Background

The Integrated Waste Management Act (IWMA) declared that the responsibility for solid waste management be shared between the State and local agencies. However, the IWMA placed the responsibility for diverting solid wastes from landfills on the State’s municipal governments--cities and counties. It established ambitious mandates of 25 percent diversion by the year 1995 and 50 percent diversion by the year 2000, with serious penalties authorized for failure to meet the mandates (1). The IWMA also created the CIWMB to, among other duties, review and approve municipal diversion strategies and plans for meeting the diversion mandates, provide technical assistance and information, monitor progress toward the goals of the IWMA, and take appropriate enforcement action as necessary.

By any objective standard, the IWMA has been a qualified success. In 2000, approximately 42 percent of the waste generated statewide was diverted from landfills. This compares with only 10 percent diverted from landfills in 1989. Remarkably, this level of diversion was accomplished as Californians generated almost 35 percent more waste during the decade of the 1990’s from 49 million tons in 1989 to over 66 million tons in 2000--while tons of waste disposed in landfills decreased by over 13 percent (2).

While the trend is a net positive, there is no escaping the conclusion that the last 8 percent diversion required by law will likely be more difficult to achieve relative to the progress to date. If the state is to improve diversion performance, new strategies must be employed to exploit components of the waste generation community that provide the greatest opportunity for diversion in the shortest time feasible. The nonresidential sector, including schools and other institutions, provides that opportunity.

Tapping the Nonresidential Sector

While residents have largely embraced the environmental ethic of recycling and participating in curbside collection and other recycling programs in large numbers, the nonresidential sector has been slower to respond. The reasons for this include:

Businesses and institutions are not required by law to divert waste from landfills, as are municipalities (3).
Businesses and institutions face no threat of sanctions if they do not initiate or participate in waste prevention and recycling programs.
Solid waste management programs require initial investments of time and resources that may divert resources from core business functions.
Businesses and institutional managers do not readily see a return on investment of improved waste management practices.
Regional or community waste prevention and recycling infrastructure may not be in place, or readily accessible, making it more difficult, expensive, and time consuming to achieve the benefits of a waste reduction program.

School districts, hospitals, prisons, hotels, large office complexes, office/light industrial parks, State, local and federal government agencies, other similar institutions, and many business enterprises generate a largely untapped source of organic and other recyclable materials. This nonresidential segment of the community generates approximately 60 percent of the wastes in California (4).

Such institutions use materials and engage in waste management practices that offer prime opportunities for achieving high volume waste prevention, reuse, and recycling programs. Also, because these institutions purchase large quantities of materials, supplies, and food services, they can contribute significantly to developing markets for post consumer recycled content products (RCP), thereby "closing the loop" of the recycling process.

Tapping the nonresidential sector requires the development of an organized and focused approach. One of the principle objectives of the School District Diversion Project was to apply an assessment methodology to school districts on the assumption that school districts provide a good model for application to other institutions. For the several reasons outlined below, school districts are excellent models for the nonresidential community at large.

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School Districts as a Pilot Project

In May 2000, the CIWMB determined that a pilot project to explore ways to effectively initiate and sustain waste reduction practices in institutional settings would be the best approach to test hypotheses and explore methods before attempting to implement them on a large scale.

The six pilot school districts provided an excellent laboratory for exploring new or enhanced strategies for waste reduction that could be used as a model for developing programs in other institutions and businesses that share many similar characteristics. School districts consist of the same business organizational units (e.g., administrative services, transportation, maintenance, personnel, business services) as other institutions such as hospitals, prisons, and universities. In this respect, the lessons learned in the pilot school project are transferable to other institutional settings, thus enabling school districts to serve as models for other institutions and businesses.

The goal of the project was to explore and document factors important to institutionalizing waste prevention, reuse, and recycling programs in school districts and then utilizing lessons learned in developing programs for other nonresidential settings.

Primary Reasons for Selecting School Districts

Schools are distributed throughout the state--The 8,000 plus California schools, like other institutions, provide an opportunity to affect the municipal waste diversion rates of virtually every community in the state. In some medium-size to smaller communities, schools may contribute a large portion of the waste generated in the community. In these communities, waste reduction in schools may be an important factor in the municipality’s ability to achieve IWMA mandates.

School districts are under central management--Schools are organized throughout the state by districts predominantly consisting of several schools. Thus, the district board and school district administrators make decisions affecting waste management practices in multiple schools. This characteristic is common among other institutions and businesses with multiple facilities. Working with approximately 1,000 school districts instead of approximately 8,300 individual schools simplifies and leverages the effort to develop and implement waste reduction and recycling programs in the schools.

School districts have the same organizational components as other institutions and businesses--School districts are essentially business enterprises that deliver an education product. School districts have many of the same organizational components as other businesses and institutions, such as administration, purchasing, transportation, operations and maintenance, food service, printing and duplication services, finance, and personnel. Thus, school districts provide an opportunity to address waste reduction opportunities that will be transferable to other institutions.

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Secondary Reasons for Selecting School Districts

There are also several secondary reasons for selecting school districts as pilots for the project. These reasons are equally important to achieving the programmatic, educational, and outreach objectives of the IWMA.

Schools are an integral part of the community they serve--By developing effective waste prevention, reuse, and recycling programs in schools, municipalities will have a model that can be used to develop similar programs in hospitals, prisons, universities, and business settings.

The majority of the state’s population is involved with schools in some way, as students, parents, professionals, or volunteers--The learning experience in schools has great potential for influencing large numbers of our population to reduce waste and conserve resources. To the extent that environmental education is part of classroom curricula, students will carry resource conservation lessons into their homes and the community.

School district waste management programs provide a positive role model for students and an opportunity to educate students in the methodology, value, and ethic of waste reduction--The long-term success of waste management programs depends on the personal commitment and participation of our citizens. Educating students to incorporate environmental values and resource conservation practices in their lives and communities will enhance and sustain a resource conservation ethic for future generations.

A partnership between school districts, local jurisdictions, and the CIWMB provides significant benefits for all three partners--School officials and managers are not experts in the management of wastes or necessarily mindful of the opportunities that materials and the waste management system provide for cost savings and other benefits. Local jurisdictions need the participation of school districts to enhance the opportunity to meet State mandates for diverting waste from landfills. Similarly, the CIWMB needs the relationship between schools and local jurisdictions to be successful in contributing to statewide diversion success.

CIWMB’s commitment to schools--The CIWMB has a rich history working with schools since the passage of the IWMA. The Legislature has directed and authorized the CIWMB on several occasions to take a leadership role in assisting schools and school districts in achieving waste reduction objectives. The CIWMB has prepared instructional materials, conducted workshops, provided technical support, and provided a variety of grants to schools for environmental education and waste reduction activities and programs for over a decade.

The School District Diversion Project as approved by the Board at its May 2000 CIWMB meeting was expected to be conducted over a 12 to 18 month period.

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Last updated: September 18, 2008

School District Waste Reduction http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Schools/WasteReduce/
Contact: k12edu@ciwmb.ca.gov (916) 341-6199