8/27/2010- Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced that San Francisco achieved 77 percent landfill diversion rates, surpassing the goal of 75 percent landfill diversion by 2010 and setting national recycling rate records, the highest of any city in the United States. New statistics show that the City is up from 72 percent landfill diversion from the year before.
The figures compiled by the City’s Environment Department for 2008 show that San Francisco diverted just over 1.6 million tons of material—double the weight of the Golden Gate Bridge—through recycling, composting and re-use. Of this only 560,000 tons went to landfill, the lowest disposal on record.
“San Francisco is showing once again that doing good for our environment also means doing right by our economy and local job creation,” said Mayor Newsom. “For a growing number of people, recycling provides the dignity of a paycheck in tough economic times. The recycling industry trains and employs men and women in local environmental work that can’t be outsourced and sent overseas, creating ten times as many jobs as sending material to landfills.”
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