Discovering what should go to your waste containers on the sidewalk is not easy.
Consider its single -use cup of coffee, which holds coffee with milk that will drink while leading to work.
It's paper, right? So can it be recycled?
Los Angeles knows how to resist a crisis, or two or three. Angelen is taking advantage of that resistance, struggling to build a city for everyone.
Mistaken. It has a plastic covering that paper recyclers do not touch.
Or what about the compostable products bag that you used to hold the few broccoli heads that bought in the bulk container in its local supermarket?
The composers do not want it. The plastic, even when made of non -fossil fuel sources such as the algae, the corn or the sugar cane, often contains additives that the compounds say they can contaminate the soil. And they say it does not decompose completely.
Teresa Leong carries her food and paper waste to Cottonwood Urban Farm on Panorama City for Composting. Some of them are brought back in a cube, to the right, which uses to grow several native plants in a brush covered with weeds near the Los Angeles River in Studio City.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The landscape of waste is a confusing nightmare with which even people well versed in waste management fight, especially when considering that each city, county and municipality in California has its own rules about what goes to where.
That is why many people expect the reuse movement to grow, a movement that asks people, restaurants and shops that create food items that can be returned, washed and reused.
It is estimated that only 50 billion cups of coffee in the United States are discarded. And in California, only 9% of the single -use plastics are recycled.
In small environments and geographically content, such as stages, areas and conference centers, reusable articles have been used successfully. In Los Angeles, Crypto.com Arena and Peacock Theater have participated in Ware Food Ware reusable programs, with the R.World company, since 2024.
In an attempt to see if such programs could be implemented at a broader scale, a consortium promoted and funded by sponsors as unlikely as Starbucks, Pepsico, McDonald's and Coca-Cola, launched a 12-week reuse pilot program in the city of Northern California de Petaluma, last summer.
According to a report issued by the Consortium, called Partners Close Loop, the program obtained the acceptance of 30 stores, including Dunkin, Habit Burger and Peets Coffee. Food establishments offered consumers a cup of reusable purple plastic drinks, without additional deposit or charge, which could be left in purple collection containers around the city after the article was used. Then, the glasses were washed, inspected and delivered to the participating stores.
The organizers claim that the project was a success. More than 50% of the glasses were returned, which the organizers say it exceeds the “point of environmental equilibrium”, which means that they were better for the environment than the cups of a single use. That is even when it includes the water and energy costs necessary to transport the glasses, clean them and transport them again.
And, they say, the 24,000 cups that were not returned to purple containers were recovered by the local recycling company.
“We learned that the greatest promoter of returns was to be part of a solution of the entire community,” said Carolina Lobel, senior director of the Closed Lucing Partners Circular Center. “Instead of working with the traditional monetary incentive, we focus on developing pride and training everyone to do the right thing. And they did it because it is what their neighbors and their entire community were doing.”
He also said that the organizers were surprised at the speed with which people adopted the new behavior and saw that return rates accelerated from week to week.
The group will soon launch another program in a larger city in California, this time in southern California.
