Apr 16 - CalRecycle: AB 341 May Create 100,000 New Jobs

CalRecycle has determined that approximately 100,000 new jobs can be created as a result of AB 341, which sets a goal of 75 percent recycling by 2020.

At a workshop in Sacramento today, Frank Limacher, CalRecycle’s Research Program Specialist, told attendees in order to meet the goal, 22 million tons of material will need to be moved from landfills, resulting in an estimated 100,000 new jobs if the material is procesed and remanufactured in the state. Limacher said he based his numbers on a review of past studies on job creation in recycling and looked at current job estimates in order to come up with data in a number of categories. Overall, he determined that processing and manufacturing leads to the creation of 3 to 11 times more jobs than collection and landfilling, depending on the material type.

• Collection and processing of materials for recycling results in an average of 5.3 jobs per 1000 tons of material. And, each new job created will result in an additional job, either indirectly related to the recycling process or induced by it.

• Curbside recycling, MRF operations and transfer result in about 2.9 jobs per 1000 tons.

• Source separated material results in about 7.9 jobs per 1000 tons.

• By comparison, collection and landfilling results in only about 1.3 jobs per 1000 tons of material.

• Some factors that could affect job creation include contamination of materials, export, and capacity.

Of the 100,000 estimated jobs created, 55,000 will result from collection and processing and the remaining 44,000 jobs will come from increased manufacturing. 25,000 jobs will be created in the paper, plastic, and lumber and inert materials sectors, and about 14,000 jobs will be created in organics recycling, a material that is not exported overseas.

AB 323 (Chesbro) would contribute to the increase in organics recycling jobs by requiring businesses that produce large amounts of food waste to subscribe to a recycling service for that material. In addition, it would remove incentives for using greenwaste as Alternative Daily Cover in landfills. The bill will be heard in Assembly Natural Resources Committee on Monday, April 29, at 1:30 p.m.

Watch the hearing online here.

See the PowerPoint presentation here.