Berkeley's Race to Zero

For Immediate Release
March 23, 2005

Martin Bourque, Director Ecology Center (510) 812-5514
Tom Bates, Mayor of Berkeley (510) 981-7100
Tom Farrell, Director Solid Waste Management Division (510)
Ann Leonard, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (510) 883-9490

Innovative Waste Strategy: Berkeley's Race to Zero

At the March 22 Berkeley City Council meeting, environmental history
was made when the Council officially established one of the nation's
first Zero Waste Goals.

The Council unanimously approved the resolution which officially
adopts a 75% waste reduction goal for 2010, and establishes a Zero
Waste Goal for 2020. The resolution also suggests that Solid Waste
Management Commission change its name to the Zero Waste commission.

"This is a great day for recycling and all types of resource
recovery", said Martin Bourque, Executive Director of Berkeley's
Ecology Center. "As Berkeley's Curbside Recycler, we have been
promoting Zero Waste for many years, and this sets us all on a path
that conserves natural resources and protects the planet from
pollution, while creating good green-collar jobs."

Zero Waste is a concept that couples aggressive resource recovery
with industrial redesign to eliminate the very concept of waste. "If
it can't be reused, rebuilt, refurbished, reconfigured, recycled, or
composted, then it needs to be redesigned-or removed from production
all together." said Dan Knapp, founder and owner of Urban Ore,
Berkeley's premier reuse retailer.

The details of how to reach these goals have been left to the
Commission and City staff. "It is not going to be easy." said Tom
Farrell, Director of the Solid Waste Management Division of the City
of Berkeley," We have come a long way to the 50% mark, but reaching
Zero Waste will definitely require fundamental changes in the
manufacturing and packaging industries."

Berkeley has a long history of leadership in eliminating waste. Over
30 years ago, the Ecology Center pioneered curbside recycling, a
radical idea at the time that has since become as mainstream as apple
pie. Today the Ecology Center runs this program for the City of
Berkeley, saving over 100,000 trees and 65,000 barrels of oil each
year, while supporting 30 union recycling jobs. Recycling also saves
the City and its residents lots of money.

Berkeley had the Nation's first solid waste management plan that
included separating refuse from recyclable materials in the home, and
in the early 1980s the residents passed one of the Country's first
bans on garbage incineration, helping defeat the onslaught of toxic
incinerator projects planned for the Bay Area and the Nation.

In the 1980's when Berkeley set a goal of reducing waste by 50%,
everyone said it couldn't be done", said Mayor Tom Bates who
sponsored the resolution, "Not only did we prove them wrong, but less
than a decade later the State of California set that goal for all
counties. I am confident that we will not only meet our Zero Waste
goal, but give a boost to innovative waste reduction policy across
the nation."
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