takeout containers (delivered to students via DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, etc.) on high school campuses, food and drink packages are the largest source of a school’s plastic output. With proper education about waste disposal and reduction, SMC school campuses can create a drastic change to the county’s sustainability.
134 Ecolint International School Website, International School of Geneva, page #1, 2020, https://www.ecolint.ch/ 135 Silliman University Website, Silliman University, page #1, 2020, https://su.edu.ph/# 136 CalRecycle School Waste Composition, CalRecycle, page #1, October 18, 2018, https://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/reducewaste/schools/composition 137 San Mateo County Public Schools, Public School Review, page #1, 2020 https://www.publicschoolreview.com/california/san-mateo-county 73 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 31: Menlo-Atherton High School
At Menlo-Atherton, the largest of 37 public high schools in the county138, 620 meals are sold to students and staff every day by the Sysco and Danielson companies. It is important to consider these corporations in analyzing a school’s waste output because the majority of single-use plastics on school campuses are from cafeterias and kitchens. These corporations are not the adversaries, but potential partners. Some districts have already begun working with their meal distributors to implement more sustainable packaging. For example, Ms. Nora DeCaro and her team from the Sequoia Union High School District Foodservices Program have successfully advocated for cardboard lunch trays instead of plastic. While cardboard is still a single-use product, it is more easily recycled than plastic. This switch demonstrates the possibilities for change in school-provided meals. To learn about making school district foodservice more sustainable, a student or staff member can contact their foodservices program director through their district website.139
Other local school districts have been taking strides toward sustainability as well. With the help of the ReThink Disposable program and the Clean Water Action Fund, the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) has implemented reusable systems in 12 of its 17 cafeterias.140 By engaging workers at every level of the meal supply chain, the district eliminates 436,540 single- use foodware items every year, and over 8,000 pounds of waste. How does this work? First, meals are prepared and packaged into reusable clamshell-style containers, which are brought to school campuses in trucks and unloaded into their kitchens along with fresh fruits and vegetables. At lunchtime, students filter through the cafeteria to pick up their meal, then return the foodware to carts as they finish. The clamshell containers, plastic lunch baskets, and stainless-steel sporks are then taken back to central kitchens for washing and prepared for another day of use.
138 High Schools in San Mateo County, HighSchools.com, page #1, 2020, High Schools located in San Mateo County, CA 139 California School Directory, California Department of Education, page #1, 2020, https://www.cde.ca.gov/schooldirectory 140 PAUSD Case Study, ReThink Disposables, pages #1-12, December 2019, https://www.rethinkdisposable.org/resources 74 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
While purchasing these reusable containers and providing increased wages to its delivery truck drivers cost the District $49,831 in 2019, they have already begun saving $25,000 and over 8,000 lbs. of waste per year without disposable foodware. Divided by the participating student body of 3,400, that’s $7.35 saved per student every year, plus 2.35 lbs. of waste just in the cafeteria. And with 180 school days per year, the district saves $138.90 and 44.44 lbs. of waste for every day it serves meals. Similar programs near SMC include the University of San Francisco ($157,883 savings and 26,926 lbs. of waste per year) and Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland ($6,459 savings and 3,376 lbs. of waste per year).141
Figure 32 – Palo Alto Unified School District reusables
Menlo College in Menlo Park has worked with their foodservice provider Sodexo. Along with providing sustainably sourced and healthy meals, Sodexo believes that eliminating food waste is crucial for the wellbeing of a community and its future generations.142 Some sustainability program initiatives include trayless dining to save water and detergent, bulk condiments to eliminate individual packages, discounts for reusable mugs and bottles, and compostable to-go ware. While each of these changes is great by itself, the college also uses a Better Tomorrow 2025 roadmap to track their progress toward a more mindful community.143 Menlo College is a great SMC example of utilizing a third-party expert to initiate the movement toward sustainability. Schools can also contract with organizations like Dispatch Goods for reusable food delivery containers and DishCraft for overnight sanitation for reusable kitchenware.
Additionally, the San Mateo County Office of Education (SMCOE) provides strategies, examples, and resources for campuses to reduce their environmental footprint. By visiting the Environmental Literacy Initiative page of the SMCOE website, a community member may view
141 Resources, ReThink Disposables, 2020, https://www.rethinkdisposable.org/resources 142 Menlo College Sodexo Program, Menlo College, page #1, 2020, https://menlo.sodexomyway.com/explore/sustainability 143 Better Tomorrow 2025 Roadmap, Sodexo, page #1, 2020, https://www.your-sodexo.com/my- company/better-tomorrow-2025/ 75 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County the work of nine schools that have already begun the process.144 The SMCOE recognizes Aragon, Mills, and Crystal Springs Uplands high schools; Pescadero, Arroyo, Brittan Acres, Nesbit, Portola, and Mariposa Elementary Schools; and Belle Air Preschool for engaging in the One Planet Schools Challenge.
In the midst of COVID-19, most schools in SMC are unsure if they will even be open for in- person classes in the fall. Consequently, this is an especially difficult time to propose change in a district system as crucial as foodservices. However, this pandemic also brings us perspective and a call-to-action to make the switch toward reusables once and for all.
Now with all students studying and eating at home, local grocery stores and restaurants have utilized plastic packaging more than ever to promote sanitary food shopping and delivery methods. Not only is this less sanitary than eating from a cleaned reusable container145, but it has fueled our throwaway culture here in the Bay Area. Rather than shaming those students and adults who rely on single-use plastics, we must all ask ourselves: how can I as an individual eliminate disposable foodware?
Through self-reflection and gradual societal change, SMC students and all residents can become exponentially more sustainable. Schools are an essential part of this movement because educating students about single-use plastics will create a thoughtful and resourceful next generation. Although SMC school districts lack an official unified movement away from single-use plastics, there are outstanding resources and great potential for our young leaders.
144 SMCOE Environmental Literacy Initiative, SMCOE, page #1, 2020, https://sites.google.com/smcoe.org/smcoe-environmental-literacy/resources/green-campus/zero-waste- official/waste-solutionary-examples?authuser=0 145 Myths vs. Facts: Dispelling 5 Myths about Reusables During the Times of COVID-19, Ecology Center, 6/3/20, https://ecologycenter.org/blog/myths-vs-facts-dispelling-5-myths-about-reusables-during-the-times-of- covid-19 76 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 33: San Mateo County Office of Education – Zero Waste Initiatives
CORPORATE CAFES?? - NEED TO ADD SECTION HERE???
77 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
VII. Alternatives to Single-Use Plastics Across all six categories of single-use plastics—foodservice, beverage bottles and lids, bags, product packaging, shipping materials, and cigarette butts—lower cost and lower impact alternatives exist.
Alternatives for Foodservice Single-use Plastics Viewing the list of foodservice items might seem discouraging as they are common and pervasive. The items include water cups and lids, hot (plastic lined) beverage cups and lids, plates, bowls and trays, take-out containers of all sizes, utensils, straws, stirrers, stoppers, toothpicks, condiment packages, and take-away bags. The list can also inspire creativity and opportunity for more sustainable living as almost every item has a cheaper and cleaner alternative that can bring positive, long-term impacts to the well-being and health of our community and the environment.
According to the February 2020 report from The Overbrook Foundation, well implemented solutions can eliminate over 90% of foodservice single-use plastic items—63% through conversion to reusables and 34% through switching to compostable146. The choice of solutions
146 The Dirty Truth About Disposable Foodware, The Overbrook Foundation, February 2020, https://www.upstreamsolutions.org/blogs/the-dirty-truth-about-disposable-foodware 78 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County depends on the type of restaurant—full service, fast-casual, quick serve, food trucks, or coffee/snack. Not all alternatives are equal, and some may have unintended consequences. Therefore, it is important to closely study the alternatives and proceed with a holistic and analytical approach.
Compostables for Food Facilities Within the foodservice area, compostable products are a good alternative if accompanied with compost bins and facilities to process the material. Non-plastic compostable items, as defined by SMC’s Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance, are natural fiber-based materials derived from paper, sugarcane, wheat stalk and stem, bamboo, wood, and other similar sources.
Assuming they do not end up in a landfill, and they are properly processed, non-plastic, compostable materials have substantial environmental and economic benefits as a soil additive by providing nutrients, reducing chemical fertilizers, improving water retention, and increasing plant rooting depth.
Compostable products with certain certifications, such as ones by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), are validated to break down in an industrial composting facility. On the contrary, compostable plastics such as bioplastics or polylactic acid (PLA) are not good alternatives as they products persist in the environment like their petroleum-based plastic counterparts.147
At many food facilities in SMC, however, compost bins are not accessible. Of the food facilities respondents in SMC to Clean Water Actions 2019 survey, 46.5% do not have on-site compost bins and only 12% have compost bins in the dining area with the remainder them only in the kitchen148. This is a large concern to our research team. Furthermore, customers may bring the disposable foodservice items to another location with no compost bins or might throw them in the trash because they lack the education or desire put them in a green bin. This results in sending organic material to the landfill where it will break down into methane that has a Global 149 Warming Potential that is 84 times stronger than CO2 . Hence, there are limited benefits to using compostable foodservice items over single-use plastics if both items end up in the landfill.
Compostable items are still single-use and, therefore, require steady production, shipping, and fast disposal, all of which come with environmental impacts as well as indirect disposal and litter costs to our cities in SMC. Reusables, however, have only a one-time cost of transportation and emissions, a small annual cost to maintain, and a disposal cost that comes only many years after their initial purchase. Therefore, instead of focusing on short-term, low cost alternatives, we see a benefit to focusing on long-term, cleaner, and more creative alternatives to single-use plastics.
147 Better Alternatives Now—B.A.N. List 2.0, multiple authors, 11/1/17, https://www.5gyres.org/publications 148 A Survey of Food Businesses in San Mateo County: Understanding the path to reusable foodware through an in-depth analysis of business owner needs, Clean Water Fund, January 2020, ?? 149 CO2 Equivalents, Climate Change Connection, 4/27/16, https://climatechangeconnection.org/emissions/co2-equivalents/ 79 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Figure 34: Compostable Food Packaging Alternative
Reusables for Food Facilities While single-use plastics or compostables for foodservice provide a perceived level of convenience for both the business owner and customer, dozens of SMC and other regional restaurants, schools, and corporate cafes have achieved significant cost savings and waste reduction by replacing a broad range of non-reusable items. These organizations have proven that there can be significant cost savings with change.
Strong examples include Subway Sandwiches, Palo Alto Unified School District, and Genentech. These organizations’ returns on their investments are well documented in case studies by the Rethink Disposable program from the Oakland-based nonprofit, Clean Water Action, which helped plan and execute the conversions.
Figure 35: Reusable school lunch food packaging and Reuse collection
bin
80 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
For most items, the best alternatives are to not offer disposables, but instead only reusables at no fee. This automatically leads to a significant reduction in waste. In some cases, fees can drive adoption of reusables, although not a complete reduction. Readily available options for replacing all foodware single-use plastics include: ● Bring your own (BYO)—consumer brings reusable item ● Food facility owned reusables—owner buys and provides reusable items ● Third party owned reusables—an independent company drops off clean items and returns to pick them up on-site or a community location after use
Bring your own is the most simple and effective alternative and leads to the most source reduction as these items can be used for years, not minutes. The second is highly effective as it reduces use but requires initial purchase and washing. Finally, third party owned reusables is a growing segment with great opportunity for low environmental impacts and associated indirect costs.
Plastic cold cups can be readily replaced by reusable cups that result in substantial savings to restaurant owners within six-to- twelve months of their initial up-front cost according to case studies from the Oakland-based nonprofit Clean Water Action’s ReThink Disposable program, which helps plan and execute conversions. Figure 36: ReThink Disposable program A great example of reusables in restaurants is Just Salads, a participant identification reusables only food facility, which now operates in the NYC Area, Chicago, Philadelphia, Florida, North Carolina, and Dubai. From their website, “Join the World’s Largest Restaurant Reusable Program! Buy a $1 reusable bowl + get one FREE topping (like avocado) with every use.” Just Salad’s stated goal is to send zero waste to landfills by 2022.
Reusables for Other Single-Use Plastics Two notable publications, The Plastics Better Alternatives Now (BAN) List150 and Better Alternatives NOW B.A.N. List 2.0151, by a consortium of environmental organizations, lists alternatives that are available for all single-use plastics. The second of these two also thoroughly covers the benefits and challenges of different types of compostable products. We recommend reviewing these publications to understand the best alternatives for each of the foodservice single-use plastic items.
For plastic soda bottles, metal or glass disposable or reusable containers can be viable replacements. Many countries in Europe have effectively implemented return and reuse systems. Additionally, metal caps can replace plastic ones, or connected cap systems for which
150 Plastics BAN List, 5 Gyres, Surfrider Foundation, Clean Production Action, and UPSTREAM, November 2016, https://www.5gyres.org/publications 151 Plastics BAN List 2.0, 5 Gyres, Algalita, Californians Against Waste, Clean Production Action, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Responsible Purchasing Network, Story of Stuff, Surfrider Foundation and UPSTREAM, November 2017, https://www.5gyres.org/publications 81 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
“connect the cap” legislation language is available152. Both options can be used to decrease the amount of plastic waste from these items.
Successful programs for recycling and reuse include imposing a deposit fee on the bottle that is large enough to drive a high percentage of returns, producer led reusable programs that require pickup and cleaning following a customer’s use, and bulk purchasing at retail locations.
In October 2018153, Recology San Francisco, a sister company to Recology San Mateo County, launched a “Better at the Bin” media campaign154. While much of the campaign is dedicated to recycling education, it also the following source reduction advice:
“Be part of the solution by refusing single-use plastics. ...Say NO to plastic.”
1. Carry a metal water bottle. Doing so can save you $258 a year. 2. Carry a (metal) travel mug. We don’t need single-use coffee cups, and coffee shops offer discounts to people who bring their own travel mug. 3. Carry canvas bags when shopping, no plastic bag required, and stores give discounts to people who bring their own bag. 4. Buy loose fruits and vegetables when shopping for produce. Decline produce packaged in plastic. 5. Opt for reusable containers to store food and for lunches. 6. Refuse single-use plastics whenever possible: plastic bags, plastic straws. 7. Support local shops and bulk stores.
SIDEBAR 16
Reduce and Replace Product Packaging Single-Use Plastics
Byrds Filling Station (San Mateo)—They provide plastic free bulk purchase and delivery. From the website, “For most bulk products, glass or aluminum packaging is used. When you’re done with the product, you’re welcome to keep the bottle or jar for your own reuse. If you don’t have a specific use for it and want to return it for refill and reuse, just leave it out on the next delivery day and we’ll bring it back, clean it and reuse!” More info: https://byrdsfillingstation.com. This business is run by a member of our Impact Group.
152 AB 319 (Stone) - Connect the Cap, Californians Against Waste, June 2020, https://www.cawrecycles.org/ab-319-stone 153 New Initiative Highlights “Simple” Recycling Solutions, Waste360, 10/29/18, https://www.waste360.com/recycling/new-initiative-highlights-simple-recycling-solutions 154 Better at the Bin, Recology, 2020, https://www.recology.com/better-at-the-bin/ 82 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
VIII. Pathways for Change—Policy and Programs After three months of synthesizing reports and validating our findings, it’s clear to our Impact Group research team that single-use plastics have a large negative impact on SMC. Not only are they costing us millions of dollars a year in disposal and litter cleanup expenses as well as damaging our air, land and water ecosystem, but they are also compromising our health.
Furthermore, our primary and secondary research overwhelmingly states that neither improving single-use plastics recycling nor switching to single-use compostables are effective pathways to address our challenges in SMC. Rather, the conventional direction amongst industry experts is replacing disposables with reusables. Given this predominant direction, our research team agrees a shift to reusables is the best road to lowering the negative impacts in SMC.
Our next task, therefore, is to guide SMC leaders on how to move in this direction—work to enact local policy and programs, lobby for state and federal action, or both? This is the topic for our Phase 2 work, however, we highlight some options below not prioritized by greatest impact.
Whichever solutions do rise to the top, lowering countywide consumption of single-use plastics, as measured in tons, won’t be fast. But we are confident it can be steady, non-disruptive, and economically beneficial, especially if applied with a holistic approach and cross-sector collaboration of business, government, nonprofit, and youth.
This section reviews actions that could reduce and replace single-use plastics through three pathways: • Local policy • Incentive programs • Education programs
83 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Policy
State and local policymakers have addressed the impacts of specific single-use plastics for over a decade, including bans on plastic bags, polystyrene, and xx, all reviewed below. More recently, many California policymakers are focused on a new generation of ordinances that address a broader set of disposables, namely in the foodservice arena. Most notable is the San Mateo County Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance of 2020. Also important are new laws in Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Francisco. Finally, state and federal leaders are also in exploratory new options. While all are reviewed below, this section is not intended to be an authoritative resource and is likely already outdated due to the fluid nature of policy action.
Another approach to regulating plastics locally is to impose responsibilities on the producers. In several developed and developing countries, the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and deposit-return schemes have proven effective in reducing littering from PET bottles while boosting the recycling sector. According the UN’s 2018 Single-Use Plastics: A Roadmap for Sustainability report Germany, Japan and South Africa are among many successful examples where the responsibility for recycling used PET bottles is embraced by manufacturers, either voluntarily or by act of law155.
Policies that shift the burden of waste generation onto producers can include a tax on single-use plastics, and landfill or incineration fees to pay for local programs. But they are opposed by producers with one exception. ” Unilever has … pledged to finance and track its commitment to capture more plastic waste than it produces,” says CEO Alan Jope, adding “Our plastic is our responsibility and so we are committed to collecting back more than we sell, as part of our drive towards a circular economy156”. Unilver has challenged peers follow but none have..
San Mateo County Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance of 2020 The single-use plastics policy most important to this report is the San Mateo County Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance of 2020157, written by the County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability and first passed by the County Board of Supervisors on 2/25/20158 for the unincorporated areas of San Mateo County. It was subsequently passed by three incorporated jurisdictions and is under consideration at others. More detailed information can be found here - www.smcsustainability.org/disposable-food-service-ware-ordinance.
155 UNEP, SINGLE-USE-PLASTICS: A Roadmap for Sustainability, 2018, https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/25496 156 Waste and Opportunity 2020: Searching for Corporate Leadership, As You Sow, 6/17/20, https://www.asyousow.org/reports/waste-and-opportunity-2020-searching-corporate-leadership 157 Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance, San Mateo County Office of Sustainability, June 2020, https://www.smcsustainability.org/disposable-food-service-ware-ordinance/ 158 County supervisors adopt ban on non-compostable foodware, The Almanac, 3/14/2020, https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2020/03/14/county-supervisors-adopt-ban-on-noncompostable- foodware 84 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
The Ordinance’s objectives are to159: • Eliminate unnecessary distribution and use of non-reusable or compostable foodservice ware • Improve health and safety of SMC community by eliminating harmful disposable foodservice ware • Help County meet regional stormwater permit requirement by reducing discharge litter
The ordinance, however, focuses more on switching to compostables versus moving from disposables to reusables, and requires restaurants and vendors preparing food for public consumption (“foodservice establishments”) to use non-plastic, compostable plates, bowls, cups, food trays, boxes, straws, stirrers, utensils and toothpicks. This will reduce plastic litter but may replace it with fiber-based litter. Additionally, straws, stirrers and napkins must be provided only upon request, both for in person and online ordering. It also states the County will lead restaurant education and enforcement for incorporated jurisdictions that adopt it.
Important provisions include:
Food facilities shall use non-plastic, compostable plates, bowls, cups, food trays, clamshells, boxes, deli containers, and other containers. These items may be lined with, but not made entirely of compostable plastic. These items shall be certified by Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) or by another 3rd party approved by the Office of Sustainability (OOS) to ensure that the items breakdown in an industrial composting facility and are free of or have minimal traces of harmful fluorinated chemicals.
Food facilities shall use disposable straws, stirrers, utensils, and cocktail/toothpicks, and the packaging that these individual items are wrapped in if any, made from non-plastic, compostable materials. Non-plastic, compostable is defined as, but not limited to, natural fiber- based materials such as paper, sugarcane, wheat stalk/stem, bamboo, wood, etc. Traditional petroleum-based plastics and compostable bioplastics or polylactic acid plastics shall not be allowed for the abovementioned items.
159 County of San Mateo’s Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance Summary, Office of Sustainability San Mateo County December 2019, https://www.smcsustainability.org/wp- content/uploads/Disposable-Food-Service-Ware-Ordinance-Summary_12.19.19.pdf 85 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Accessories such as straws, stirrers, cup spill plugs, condiment packets, utensils, napkins, etc. shall be provided only when requested by the consumer, upon acceptance by the consumer after being offered by the food facility, or at a self-serve area and/or a dispenser. Accessories must be distributed unbundled as separate individual units. Take-out food delivery services that utilize digital ordering platforms shall provide clear options for customers to affirmatively request accessories.
Following the Board of Supervisors adoption, the Ordinance was subsequently adopted by councilmembers in Atherton160 (6/17/20), Burlingame161 (5/4/20) and South San Francisco162 (3/25/20). Other cities are considering adoption. Prior to this action, Pacifica passed a plastic straws, stirrers, and cutlery ban163 on 10/22/18. We applaud the County for researching and Figure 37:County of San Mateo ‘s disposable authoring the Ordinance, and the jurisdictions for passing this foodservice ware ordinance law that eliminates petroleum- and bioplastics-based single-use plastics from prepared food facilities.
This ordinance would be most effective if all jurisdictions in SMC were to pass it. Additionally, these three policy changes would further reduce the pervasiveness of single-use plastics and address concerns about single-use compostable foodware.
1. A focus on replacing compostable foodware items with reusable alternatives 2. An expansion of the 2012 single-use plastic bag ban to include all retail, including foodservice establishments, like Alameda County’s Reusable Bag Ordinance164 3. Exploration of the SMC ordinance to include additional possible locations where food is served including a local government sponsored events or vendors’ events.
Berkeley, Palo Alto, and San Francisco Berkeley Single Use Foodware and Litter Reduction Ordinance (7,639-N.S., 2019) – This Ordinance requires dine-in foodware be reusable, takeout foodware be compostable, and food facilities to charge customers 25 cents for disposable cups.
160 City Council meeting minutes, Town of Atherton, 6/17/20, https://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3383 161 Disposable Food Service Ware, City of Burlingame, 2020, https://www.burlingame.org/departments/sustainability/disposable_food_service_ware.php 162 City of South San Francisco Regulates the Use of Disposable Foodservice Ware by Food Facilities, ssf.net, 2020 https://www.ssf.net/home/showdocument?id=18884 163 Ordinance No. 838-C.S, City of Pacifica, 11/13/18, https://www.cityofpacifica.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=14937 164 Reusable Bag Ordinance, June 2020, Alameda County Waste Management Authority, http://reusablebagsac.org 86 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
It is designed to reduce the use and disposal of single-use foodware, including cups, lids, utensils, straws, clamshells, and other disposables that contribute to street litter, marine pollution, harm to wildlife, greenhouse gas emissions, and waste sent to landfills. It also assists businesses with the shift away from environmentally harmful single-use disposable foodware and toward reusable foodware.
It applies to all Prepared Food Vendors, including bakeries, cafeterias, drive-ins, food products stores, foodservice establishments, drugstores, theaters, bars and other similar establishments that sell Prepared Food to be consumed on or off premises, and to foodware purchased by the City of Berkeley for use at City facilities and City-sponsored events.165
Palo Alto Disposable Foodware Ordinance (Section 5.30, 2019)166 – Effective January 1, 2020, to protect local watersheds and oceans, reduce litter, and encourage zero waste, all foodservice establishments in Palo Alto including restaurants, bars, delis, grocery stores, food trucks, hotels, and convenience stores can no long distribute plastic straws, utensils, stirrer sticks, drink plugs, produce bags, and other disposable plastic items. Rather, they can only distribute reusable or compostable foodware items that are acceptable in the City's compost collection program.
Furthermore, Palo Alto’s website establishes a Switch to Reusables long-term plan to eliminate the use of disposable foodware items, enabled by providing free technical assistance to businesses.
San Francisco Single-Use Foodware Plastic, Litter, and Toxics Reduction Law (2019) – This ordinance aims to reduce plastic pollution by prohibiting the distribution of plastic straws, providing allowed accessories only upon request, and eliminating toxic fluorinated chemicals from foodware products. It also bans plastic beverage plugs, cocktail sticks, stirrers, and toothpicks. It also prohibits providing takeout accessories such as condiment packages, napkins, coffee lids, and sleeves, unless a customer asks for them. Additionally, all foodware will need to be compostables that are accepted by SF’s composting facilities or recyclable. And foodware that contains fluorinated chemicals, commonly used on paper takeout containers to repel water and grease, are banned.167168
San Francisco Cigarette Litter Abatement Fee Ordinance - Every cigarette retailer in the City and County of San Francisco is responsible for paying the Cigarette Litter Abatement Fee of $1
165 Berkeley Single Use Foodware and Litter Reduction Ordinance, City of Berkeley, 3/27/19, https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Public_Works/Zero_Waste/Berkeley_Single_Use_Foodware_and_Litter_R eduction_Ordinance.aspx 166 Disposable Foodware Ordinance, City of Palo Alto, 1/1/20, https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/pwd/zerowaste/projects/foodware.asp 167 New Ordinance Tackles Plastic Waste and Litter, Makes Dining in San Francisco More Eco- friendly, SF Environment, June 2020, https://sfenvironment.org/news/update/the-plastic-and-litter- reduction-ordinance-will-eliminate-sources-of-litter-while-making-the-san-francisco-dining-experience- more 168 Straw Law goes into effect today, Surfrider Foundation San Francisco, 7/1/19, https://sf.surfrider.org/2019/07/01/straw-law-goes-into-effect-today/ 87 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County per pack of cigarettes sold. Filing and fee payment are due on a quarterly basis169. However, the state of California has now preempted other municipalities from passing similar legislation due to their action on Tobacco Waste Reduction and EPR policies (California SB424, 2019).
Current State and Federal Action The following three bills were advanced to the state in 2019 and 2020 but did not make it to a final vote.
Solid Waste: Packaging and Products (California SB 54, 2019 and AB 1080, 2019) - California lawmakers adjourned in September 2019 without acting on these bills that sought to eliminate 75% of single-use containers by 2030.170
Tobacco Waste Reduction and EPR (California SB 424, 2019) —This bill would have prohibited a person or entity from selling, giving, or in any way furnishing to another person of any age in the state any single-use filters, plastic devices, electronic cigarettes, and vaporizer devices. Furthermore, it would have required the manufacturer of these components to use materials eligible for recycling under state or local recycling programs to make any multiuse, reusable component, and to offer methods for recycling those components, as specified.171
California Recycling and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act (2020) – This bill would have given regulators the power to charge producers fees, as high as one cent each, for selling single-use plastic packaging. It also required packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable, banned certain “unnecessary” packaging, prohibited the use of virgin plastic, mandated recycled content; imposed deposit systems and retailer take-back requirements, and required certain labeling and marketing.172
Two important single-use plastics bills are currently in subcommittee hearings but not expected to pass in this session.
Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act of 2020 (S 3263, 2020 and HR 5845, 2020) - First introduced by Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico in February 2020, this bill would ban many single- use plastics and force corporations to take accountability for the waste they create by financing end-of-life programs.173
169 Cigarette Litter Abatement Fee, City and County of San Francisco, June 2020, https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/cigarette-litter-abatement-fee-cig 170 California lawmakers fail to act on recycling bills to phase out single-use plastics, LA Times, 9/14/19, https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-09-14/california-legislature-fail-legislation- single-use-plastics 171 SB 424 (Jackson)—Tobacco Waste Reduction and EPR, Californians Against Waste, June 2020, https://www.cawrecycles.org/sb-424-jackson 172 Sweeping plastics ballot initiative submitted in California, Recycling Resource, 11/12/19, https://resource-recycling.com/recycling/2019/11/12/sweeping-plastics-ballot-initiative-submitted-in- california/ 173 Rolling Stone article 88 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Existing Local, State, & Federal Policy The following regional policies are important to the reduction of single-use plastics.
San Mateo County Polystyrene Ban (Ordinance 04542, 2011) – In 2011, San Mateo County prohibited the use of polystyrene-based (styrofoam) disposable foodservice ware by food vendors. Many of the county’s cities followed suit in subsequent years.174 This County ordinance was subsequently replaced by the SMC Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance of 2020.
The following two statewide waste management bills apply to plastics and all other solid waste. Improved single-use plastics management can help achieve these bills’ goals.
Integrated Waste Management Act (AB 939, 1989) - As noted in a 2019 C/CAG waste committee meeting, this bill created the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CalRecycle) and mandated each city/county to achieve 25% diversion of solid waste by 1995 and 50% by 2000. This goal was changed in 2007 to reflect a disposal rate to better track source reduction. Each jurisdiction now has a target pounds of disposal per person per day.175
Solid Waste: Diversion (AB 341, 2011) – As noted in a 2019 SMC Grand Jury report, AB 939’s mandate is still in effect; however, AB 341 set a more ambitious statewide goal of 75% waste diversion by 2020. While this target is not mandatory, most San Mateo County jurisdictions, including the 12 members of the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (SBWMA), adopted it as a goal. Further, in their Climate Action Plans (CAPs), Atherton, Belmont and Colma adopted diversion goals of 80 to 90%.176 Additional jurisdictions’ CAPs call for accelerated waste diversion rate goals include: • Burlingame (2019)177 - 90% by 2030, 95% by 2040, and 100% by 2050
The following statewide bill regulates compostables, which are often single-use plastics replacements, thus impacting most actions working towards their reduction.
Short-Lived Climate Pollutants Act (California SB 1383, 2016) – As noted in a 2020 RethinkWaste board report, this bill represents a comprehensive agenda that directly links waste reduction, recycling, composting, and landfilling to efforts to reduce the generation of greenhouse gases associated with disposal. This landmark legislation places responsibility on local governments or their designees, including but not limited to178:
174 Polystyrene Based Disposable Food Service Ware, County of San Mateo, March 2011, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54d3a62be4b068e9347ca880/t/559ab62fe4b069786e96ae18/1436 202543406/San+Mateo+County+EPS+Ordinance.pdf 175 Meeting Minutes Ad Hoc Committee to Study the Five-Year Countywide Integrated Waste Management Plan (CIWMP) Update, CCAG, 8/9/19, https://ccag.ca.gov/wp- content/uploads/2019/08/Meeting-Minutes-2019-CIMWP-Review-Ad-Hoc-Committee-Meeting-1-Final.pdf 176 Planning For The County’s Waste Management Challenges, Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo, 7/30/19, http://www.sanmateocourt.org/documents/grand_jury/2018/waste_management.pdf 177 2030 Climate Action Plan Update, City of Burlingame, 8/28/19, https://www.burlingame.org/document_center/Sustainability/CAP/Climate%20Action%20Plan_FINAL.pdf 178 2020 Long-Range Plan (2020 – 2024), South Bayside Waste Management Authority, x/x/xx https://rethinkwaste.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2021-2024-RethinkWaste-Long-Range-Plan.pdf 89 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
• expanded recycling and composting collection programs and/or high-diversion materials processing facilities to achieve 75% reduction in organics disposal from the 2014 level by 2025 (and 20% of edible food currently disposed to be recovered by that year) • an enforcement structure with specific monetary penalties for non-compliance • local government procurement of recycled-content products
Some additional important statewide bills impacting single-use plastics are:
Waste Management: Plastic Microbeads (California AB 888, 2015) - Prohibits the selling of personal care products containing plastic microbeads in California.179
Solid Waste: Single-Use Carryout Bags (California SB 270, 2015) – This bill prohibits retail establishments from providing single-use carryout bags to customers at the point of sale, and allows recycled paper bags, compostable plastic bags, or reusable bags to be made available for purchase. This bill was later affirmed by a statewide approval of proposition 67 in 2016.180
Food Facilities: Single-use Plastic Straws (California AB 1884, 2019) – This bill requires full-service restaurants - but not fast food or quick service eateries - to provide plastic straws only upon customer request.181
One important federal bill impacts single-use plastics.
Microbead-Free Waters Act (2018) – modeled after CA 888, this bill bans the use of all plastic microbeads in rinse-off personal care products.
Incentive and Education Programs As a complement to local policy measures, both incentive and public education programs can drive plastic consumption behavior change of San Mateo County residents, workers, and visitors. These programs will require funding and labor, and therefore, must be targeted to specific audiences and with messages that prioritize initiatives that best drive the Impact Group’s goals.
Possible variables to narrow the focus of incentive and education programs include: • Geography –city or group of cities • Entity – business, school district • Demographic – age, ethnicity, socioeconomic ranges • Affinity group – Girl Scouts, Lion’s club, etc.
179 AB-888 Waste management: plastic microbeads, State of California, 10/8/15, http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB888 180 SB-270 Solid waste: single-use carryout bags, State of California, 9/30/14, http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB270 181 AB-1884 Food facilities: single-use plastic straws, State of California, 9/20/18), https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB1884 90 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Funding to pay for labor and program costs will require solicitations to government agencies or philanthropists for grants. Or other organizations that have budget and a vested interest in a program’s success. Such organizations in the broader ecosystem that conduct programs that may align with the impact group’s future goals are stated below.
Phase 2 of the Impact Group’s work on reduction of single-use plastics in SMC will include contacting these and other organizations to identify the best candidates to reduce and rethink consumption of disposables.
91 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Single use Plastic Reduction Ecosystem – SMC-based organizations, or those that operate in the county, with overlapping agendas to reduce fast consumed plastics incurring costs and causing harm to SMC residents, business, visitors:
Waste Management & Litter Marine Conservation Climate Change Govern- • Bay Area Air Quality • SF Bay Regional Water Quality • County Office of Education ment Management District Control Board • County Office of Sustainability • CalRecycle • SMC Harbor District • C/CAG of SMC • San Mateo RCD • County Health Department • County Office of Sustainability • RethinkWaste • SMC cities & towns (20) Non- • Grassroots Ecology • Marine Science Institute • 350 Silicon Valley profits • Plastic Free Pacifica • Pacific Beach Coalition • Acterra • Clean Water Action - ReThink • Save the Bay • Carbon Free Silicon Valley Disposables • Sea Hugger • Citizens’ Climate Lobby – SMC • S.U.P.E.R • Surfrider Foundation • Elders Climate Action - NorCal • Upstream • Extinction Rebellion - San Mateo • Fossil Free Midpeninsula • Menlo Spark • Pacifica Climate Committee • Peninsula Interfaith Climate Action • Sustainable San Mateo County • Thrive Alliance Business • GreenWaste haulers • Kunz • Recology San Mateo County • Recology of the Coast • Recology San Bruno • Republic Services of Daly City • Republic Services of HMB • South SF Scavenger Business • BioCellection solutions • Byrd’s Filling Station • Dishcraft • Dishpatch Goods • Green Citizen Youth • • Heirs to Our Oceans • Burlingame High School • Canada College • Carlmont High School • College of San Mateo • Crystal Springs Uplands HS • Design Tech High School • Half Moon Bay High School • Menlo High School • Menlo-Atherton High School • Mercy Burlingame High School • Mills High School • Nueva High School • SMC CCD • San Mateo High School • Skyline College • SSF High School Earth Club • Woodside High School • Youth Leadership Institute • Youth United for Community Action
92 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
IX. Conclusion & Next Steps As stated in the Executive Summary, we are passionate San Mateo County residents – beachcombers and hikers, engineers and project managers, as well as grandparents and grandchildren – all working to foster happy and healthy environments that can be sustained for future generations.
By December 2020, we aim to identify and propose viable solutions to reduce the impacts of single-use plastic in the form of local policy changes, incentive programs, and public education. We invite you to stay in touch with us and learn what we uncovered in next stage of our efforts to reduce and rethink single-use plastics in San Mateo County -- including the 455 square miles of rugged Pacific coastline, windy Bay shores, steep mountain trails, and technology innovation hub.
93 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
X. Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the following individuals we consulted with during our research and contributed to this document’s content:
Project Expert Advisors • Lynn Adams, President, Pacific Beach Coalition • Jayne Battey, Vice Chair, Miramar Farms • Mike Brownrigg, Councilmember, City of Burlingame • Noah Katz, Water Quality Program Manager, San Mateo Resource Conservation District • Eun-Soo Lim, Senior Sustainability Specialist - Waste Reduction, County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability • Sally Liu, California Leadership Council Co-Lead, The Nature Conservancy • Jeremy Merckling, Urban Watersheds Manager, Grassroots Ecology • Molly Moore, Co-founder, SUPER (Single-Use Plastic Elimination or Reduction) • Katherine O'Dea, Executive Director, Save our Shores • Isabel Parés, Zero Waste Fellow, County of San Mateo Office of Sustainability • Laura Porter, Owner, Byrd's Filling Station • Ann Schneider, Councilmember, City of Millbrae • Peter Schultze-Allen, Senior Scientist, EOA, Inc. • Marilou Seiff, Executive Director, Marine Science Institute
Others Consulted • Carolynn Box, Science Programs Director, 5 Gyres • Claire Cummings, Waste Programs Manager, Bon Appétit Management Company • Hilary Gans, Senior Operations and Contracts Manager, RethinkWaste (NEED APPROVAL) • Miriam Gordon, Program Director, UPSTREAM Solutions • Lindsey Hoell, CEO, Dispatch Goods • Teresa Montgomery, Sustainability Manager, South San Francisco Scavenger (NEED APPROVAL) • Linda Pouloit, CEO, Dishcraft • Christopher Slafter, ReThink Disposable Program Co-Director, Clean Water Action • Truett Sparkman. Trash Free Seas® Program Assistant, Ocean Conservancy • Alva Spence, General Manager, Sodexo School Services
94 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Appendix A – Single-use Plastic Consumption in SMC
An important component of this document is defining a transparent measurement of single-use plastics consumed in San Mateo County over specific time periods, and that’s consistent with conservation units for discrete projects or solutions such as converting 10 restaurants from disposable to reusable items.
Measurement Framework
With many ways to measure consumption, we chose to focus on: a) annual, b) weight, c) of total single-use plastics, d) pushed into the waste stream, e) in SMC, for the following reasons:
a) Annual - most reports have data for that this frame b) Weight - pieces are ineffective when measuring total single-use plastics due to the variety of items between categories, and volume is less commonly reported. c) Total single-use plastics - we don’t currently have data to measurements of the six defined categories -- foodservice, beverage bottles and lids, bags, product packaging, shipping materials, and cigarette butts d) Pushed to waste stream - a good proxy for consumption because of single-use plastics fast use and we found sufficient data for the three waste stream paths - local landfill, local litter, and out-of-county recycling plants – whereas we don’t currently have data for point-of-sale consumption at restaurants, foodservice locations, grocery, other stores, and shipped goods packaging e) SMC – we don’t have data by city or other sub-divisions of the county
2018 Tons of Total Single-Use Plastics Pushed to the Waste Stream in SMC
We estimate in 2018 that 41,282 tons of single-use plastic entered the waste stream in San Mateo County based on the following:
To landfill - We applied CalRecycle’s 2018 statewide measurement of plastics as a percentage of total waste disposed to landfill (11.5%) to CalRecycle’s 2018 SMC measurement of total waste disposed to landfill (598,870 tons) to get 68,870 tons. We then applied the 2015 United Nation’s global measurement of single-use plastic waste as a percentage of total plastic waste (47%) to get 32,369 tons.
• Source 01 - 2018 Facility-Based Characterization of Solid Waste in California, Table 4, page 12, CalRecycle, May 2020, https://www2.calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/Details/1666. Note - most recent of 5 statewide studies with previous summarizing 2014; includes commercial, residential and self-hauled waste to transfer stations and landfills by public and private entities • Source 02 - ibid, Table 26, page 76 • Source 03 - UNEP, SINGLE-USE-PLASTICS: A Roadmap for Sustainability, page 5, United Nations, 2018, https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/25496
95 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
To recycling - We applied South Bay Recycling’s 2018 RethinkWaste district measurement of Containers Recycled (19,913 tons) to the County of San Mateo measurements of cities in RethinkWaste’s district population as a percentage of SMC population (59.8%) to get 33,299 tons. We then applied the US EPA’s 2017 measurement of plastic containers recycled as a percent of total containers recycled (20.7%) to get 6,870 tons.
• Source 04 – 3 - South Bay Recycling - Shoreway Facility Operations Monthly Reporting - Dec 2018, page 5, South Bay Recycling, 1/15/19, https://rethinkwaste.org/about/service-area-map-providers/south-bay-recycling/ • Source 05 – Recommended Budget County Of San Mateo - FY 2019-20 / FY 2020- 21 page A-13, County of San Mateo, 9/10/19, https://cmo.smcgov.org/blog/2019-09- 10/county-releases-fy-2019-20-recommended-budget-adoption • Source 06 - National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling, Recycling and Composting Tonnages 1960-2017 table, US EPA, https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national- overview-facts-and-figures-materials
To litter - We applied Science’s 2010 United States measurement of plastic litter entering the ocean as a percentage of total plastic waste (1.0%) to SMC Stormwater program’s countywide measurement of litter captured as a percentage of total litter (80%) to get 5.0% total litter. We then used simple algebra against the landfill and recycling weight to get 2,043 tons.
Source 07 - Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean, table 1 page 769, Science, 2/13/15, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768 Source 08 – Fiscal Year 2018/19 Annual Report, page 10-1, San Mateo Countywide Water Pollution Prevention Program (SMCWPPP), 9/30/19, https://www.flowstobay.org/data-resources/reports/annual-report/
Examples of conservation units for discrete projects as compared to annual measurement of single-use plastics consumed in San Mateo County
The following are examples of the future impact discrete projects or solutions may have on the annual tons of single-use plastics entering the waste stream in SMC.
• 12 schools converting from disposables to reusables – 4.1 tons per year (or 8152 pounds based on ReThink Disposable case study of Palo Alto Unified School District; note: there are approximately 150 schools in SMC thus converting all could lead to reduction of 51 tons.) • 1 corporate café converting from disposables to reusables – 28.3 tons per year (or 56,477 pounds based on ReThink Disposable case study of Genentech District; note: there are 9 cafes at Genentech which is in the top 5 employers in SMC) • 1 bubble tea shop converting to reusables – 3.9 tons per year (500 servings/day at 4.3 pounds per 100 cup sets182 (note: there are approximately 20 bubble tea shops in SMC thus converting all could lead to reduction of 78 tons.)
182 www.bobateadirect.com/boba-and-bubble-tea-business-info.html & www.amazon.com/Plastic-Straws- Bubble-Smoothie-commerce/dp/B01F0J1BMG) 96 The Story of Single-Use Plastics in San Mateo County
Appendix B – Single-use Plastic Costs in SMC
Another important component of this document is calculating the indirect costs of single-use plastics in SMC.
Disposal Cost of Single-use Plastics to Landfill
The total cost of hauling all 32,369 tons of single-use plastics to landfill is
$47.61 + increased solid waste disposal tip fees in January 2020.
Cost incurred to –
97