Waste management within the San Diego region is a mixture of landfill disposal, recycling, and composting and source reduction activities. As AB 939 is complied with, however, the diversion and collection of recyclables and compostables will take on greater prominence. This section provides background on the County-wide landfill situation, discusses current and future waste generation projections, and provides estimates of secondary materials recovery rates.

There are six operating landfills in San Diego County. Five of these landfills (San Marcos, Ramona, Borrego, Sycamore, and Otay) are operated by the County of San Diego, while Miramar Landfill is operated by the City of San Diego. The area closest to the proposed San Diego RMDZ is serviced by the Otay Landfill.

The estimated remaining capacities of these landfills are identified below:

The four major landfills (Otay,San Marcos,Sycamore,and Miramar) form a regional solid waste disposal network distributed around the region's primary population centers. The designation of the San Diego RMDZ will serve to extend the useful life of these landfills by encouraging the development of secondary materials consumers. As additional diversion programs are brought on line in response to AB 939 mandates, the need for expanded markets is essential for the success of integrated waste management programs.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to estimate the amount of landfill capacity that will be saved as a result of the designation of the San Diego RMDZ for three primary reasons. First, it is difficult to determine how recovery efforts will expand beyond those already being planned for in local Source Reduction and Recycling Elements, as well as various incentive programs such as the County's Mandatory Recycling Ordinance and Tonnage Grant programs (described later in this Section). The amount of secondary materials that will be diverted will increase substantially with or without the San Diego RMDZ.

Second, materials collected in the San Diego region almost entirely end up in the Los Angeles basin remanufacturing or export markets. As San Diego materials are displaced by increased recovery efforts in the Los Angeles basin, the need for substantial local consumption becomes critical. As such, recovery of San Diego's recyclable materials is dependent upon the establishment of new local market capacity. This understanding is already reflected in the estimated recovery rates described later in this Section.

Finally, a "wild card" exists in the form of the secondary materials generated in neighboring Baja Calffornia. Wastes generated by Baja California residential, commercial and industrial sectors may provide feedstocks for use by San Diego RMDZ industries. At this time, it is not possible to estimate the amount of secondary materials from these sources; however, there is great potential in exploring their development.

For the above reasons, it is difficult to quantify the amount of additional recovery in the San Diego region that would result from establishment of the San Diego RMDZ.

Solid waste generation rates are subject to many factors, including variations in business and commercial activity, economic conditions, and individual purchasing and disposal habits. The waste generation projections provided in the following tables are based on a historical per capita waste generation rate of 1.8 tons per person per year, as well as the projected population growth of San Diego County.

1. Annual projections assume the 1990 per capita waste generation rate of 1.8 tons per person per year remains constant

2. Waste Disposal Projections are the combined rates of County and City of San Diego landfills.

Regional Secondary Materials Collection

In San Diego County, each city (and most of the densely populated unincorporated areas) has some level of curbside collection programs for residential recyclables. The widespread adoption of curbside collection programs is due in large part to the County of San Diego's mandator recycling ordinance (further outlined in Local Incentives, page 25), as well as financial assistance provided to cities and haulers through the County's Technical Assistance Project (TAP) grants (see Local Incentives, p. 26) Recipients of these grants are required to include collection of plastic beverage containers, aluminum, glass and newspaper in their recycling programs.

The curbside collection programs are complemented by a network or private commercial recyclers, private- and publically-sponsored buy back centers, scrap yards, drop-off sites, and diversion activities at the major landfills.

To further the collection of recyclable materials, the County of San Diego awards non-competitive tonnage grants of $7.75 per ton to cities and to haulers in the unincorporated area for designated residential recyclables documented to have been diverted from County landfills. The County Board of Supervisors has allocated a total of $2 million for this program for FY 1992, of which $90@ was awarded for diverting 11,727 tons of recydables during the first quarter. (It should be noted that because the City of San Diego operates its own landfill, it is exempt from both the mandatory recycling ordinance, and the Tonnage Grant Project).

The County of San Diego's mandatory recycling ordinance and grant programs, the City of San Diego's comprehensive recycling programs, and the growing private sector recycling infrastructure will ensure a reliable source of secondary materials for remanfacturing industries well into the next decade. County and City reporting requirements will also supplement ongoing waste characterization studies so that interested end-users can be provided with reliable, up to date, feedstock inventory reports.

Regional Secondary Materials Collection

As already described, a strong recycling infrastructure currently exists in the San Diego region, resulting in large quantities of secondary materials being recovered from the wastestream. The following table provides an estimate of the materials that are currently recovered from the regional wastestream:

Table 3
Estimated Recovered Secondary Materials in San Diego County (1990)
Commodity Cardboard Newspaper Mixed Wastepaper High Grade Ledger Wood Leafy Yard Waste Shrubby Yard Waste Glass Hard Plastics Fffm Plastics Construction Materials Metals	1990 Tonnage 507,414 245,814 498,393 99,228 435,249 232,283 223,262 157,862 173,648 139,821 617,918 196,200	Estimated Recovered Percentage (1989) 41% 24% 1% 22% 5% 8.5% 8.5% 15% trace trace unknown unknown	Resulting Baseline Recovered Tonnage 208,040 58,995 4,984 21,M 21,762 19,744 18,977 23,679
Note- Percentages are based on the results of the County of San Diego Waste Notation & Market Study (lM)

Although large quantities of recyclable materials are generated in the San Diego area, many of these materials find their way into area landfills.

However, as collection programs are expanded and consuming markets are developed in the proposed San Diego RMDZ, the amounts of recovered materials are expected to increase over the coming years. Using current recovery information and waste characterization data from each of the area's landfills, projections have been made as to the types and quantities of recovered secondary materials that will be available to local remanufacturers and processors through the year 2005, as shown in the table below.

Table 4
Estimated Potential Recoverable Materials Available in San Diego County (Figures reported in tons)
Commodity Cardboard Newspaper hfixed Wastepaper Mgh Grade Ledger Wood Leafy Yard Waste Shrubby Yard Waste Glass Hard Plastics Film Plastics Construction Materials Metals Total Potential Recoverables Total Non-recoverable Total Waste Generated	1990 507,414 245,814 498,393 99,228 435,249 232,283 223,262 157,862 173,648 139,821 617,918 196,200 3,527,092 983,256 4,510,348	1995 527,217 255,407 517,844 103,100 452,235 241,348 231,976 164,023 180,425 145,278 642,033 203,857 3,664,744 1,021,630 4,686,374	2000 558,290 270,460 548,365 109,177 478,889 255,573 245,648 173,690 191,059 153,840 679,873 215,872 3,880,735 1,081,842 4,962,577	2005 606,237 293,688 595,459 118,553 520,016 277,522 266,744 188,607 207,468 167,052 738,261 234,411 4,214,018 1,174,752 5,388,770
These figures include collected recyclable materials plus disposed recyclable materials. Construction Materials include: soils, concrete, asphalt, drywall and roofing. Metals include: CRV aluminium, bi-metal cans, ferrous, non-ferrous, tin cans, white goods and mixed metals.

Since 1988, both the County and the City of San Diego have conducted waste characterization studies at each of the regional landfills. The results of these studies are being continuously updated by the efforts of the County of San Diego at each of the County-run landfills, and on behalf of the City at the Miramar Landfill. These studies include a breakdown of waste stream components that is more detailed than that required by the Source Reduction and Recycling Element guidelines created under the Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989. The overall results of the most recent study (fall 1991) are shown in Chart 1 (p. 9a).

Waste composition studies performed by the County are supervised by two full time field staff and performed by contract labor and prison honor camp crews. This system of performing waste characterization studies rather than consultant contracting enables the County to easily modify its protocol to conduct special sub-sorts, called "designer sorts". Designer sorts enable selected materials to be quantified to determine their availability as a remanufacturing feedstock. For example, a designer sort was recently conducted for twelve different plastic container types. This information will be used to attract plastics processors and remanufacturers.

Attracting Business Through Feedstock Information

Because detailed information about San Diego's wastestream and materials recovery has already been developed, it will be possible to assist remanufacturing and processing businesses in expanding or locating within the proposed San Diego RMDZ. In fact, several firms using innovative technologies have already expressed a preliminary interest to site within the RMDZ if it is designated. These firms include a nonhazardous medical waste recycling facility which will consume 15,00020,000 tons of plastics and fibers annually, and a plastics reprocessing company which would process 3,000-6,000 tons annually of plastic to produce pelletized resins. n addition, one business has proposed siting a materials recovery facility within the Zone (described in the letter of support from Mr. George Schleuter found after this section).