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Recycling History
SOBAM accounting graduate Mike Sangiacomo ’71, CEO of Norcal Waste Systems, San Francisco’s trash and recyclables collector, said the trend toward sustainability in his industry—considered by some to be a leading indicator, as an early adopter—is undeniable.
He sees a bright future for eco-friendly trash and recyclables collection, and a major role for companies like his in reversing a decades-old practice of burying truckloads of methane-producing waste in earthen pits. “I’m personally convinced that we’ve done a lot of harm to our environment,” Sangiacomo said.
Landfills are the largest human-related source of methane in the nation, accounting for 34 percent of all methane emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Methane, which is 20 percent more harmful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, is generated in landfills and open dumps as waste decomposes under anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions.
But, reducing the 3,500 tons of landfill waste collected daily in San Francisco to zero by 2020, the city’s stated goal, will require finding markets for all kinds of plastic, metal, paper, organic material, and just about anything else people drop in their garbage or recycle bins. What’s left could be incinerated, producing heat to light and power Norcal’s facilities, which are spread from Eureka to Gilroy, Sangiacomo said.
San Francisco, one of the country’s leading urban recyclers, already diverts about 70 percent of its waste to recycling and other programs, substantially exceeding the 62 percent reported by San Jose and 59 percent reported by Los Angeles. In fact, San Francisco is on track to top 75 percent diversion by 2010. That’s a far cry from the city’s 25 percent rate in 2001, Sangiacomo said.
Norcal runs 12 distinctive recycling programs in San Francisco alone, including the ubiquitous glass/metal/paper/plastic bins, construction debris, and a highly touted residential and restaurant food scraps service that collects 300 tons of victuals a day. The food scraps are then composted into highly enriched topsoil that Norcal is able to package and sell to Bay Area vintners, farmers, and landscapers.
Additionally, the company converted 335 collection trucks and 37 transfer trucks to biodiesel. Natural gas powers the fleet’s remaining 13 vehicles. The switch reduced the fleet’s greenhouse gas emissions by 5,400 tons a year, or 21 percent, said Robert Reed, Norcal spokesman.
Environmental Justice
But, the green economy has a dark side, too. As standards and regulations at home become more stringent for everyone from automakers to wine producers, some companies continue to operate with one eye on legal loopholes and lax environmental regulations abroad, often to the detriment of the poor and disenfranchised. That was exactly the state of affairs captured on film by photojournalists Lou Dematteis ’70 and Kayana Szymczak in their recently published book, Crude Reflections: Oil, Ruin and Resistance in the Amazon Rainforest.
In 1993, and on several occasions since, Dematteis and Szymczak traveled to the Ecuadorian Amazon to document the damage caused by Texaco (purchased by Chevron in 2001) to Cofan and other indigenous ancestral territory, when the oil giant pulled out of the country leaving gaping pits of crude waste in the earth. The duo’s startling images of burning pools of oil waste, native inhabitants with cancer and other deformities, and contaminated waterways, shot over more than 10 years, contributed to a landmark lawsuit seeking up to $16 billion in cleanup costs from Chevron, and helped spark Ecuador’s emergent environmental movement.
“The scene looked like something out of Dante’s Inferno,” Dematteis said. “We often hear of environmental catastrophes but almost never meet the people who suffer the consequences. In Ecuador’s case, I was determined to give a voice to the people who were living with the impacts of this ecological tragedy.”
As a student, Dematteis’ photojournalism spoke to the artistic impulses he had nurtured growing
up and his desire to make a difference in the world.
It wasn’t long before he was working as a staff photographer for Reuters in Managua, Nicaragua. From the “Contra” war in Nicaragua to the opening of Vietnam following the Vietnam War, Dematteis never lost site of the role of justice as he covered social, political, and economic turmoil around the world before turning his attention to the environment in the 1990s.
“I try to expose injustice,” he said. “I try to put light on the things in society and in the world that need to be changed.”
As a student at USF during an era when the faculty and administration were more conservative, one of the highlights of his education was the university’s proximity to the political and social movements rooted in the Haight and opposition to the Vietnam War, Dematteis said.
“At that time, USF hadn’t made the change to support social justice the way it has now,” he said. “I’m very happy to see that USF has become involved in educating students for progressive, eco-friendly careers.”
Environmental justice is just another manifestation of social justice, and it’s up to the current generation to take it into new areas, Dematteis said.
“I think that everything USF is doing with students in the area of social justice is great,” he said. “The more the university can do to encourage that type of interaction, which involves more than just talking about an issue on campus, but getting involved on the ground, all the better.”
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