2000 Annual Report: Letter from the Board Chair

Dear Fellow Californians:

Protecting human health, and California’s environment is a job that will never end. Our children will judge us by what we leave behind. Each succeeding generation will look at the success of the one before. The challenge is to leave things in better shape than we found them.

Fortunately, what we know about the environment today is vastly greater than what we knew a short 10 years ago.

At the Integrated Waste Management Board, we will soon begin assessing whether local governments reached the 2000 goal to cut waste in half. Cities and counties are learning new and more effective ways to reduce waste and recycle. Children are being taught the principles of reuse at a very early age. People are paying attention and they are participating by recycling at home and at work.

In fact, waste prevention, recycling, and composting efforts by California cities and counties are truly successful. Local diversion programs kept 28 million tons of material out of landfills in 2000, a dramatic leap of 9.5 million tons—51 percent—over 1998 levels. Since 1990, Californians have diverted 167.5 million tons of usable resources from disposal.

This remarkable success is a direct reflection of the innovative and dedicated efforts of our local governments, businesses, refuse haulers, and citizens to keep reusable and recyclable materials out of our landfills.

With so many new programs coming online in recent years we have been confident that the diversion rate would continue to rise significantly. The addition of nearly 10 million tons of annual diversion in the past two years is convincing evidence of the vitality of California’s new materials handling infrastructure.

Although this Annual Report is to document the challenges and achievements of the past, we are looking to the future through development of our new strategic plan and the promise of new programs such as environmental education and green building.  The future looks bright.

Sincerely,

Linda Moulton-Patterson
Chair