| Local Policy Description: | Recycling Strategies
Currently, the total annual amount of municipal solid waste dumped in landfills by the four major Travis County entities which hold permits is approximately 1.5 million tons. The operating landfills in Austin receive 600 tons of residential garbage each day. Additional solid waste comes from private haulers serving multi-family residences and businesses. The City of Austin’s Solid Waste Services Department (SWS) has greatly expanded its recycling efforts in recent years. The recent inclusion of several new types of paper and plastic should substantially increase this rate. The City of Austin’s Curbside Recycling Program serves single-family homes and duplexes. The city picks up materials placed at the curb on a designated day. Newspapers, magazines, catalogs, tin, steel, or aluminum cans, glass containers, plastic milk jugs, and corrugated cardboard are all recyclable. Approximately 115,000 tons of paper, plastics and aluminum are currently recycled annually by local residential and commercial recyclers. Approximately 34,000 tons of this is from Austin’s residential recycling program. Paper accounts for 60% to 70% of the total. Some other local companies recycle only metal products. Austin also has a program to pick up residential yard waste and tree trimmings. These materials are chipped, and then mixed with composted wastewater sludge to produce “Dillo Dirt,” a garden soil enhancer. The city is now producing 15,000 cubic yards of Dillo Dirt annually. It is sold to garden stores and nurseries and offered for sale to the public.
Possible Future Action:
Apartment-dwellers and other multi-family residents in Austin will receive recycling service. The city will continue to focus on promotion of residential backyard composting. Source reduction is also a priority, but remains unquantified. In addition, expansion of construction and demolition waste recycling could potentially have a large impact, since construction of a new house generates 5 to 7 tons of waste. In order to formulate a rough estimate of recycling potential, it is assumed that 50% of all waste could be recycled. With a projection of approximately two million tons of waste in 2010, the goal of recycling 50% of all waste, or one million tons, would result in 500,000 tons of CO2 reductions. This estimate is approximately equal to Portland’s estimate on a per-capita basis.
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