Municipal

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved several actions designed to extend the life of local landfills and to boost recycling April 26, 2017.

Supervisors voted 4-0 to aim toward diverting 75 percent of all trash in unincorporated areas away from landfills by recycling more by 2025.

The county, through the trash haulers it contracts with in unincorporated areas, currently diverts or recycles 62 percent of all trash away from landfills.

County staff said increasing the county’s diversion rate would accomplish a number of goals. It would help keep up with new state regulations, cut greenhouse gas emissions by diverting methane-creating landscape trimmings and food scraps away from landfills, and it would reduce the need for more landfills in the future.

County staff said unincorporated areas could still improve recycling to include more paper, plastic and metals. However, they said the largest gains could be reached by recycling and keeping more organic materials and construction and demolition (C&D) debris out of landfills.

County staff estimated that organics and C&D debris make up two-thirds of the trash currently going into landfills.