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Touring the San Francisco Dump

While at Compostmodern (the interdisiplinary design conference dedicated to sustainability), we had the opportunity to tour the San Francisco Dump--arguably the greenest dump in the country. Actually, this isn't technically the dump. Its called the "transfer station," the place where all of San Francisco's trash goes to be sorted. While the city does have a city-wide recycling program (the first large city to do so), and provides residents with bins to separate their recycling and compost, it doesn't stop there. All trash that has been deemed...well...trash, goes through a rigorous sorting process that separates out re-usables, recyclables, and compost-ables from the landfill worthy.

All trash is sorted through to pull out perfectly good items that could be reused, such as clothing or furniture, or the toxically not-so-good items that need special handling, such as electronics or fluorescent bulbs. They also have a department where any hazardous liquids such as chemicals, paint or oil go to be properly processed. Paint that is still usable gets mixed together into 5-gallon buckets that are free to the public. The rest of the trash goes through a process that separates out organic matter and recyclables. They even have a facility that produces certified organic compost.

Further down the line, any other recyclable materials that come down the conveyor belt are sorted by hand. Workers are assigned a specific material to look for, such as wood, metal or plastics. Anything still left on the conveyor belt after all this gets dumped into piles to be broken up and shipped off to the real dump. The city has a goal to divert 75% of its waste. After all this, its a little bit gut wrenching (and stomach churning) to see how much refuse still makes it to the landfill. The seagulls seem to love it though.

One of the coolest things about the San Francisco Dump is the Artist in Residence program. That's right, they have artists on site that create interesting stuff with trash they find there. The program's goal is to educate people about recycling and resource conservation by providing local artists with access to materials and a work space. The artists also get a monthly stipend and and exhibition to show off their work at the end of the residency.

We were able to meet artist Bill Basquin, who was busy concepting pieces that educate the public about the composting process. Other artists make detailed sculptures out of trash they find around the dump. Some of the larger work goes on display in a private sculpture garden that puts a lovely 3-acre buffer between the transfer station and the nearby residential neighborhoods. Even the walkways in the park are recycled--they're made from ground-up concrete from the old Embarcadero Freeway damaged in the 1989 earthquake. As far as they know, its the only art park located at a garbage company!

In yet another effort to educate the public and increase the awareness of waste, the facility has transformed their collection trucks into rolling billboards. Each displays life-size photos of mixed waste, contrasting silhouettes of recycling bins and reads "Recycling changes everything."

A visit to the dump (whether the countries' greenest dump or not) should probably be a prerequisite for any designer. Witnessing the quantity of paper, plastic and other packaging that gets continually sent to our landfills each day makes one wonder how much longer we can go on like this. After all, coming up with better solutions is what designers do best, and this is one issue that we can actually have an influential hand in.

> Ryan Jones, Director of Membership, AIGA Kansas City

Posted by Kansas  |  June 6, 2009