Taking out the Trash: Identifying Sources of Trash in the Bay Area
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Taking Out the Trash: Identifying Sources of Trash in the Bay Area December 2011 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 6 Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………7 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8 1.0 Study Objectives: ............................................................................................................... 10 2. 0 Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 10 2. 1 Site Selection Process ........................................................................................................ 12 2.2 Data Collection Sheets and the Unique Product Survey .................................................... 12 2.3 Data Collection and Protocol ............................................................................................ 13 2.4 Assessment Dates and Frequency ..................................................................................... 14 3. 0 Results of the Litter Audit: ..................................................................................................... 15 3.1 Litter By Count .................................................................................................................... 15 3.2 Litter by Material Type ........................................................................................................ 18 3.3 Litter by Product Use .......................................................................................................... 19 3.4 Litter by Point of Sale .......................................................................................................... 21 4.0 Potential for Litter Reduction through Reusables ................................................................. 22 4.1 Potential for Reusable Food Packaging .............................................................................. 22 4.2 Potential for Reusable Beverage Packaging ....................................................................... 23 4.3 Combined Potential for Litter Reduction through Re-usable Alternatives ....................... 25 5.0 Comparisons to other Litter Audits ........................................................................................ 25 5.1 Tobacco Products ................................................................................................................ 26 5.2 Expanded Polysyterne ........................................................................................................ 27 5.3 Plastic Bags ......................................................................................................................... 27 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….28 Appendix 1: Data Collection Sheet ............................................................................................... 29 Appendix 2: Unique Product Survey ........................................................................................... 31 Appendix 3: Selected Sites .......................................................................................................... 32 3 Table of Figures Figure 1: Litter Count by Rank ..................................................................................................... 15 Figure 2: Top Ten Litter Items Collected ....................................................................................... 17 Figure 3: Litter by Material Type................................................................................................... 18 Figure 4: Litter by Product Use ..................................................................................................... 19 Figure 5: Breakdown of Items by Product Use ............................................................................. 20 Figure 6: Known Versus Unknown Point of Sale .......................................................................... 21 Figure 7: Known Litter by Point-of-Sale ........................................................................................ 21 Figure 8: Breakdown of Food Packaging ....................................................................................... 22 Figure 9: Potential Reduction of Food Packaging through Re-usable Alternatives ...................... 23 Figure 10: Breakdown of Beverage Packaging .............................................................................. 23 Figure 11: Potential Reduction of Food Packaging through Re-usable Alternatives .................... 24 Figure 12: Combined Potential Reduction of Litter ...................................................................... 25 4 5 Acknowledgements The Talking Out the Trash (TOTT) monitoring program was developed by Clean Water Fund (CWF) in partnership with a team of advisors that included representatives of the local government and local watershed partners in the overall TOTT program. The Advisory Board also included experts in trash data collection and monitoring. CWF is grateful to the following people for participating in the TOTT Advisory Board: Linda Hunter, The Watershed Project Paula White, The Watershed Project Juilana Gonzalez, The Watershed Project Lesley Estes, City of Oakland Wil Stockkard, City of Oakland Lynn Scarpa, City of Richmond Paul Ledesma, City of San Jose Rob Lecel, City of South San Francisco Julie Casagrande, San Mateo County Chris Sommers, EOA Consulting, Inc. Special thanks go to community-based partners who provided volunteers, students, and additional staffing resources for data collection. Oakland High School environmental academy Lowell High School- environmental club Conservation Corps North Bay San Jose State Environmental Management Program Volunteers provided by The Watershed Project The project acknowledges the hard work and dedication of following volunteers who contributed to data collection and data input: Shayla Sisler and Jennifer Weaver, Aveda Salon at the Galleria at Roseville Angel Milano- San Jose State University graduate student CWF appreciates the support provided by the following funders for the Taking out the Trash project: The California Coastal Commission- Whale Tail Grant Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund Clif Bar Family Foundation The California Wellness Foundation The Aveda Corporation TOTT Program Staff Miriam Gordon, California Director, Clean Water Fund Jennifer Clary, TOTT Program Associate TOTT/ CWA Interns: Eleanor Jaeger, Emily Schweitzer, Rafaela Minkowski. Special thanks to CWA’s intern, Eleanor Jaeger, who made a significant contribution to this project from data collection, analysis, input and presentation to drafting of the final report and presenting the results at the 2011 State of the Estuary Conference. Thanks also to Paula White of The Watershed Project who took a leadership role in conducting this survey. 6 Executive Summary In 2011, Clean Water Fund (CWF) and local jurisdictions partnering in CWF’s Taking out the Trash project, conducted a litter survey in four Bay Area cities; Richmond, South San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. The purpose of the study was to fill a hole in existing monitoring regarding trash, litter, and marine debris as to the sources of trash that enter marine waters from land-based sources. Both CWF and its local jurisdiction partners wanted to identify sources of trash entering local waterways in order to design programs to reduce trash generation at the source. Since information provided by current litter audits, storm drain monitoring, and marine debris sampling fail to characterize trash and litter by source and product type, it is impossible to know what the most significant components of marine litter are when seeking to address the problem at the point of origin. Local jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay region that have to comply with an MS4 stormwater municipal regional permit have to eliminate trash discharges to the San Francisco Bay by 2022. Current efforts to control trash such as street sweeping and installing trash capture devices in the storm drain system are expensive. They require continued monitoring and maintenance. There is no indication that trash generation will reduce or cease its upward trend, therefore it is likely that local stormwater programs will have to increase efforts to control trash over time, therefore costs will increase. In designing this research initiative, CWF and its partners first considered sampling trash in storm drains and on shorelines and determined that degradation of products when they get wet in storm drains or flowing through creeks would make it too challenging to analyze the types of products and their sources. The partners decided to conduct a litter study near commercial districts to be able to characterize products before they get blown off streets and into waterways, and before they enter the storm drain systems. This study, conducted in 6 sites around the San Francisco Bay, captured nearly 12,000 pieces of trash littered on streets in commercial districts within four cities. Cigarette butts were excluded from the study because they were too numerous to count given the resources of the project. The data gathered indicate that take-out food and beverage packaging comprises the most significant type of trash on Bay Area streets. It was 67% of all trash collected; food packaging comprised 48% and beverage packaging was 19%. The project recognizes