Annual Report Summary - (Printer Friendly Version)

This section of the annual report presents the methods in which your agency informed both employees and customers served that a recycling program was being implemented. Below are identified the programs you reported were continued or implemented during 2006.

This section of the annual report presents your compliance with the State Agency Buy Recycled Campaign (SABRC). The activities identified below were reported as implemented or continued during 2006. (Note: Completing this section does not meet the SABRC reporting requirements (PCC Section 12162(b)).

The waste has probably remained pretty much stayed the same since the Intergrated Waste Management Plan was submitted. There have been some new programs that have recently been implemtented that should help to decrease the waste steam in the future. One in particular is with the Adopt-A-Highway program. In June 2006, some of the Adopt-A-Highway groups in District 4 & 8, and all of the Adopt-A-Highway groups in Districr 1 were given specially made bags for the volunteers to use in order to separate out recyclables from the rest of the waste that is picked up along the highways. This is currently being done as a pilot project and upon its success, these bags will be distributed to all of the Adopt-A-Highway gruops. The Department is also looking into other possibilities to increase our diversion efforts. These include establishing recycling containers at all of the 88 Road Side Rest stops throughout the state.

At the District Offices, Headquarters and the larger field offices, typical office supplies, scape metal, furniture are recycled.

For example white paper, mixed paper, beverage containers, cardboard, toner cartridges are diverted.

At some of the smaller field offices they are encouraged to recycle the above mentioned materials, but because of their location or relatvely small amount of wast generated, is always tracked and therefore included in the report. Caltrans Construction RE did submit five solid waste disposal and recycling report.

When appropriate, office furniture and computer equipment is donated to chartable organizations. Other types of material that are generated by the Department are a result of the fleet of vehicles owned by Caltrans. Some of these material include motor oil, engine lubricants, anti-freeze, tires and slovents. Enve though these waste material do not count towards AB 75, they still get recycled. Over the years, the Department has undergone a significant move to lower emission from our vehicles. Caltrans has termed this "Greeting the fleet". More information on this can be found at http:www.dot.ca.gov/hq/eqsc/cleanair/greenfleet.htm.

Amount of materials disposed an diverted were determined by a variety of methods. For material generated within the District Offices and Headquarters, which were recycled, the documentation was achieved by reviewing the actual receipts from the independent vendors who supply this service. In cases where obtaining actual receipts was not fesible, estimates were used by extrapolating the size and weight of containers and multiplying by the frequency of service. For materials, which were disposed of the primary source for documentation was to exrapolate by determining the approximate average weight of the material in the disposal container multiplied by the frequency of service. For determining the weights of the C & D debris and for some of the office supplies that were donated the use of conversion charts was used.

The department does encourage the use of e;mail double-sided photocoping, and the reuse of envelopes. While the activities are included in the programs, the figures do not fit into the diversion caculations. District 11 did recycle mixed paper, scape metal, construction and demolition waste, wood and tires.

The department has identified one recycling coordinator in each district and at headquarters along with a Resource Conservation Senior in the Headquarters Resource Conservation Branch. No additional PY`s were allocated for these postions. The recycling coordinators have Department to include specfication language in all new contracts that will require future constuction projects to report on the amount of C & D waste which is both diposed of and diverted from landfills. This change is under development and will be implemented once all processess have been fully detailed. In the interim, should there be any questions please contact Cheri Gouthier at (619) 688-6706.