There's no app for that - San Francisco's tough new trash law

I was in my hometown of San Francisco a couple weeks ago for a friend's wedding. The trip also gave me an opportunity to visit my parents, who've lived in the same house in North Beach for over 30 years. While I was helping my mother clean up in the kitchen, she randomly asked me, slightly exasperated, “Do you think Gavin Newsom takes out his own trash?”

I gave her a look—the kind of puzzled one you only give your mother when she spurts out arbitrary thoughts from out of nowhere. At first, her random question about the mayor of San Francisco struck me as odd. But she went on to explain that Newsom had proposed a new law requiring everyone to separate their trash so that food waste would go into an entirely separate bin. That waste would be turned into compost and be used to fertilize land, rather than be dumped into a landfill hole. The new law was recently passed. Here are the specific guidelines:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="478" caption="San Francisco's Recycling Guidelines"][/caption]

Having grown up in San Francisco, the tenets of recycling and conservation in general were
instilled in me from a very young age (LONG before it was hip to be green). We never left lights on, never ran the water when we brushed our teeth, took five-minute showers and ALWAYS recycled. And if my parents caught me or my brother littering, God help us. (Just the other day while in the car, my friend threw his gum out the window and I almost lost it.) Let's just say that I was very aware of the environment from a very young age. So you’d think that this new city law wouldn’t have annoyed my mother the way it did.

But I realized that it does require a bit of effort, and the chore of “taking the garbage out” suddenly had newfound meaning. There is no way around it—residents have to physically separate their “wet garbage” from the rest of the trash. And unlike many of the issues we face in today’s world, there is no way technology is going to save us from this one. There is no app for being green...truly green.

My mom’s comment came just after she had gotten done “organizing” the trash for me to take out, and I think she was ready for a nap afterwards. But I think she’ll get used to it. San Francisco has managed to keep 72 percent of its garbage out of the landfill through recycling. And if San Franciscans embrace this new law, that number can only go up.

My guess is that Gavin Newsom probably doesn’t take his own trash out. But it won’t take long for my mom to be a pro at it if he ever needs pointers.

Read more about this new law here.

And listen to an NPR story about the topic here.
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