Refuse to Primary Landfill

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Citywide

In 2003, San Francisco set a goal of achieving zero waste and has since cut its landfill disposal in half. Zero waste means that we send zero discards to the landfill or high-temperature destruction. Instead, products are designed and used according to the principle of highest and best use and the waste reduction hierarchy: prevent waste, reduce and reuse first, and recycle and compost.

Recycling and composting are important because they conserve resources, combat climate change, and create jobs. One of the best ways to determine progress towards San Francisco's zero waste is to measure average workday tons of material sent to the city's primary landfill each month.

 

TONS OF REFUSE TO PRIMARY LANDFILL

How Performance is Measured

Recology reports to SF Environment quarterly on tons of refuse sent to the primary landfill. In 2018, Mayor Breed committed San Francisco to a new Zero Waste pledge to reduce waste generation by 15% and landfill disposal by 50% by 2030. The target of 1600 tons set in the chart above is representative of that landfill disposal goal. 

The number displayed on the scorecard page represents a fiscal year average of the raw daily values, and therefore may differ slightly than average of the monthly averages in the chart above.

Additional Information

Learn more about SF Environment's Zero Waste Initiative.

Data

Visit DataSF to access the scorecard data.