San Diego a Step Closer to Mandatory Recycling

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published August 8, 2007 at 11:23 AM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

The city of San Diego took a step towards mandatory recycling Wednesday. Residents, businesses and apartment owners spoke at the first of two public hearings. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

The city of San Diego took a step towards mandatory recycling Wednesday. Residents, businesses and apartment owners spoke at the first of two public hearings. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

San Diego City staff members say without more recycling, the Miramar Landfill will fill up and close in 2012. The city council asked for a mandatory recycling ordinance for residents and businesses back in 2005. The mayor is now exploring the options.

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KB Mercer, a resident and a business owner, spoke at the hearing in favor of introducing city-wide mandatory recycling.

Mercer: As a citizen I want to tell you that voluntary measures don't work. People don't learn about it unless they have to, and I think people want to feel good about doing the right thing. We can change this cycle of making it seem like a burden and making it more like a contribution.

Under the city charter, San Diego single family homeowners don’t have to pay to have their trash picked up. That's one reason Mayor Jerry Sanders is approaching the idea of mandatory recycling cautiously: it would cost the financially strapped city money.

But staff will present a tentative plan at the next hearing in two weeks. Alison St John KPBS News.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.