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| April 1996 | by Jym Dyer |
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| April 1996 | by Jym Dyer |
Our monthly review of local print media
Berkeley's curbside recycling policies are in the news, and to a lesser extent, so is Berkeley's curbside recycler: The Ecology Center. Plastics are not picked up for recycling in Berkeley, and City Councilmember Polly Armstrong believes they ought to be.
She's not alone. As Oakland Tribune staff writer William Brand puts it in his January 30 article, "Armstrong points out that the city's own survey ... showed that 70 percent of those who favored bringing the dreaded, environmentally incorrect substance into their house [want] curbside pickup of plastics along with the regular cans, bottles and newspapers."
Dread and "environmental incorrectness" (whatever that means) are only the tip of the iceberg, if you take the Trib's word for it. Judging from the headline, the central issue is that plastics are "unsavory," and the debate over recycling them is the result of "implacable ideals on ecology." Those of us who "love to hate" plastic, however, can take heart in knowing that we are at least "painfully sincere."
Brand actually touches, briefly and dismissively, on a few real issues: "It also takes a great deal of energy to make plastic and it's a mainstay of the petrochemicals industry, which never scores well among environmentalists." The last word is given to Armstrong, who chides the city "to admit that plastics exist."
On February 8, Trib columnist Brenda Payton picked up where Brand left off, describing the debate as "existential" and asking whether Berkeley will "join the rest of the world and acknowledge the existence of plastics?" Armstrong is quoted again, suggesting that people are denying plastic's existence because they're "trapped in a time warp." "I compare it to people who don't want to distribute condoms to teen-agers because that will encourage them to have sex," she adds. "Sex happens and plastic happens. Trying to ignore it won't make it go away."
Now, I'm sure these folks are sincere, even painfully so, in their desire to help people in denial. Alas, as far as I can tell, there really isn't anybody in the Berkeley City Council or the Ecology Center who doubts the existence of plastics. Some of us, however, aren't completely convinced about the existence of a credible plastics recycling program.
What actually happens to plastics after they've been tossed into the recycling bin? It's unfortunate that the Trib writers didn't think to look into this question, because it's really the crux here. It's also hard to answer, particularly since most "recycled" plastics are shipped to Asia, where they tend to fall from public view.
Greenpeace's International Toxic Trade Project has been following the trail of plastics for a number of years. The companies that collect plastics from the curbside programs and ship them to Asia have names like the Recycle America, Ontario Plastics Recycling, and the Plastics Recycling Corporation of California; but they admit that they have no way of knowing what becomes of the plastics. Usually they don't have any actual recycling facilities of their own, and just act as brokers.
Greenpeace checks U.S. Customs records to see where the shipments go. Most go to China by one means or another; others go to the Phillippines or India. Indonesia was another major dumping grounds until it was outlawed. Most of it is shipped out from L.A.; most of the rest, from San Francisco and Oakland.
Much of the plastic that's shipped is contaminated or otherwise unrecyclable. It isn't unusual for 40% or more of a shipment to be unrecyclable. It ends up in landfill somewhere in Asia, or is just left out in large piles.
Where there are recycling and reclamation facilities, they rarely meet U.S. workplace standards. Contaminated plastics are typically sorted out by hand, in close quarters with the noxious fumes the recycling effort produces.
And that's only if there is a recycling effort. Often it's all just a sham, just a means of keeping our landfills a little bit emptier by dumping elsewhere. Are 70 percent of Berkeley's residents really interested in taking part in this sham?
In the last issue of Terrain, I pointed out that the local media made quite a fuss over GM's ultra-expensive electric car, while overlooking cheaper models that are being (or will soon be) built locally. Days after that issue of Terrain hit the streets, the February 19 Oakland Tribune ran a front page story on electric cars, with a large color photo of some of the aforementioned cheaper models!
A picture is said to be worth 1000 words: more, alas, than the Trib has devoted to coverage of the smaller manufacturers. The main focus of this article, again, was on GM and the electrifying efforts of other major auto companies.
Also in the last issue of Terrain was some mention of alternatives to using methyl bromide (MB). There are more. Nothing of the sort has yet shown up in our local news sources, and while there's been brief mention of the existence of organic farming, this has generally been overshadowed by tales of the plight of "normal" farmers "fighting for time."
Since the media seem to be having a little trouble finding this information, I thought I'd help out a bit. While I don't really expect to see journalists poring through biology journals in science libraries, I do know of a resource they could easily avail themselves of (after all, they've been hyping it enough): the World Wide Web. So I pulled out the old skateboard to do some sidewalk surfing on the Infotainment Superhighway.
A number of people have set up indexes or catalogs to the web. Each of these has a "search engine", where you can type in a word or phrase and get back a list of web sites that have the word or phrase in it. I typed in "methyl bromide". Here's what I found and where I found it.
California's Methyl Bromide Research Task Force: California's Department of Pesticide Regulation and Department of Food and Agriculture set up a Methyl Bromide Research Task Force, who issued a document in September titled Alternatives to Methyl Bromide: Research Needs for California. The document is available free from the state by calling them at 916/654-1765 (in Sacramento). But it's also on the web at:
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/dprdocs/methbrom/mb4chg.htm
The alternatives I listed last issue came from case studies cited in this document: the existence of organic strawberry farming in California, the existence of MB-free strawberry farming in Germany and Switzerland, and the existence of MB-free soil fumigation techniques in the Netherlands.
MB is also used to fumigate fresh fruits and vegetables and dried fruits and nuts. A number of possibilities with various drawbacks are considered, and it is these drawbacks that appear to be the root of the Task Force's overall emphasis that more research is needed.
It's worth mentioning that a number of these drawbacks are apprehension about increased cost, though not much in the way of dollars and cents are mentioned in this document. Crop damage is part of the toll taken by ozone depletion, but such costs aren't addressed.
One insight in this document really stands out: "the loss [of MB] presents an opportunity to move away from dependence on a single product that has discouraged in in-depth understanding of the soil dynamics of various crop systems."
The EPA's Methyl Bromide Alternatives Site: This is the jackpot site: ten cases studies of alternatives to methyl bromide, including dollars and cents. On the web:
http://www.epa.gov/ozone/mbr/csstart.html
This document is also available free from the EPA. Call them at 800/296-1996 and ask for the document, Alternatives to Methyl Bromide -- Ten Case Studies.
Here are some that California could learn from:
Hot water sterilization, one of the best alternatives for fumigating nursery soils, has been adapted for the fields by a company named Aqua Heat. MB is replaced with ordinary heated water, and the very same water doubles as irrigation. The estimated cost is usually less than MB: the heat treatment costs from $1200 to $1500 per acre, whereas Aqua Heat costs from $1000 to $1500 per acre.
Another pesticide, metam sodium, is not nearly as toxic as MB, and in fact is not a restricted use pesticide. It is the only soil fumigant that is non-volatile and water soluble enough to be applied through an irrigation system, which is recommended as the most effective way to apply it. It's even more economical than hot water, costing from $750 to $1000 per acre. It's also very effective, as shown a few years back when a trainload of it wiped out all life in the upper Sacramento River.
"Controlled atmosphere technology works by reducing produce respiration, slowing ethylene production, inhibiting pathogen reproduction, and killing insects." Basically it works by storing produce in sealed containers without much oxygen in them. These containers cost $5000, which is $1000 more than standard refrigerated containers, but other economic factors mitigate this cost. Produce keeps fresher longer, and can be shipped by cheaper (and more environmentally sound) surface transport rather than by air. The Department of Defense switched from MB to controlled atmosphere technology a few years ago and saved enough money to buy over 7000 of those $400 hammers! The DoD ships %95 of its produce in good condition, which exceeds their 70% success rate with MB. Investigation is currently under way to apply this technology to quarantine treatement as well.
A lot of tree fruit is sold to Japan and Korea, and those countries require that the fruit be treated with MB, primarily to control codling moths and larvae. Some tree fruit growers employ a "systems approach," combining integrated pest management (IPM) techniques and close inspection at each stage of handling. 17 years of experience has proven IPM to be an effective and economical control of codling moths and their larvae. The United States Department of Agriculture is in negotiation with the agricultural representatives of Japan and Korea to seek their approval of this alternative.
The other case studies were less applicable to the major uses of MB in this state. Some used other pesticides, and others combined approaches. None were substantially more expensive than MB, and several were substantially less.
Odds, Ends: I searched a bit more and found an interesting Friends of the Earth (FoE) site titled "Dirty Little Secrets:"
This was a survey of tax loopholes for polluters. It turns out that the Montreal Protocol turned its attention to MB (and HCFCs) a little late in the game, and consequentially the United States never got around to levying a tax on MB (as it did on CFCs). FoE believe the tax helped expedite the CFC phaseout.
Most of the other web sites mentioning MB were medical sites with scary information about exposure to the stuff, and various action alerts to keep public officials from extending its use. Some more searching turned up more of the information mentioned above. All in all, it was pretty easy to find the stuff that the local media hasn't been interested in bothering with.
The media milked the plastics recycling story some more, and my May 1996 column takes a look at that.
This column was written before the Environmental Working Group put up their excellent web page focusing on heavy MB use near California schools. Check it out!
Incidentally, my favorite web index is Open Directory, and my favorite search engine is Google; but when I wrote this, my favorites were Yahoo and Alta Vista, respectively.
During my "sidewalk surfing," Alta Vista pointed me to a site at Washington State University with this intriguing snippet of text:
Find Out What Your Customers Like, Then Give It To Them! Since Eve offered Adam the apple, the secret of successful marketing has been to find out what your customers like ...
Why all the happy marketroid talk, I wondered, and what could it possibly have to do with methyl bromide? I followed the link, but alas, the web site wasn't even there. Sometimes this happens with a search engine: it indexes a web site and the web site moves. Sometimes if you poke around a bit, you can find where it moved to.
This I did, and I found the article:
http://coopext.cahe.wsu.edu/~impact/sucfind.html
It's one of a series of success stories for the University's IMPACT! program, which would appear to be some sort of partnership between academia and agriculture dedicated to "successfully increasing Washington's agricultural exports."
This particular success story was about discovering a new business opportunity. As a snack food, soybeans are far more popular in Japan than they are on this side of the Pacific. The IMPACT!ers figured they could grow soybeans in Washington, sell them in Japan, and write an inspirational article about it. And so they did.
It's obvious where MB fits in, since this is an export to Japan, but when I got to this site, there was no mention of MB at all! Apparently that detail was edited out, since some aspects of a success story are more inspirational than others. But the ghost of the old story lived on in Alta Vista.
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