10 Draft Integrated Waste Management Plan - City Council - City of ...

2012 Davis Integrated Waste Management Plan
NRC November meeting more, so that when staff presents the Annual Report to the NRC, more members of the
community can be there to listen to the status updates and provide comment.
Staff could also hold an annual briefing to the business community as well. Every year, the City could meet
with the Davis Chamber of Commerce or the Davis Downtown Business Association. During these meetings,
staff can present the current and projected projects and gather feedback about current services and programs.
7 Regulation and Policy
7.1
Existing Regulation and Policy
7.1.1 Diversion Requirements
In 1989, the Integrated Waste Management Act (AB 939) was passed and enacted Public Resources Code
(PRC) section 41780, which required a 25% reduction of solid waste disposal by cities and counties by 1995
and 50% by 2000. The planning requisites in this section require waste diversion from landfill or transformation
facilities through source reduction, recycling, and composting activities identified in city, county and regional
agency Source Reduction and Recycling Elements (SRRE).
Under AB 939, diversion was calculated from a base year, where the State calculated: 1) how much waste was
prevented (waste prevention), 2) how much waste was recycled and composted; and 3) how much waste was
disposed. The total of these three activities was considered the total waste generated. The total materials
prevented, recycled and composted were considered diverted and the tons landfilled were not diverted. This was
the process that was used to determine whether the City achieved the 50% diversion mandate.
The City easily met the 1995 goal of 25% diversion, but meeting the 2000 goal was not as easy. In addition to
the base year problems noted above, in 2000, California’s waste reporting system was based on estimates of
population, employment and taxable sales, not on the amount of trash disposed. Due to a surging economy,
high levels of business activity and construction, achieving a 50% diversion rate was more difficult for Davis.
Diversion rates did not include the tons of yard materials that were collected each week for composting by
DWR—the State’s calculations did not consider these materials “diverted” using their reporting procedures. The
City did achieve the State-calculated 50% diversion in 2001.
DRAFT
In 2007, SB 1016 was passed, changing the way the State measured waste diversion. The goal of the new per
capita disposal measurement system was to make the AB 939 process of goal measurement simpler, timelier,
and more accurate. SB 1016 changed to a disposal-based indicator—the per capita disposal rate—which uses
only two factors: a jurisdiction's population (or in some cases employment) and its disposal as reported by
disposal facilities. The AB 939 50% solid waste disposal reduction requirement is now measured in terms of
per-capita disposal expressed as pounds of waste generated per person per day, or pounds per employee per day.
The focus is on program implementation, actual recycling, and other diversion programs instead of estimated
numbers.
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