City Mulls Rules to Force More Construction Waste to be Recycled

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published September 5, 2007 at 11:29 AM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

The city of San Diego will look at a new rules today to force more construction and demolition waste to be recycled. But to offset lost tipping fees at the dump, residents will likely see their costs

The city of San Diego will look at a new rules today to force more construction and demolition waste to be recycled. But to offset lost tipping fees at the dump, residents will likely see their costs go up. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Construction waste makes up well over a third of all waste dumped at the city of San Diego's Miramar landfill.

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The city's attempts to encourage contractors to recycle things like wood, metal and concrete have failed so far, because it is still cheaper to dump at the Miramar landfill than at a recycling yard.

The city hasn't been motivated to force the issue, because diverting the trash would cost the city more than $3 million a year in lost tipping fees. But now the mayor's office is proposing to modify an existing ordinance that will require construction waste to be recycled. A private recycling facility has opened in Lemon Grove.

To offset the cost to the city in lost tipping fees at Miramar, the city proposes to raise fees for people who take pick up trucks of waste to the dump. Secondly, the city would impose a fee of more than $80 to replace citizens' trash bins.

The city's natural resources committee considers the changes this afternoon.

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.