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

2012 Davis Integrated Waste Management Plan
A zero waste strategy is timely for the City. The state has set a target date for achieving zero waste statewide by
2025. Other California municipalities have either established such goals or are in the process of adopting them.
In December 2011, the City Council approved a resolution giving the City a goal of achieving 1.9 pounds of
waste generated per person, per day (75% diversion equivalent) by 2020, as calculated by CalRecycle, through
zero waste strategies. This was a landmark event and made Davis the first jurisdiction in the Central Valley
area to implement a zero waste goal. This resolution will be used as a guiding principle to create a framework
for defining how the City’s solid wastes will be managed in the future.
The City’s zero waste resolution is shown in Appendix C.
7.1.9 Extended Producer Responsibility Resolution
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that approximately 75% of today’s waste
stream comes from manufactured products, including common household hazardous waste items. Electronics
contain lead, cadmium, and other toxic heavy metals that pose a threat to public health and the environment
when improperly disposed. Other products also contain toxic constituents, such as the mercury contained in
fluorescent lights.
Under today’s waste management system, the responsibility for managing the end-of-life of these products’
waste falls on local governments. Many products today are actually designed for disposal, rather than reuse or
recycling. Both the toxicity of the waste stream, and the volume of waste is concerning to local governments.
As producers continuously generate consumer products containing hazardous materials, the collection burden
falls on the local government to provide legal collection methods. The cost of these collection programs is
costly for the City of Davis and Yolo County.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an environmental policy approach in which producers assume
responsibility—financial and/or physical—for the management of post-consumer products, so that those who
produce and use products bear the costs of recycling and proper disposal. When brand owners are responsible
for ensuring their products are re-used or recycled responsibly, and when health and environmental costs are
included in the product price, there is a strong market incentive to design and purchase goods that are durable,
easier to recycle, and less toxic.
DRAFT
Yolo County adopted an EPR resolution in 2008, followed by West Sacramento and Winters in 2009 and Davis
and Woodland in 2010. Yolo was the second county in the state to have every jurisdiction pass an EPR
resolution. The City’s EPR Resolution is found in Appendix D.
Statewide support of EPR resolutions, followed by a state law demanding compliance with EPR guidelines, will
ultimately reduce the City’s financial burden for ensuring proper disposal of household hazardous waste,
universal waste and other problematic products and packaging.
The EPR resolution does not directly impact the manufacturers or producers of these products. However, the
EPR resolution clearly sends a signal that the City cannot afford to finance the disposal of these waste streams
and seeks an understanding from producers that they bear some responsibility for the products they produce.
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