{"id":17698,"date":"2021-10-19T16:47:35","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T20:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/articles\/democracy-and-recycling-in-california\/"},"modified":"2024-05-01T18:31:10","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T18:31:10","slug":"democracy-and-recycling-in-california","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/es\/article\/composting-for-community\/democracy-and-recycling-in-california","title":{"rendered":"Democracy and Recycling in California"},"template":"","class_list":["post-17698","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_type-article","initiatives-composting-for-community","topics-incineration","topics-recycling","topics-zero-waste","impact_areas-economic-justice","impact_areas-worker-power","authors-neil-seldman"],"acf":{"details":{"featured_image":3322,"background_color":"","article_type":[134],"initiative":15,"display_event_fields":false,"start_date":null,"end_date":null,"start_time":null,"end_time":null,"time_zone":"America\/New_York","virtual_event":false,"location":"","topics":[87,112,121],"impact_areas":[20,26],"abstract":"

Dan Knapp responds to PBS Newshour commentator David Brooks’ recent criticism of California’s system of direct democracy: “We would not exist today if not for direct democracy” and “Material recovery has morphed in Berkeley into a $40 to $50 million-dollar set of material recovery enterprises.”… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","authors_tax":[605]},"sidebar":{"title":"\u00cdndice"},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

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Commentary by Dan Knapp, PhD, Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA: A Materials\u00a0Recycling Company<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At the very end of the Friday, September 10, 2021 PBS NewsHour, David Brooks was explaining why he doesn\u2019t like \u201cdirect democracy\u201d as practiced in California. He was upset about the Gavin\u00a0Newsom recall. Dan Knapp, Urban Ore, Inc., thought that Brooks’ blanket condemnation of direct\u00a0democracy went too far. Knapp was involved in the use of direct democracy in the 1980s and 1990s to\u00a0head off incineration, set high recycling goals, and create a funding source for recycling that also raised the\u00a0cost of wasting at the same time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Here is his response.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To PBS Newshour:<\/div>\n

\nI\u2019ve been in the recycling movement for over forty years as a founder and general manager of a reuse\u00a0<\/strong>and recycling business.<\/strong> Urban Ore specializes in what we call \u201creuse,\u201d meaning keeping reusable goods <\/span>out of landfills and incinerators by returning them to commerce. Urban Ore currently employs 34 people.\u00a0We started with nothing but the ability to salvage at a regional landfill, long since closed. We are now\u00a0recognized as a thought leader in a much bigger conservative\/progressive\u00a0<\/span>social movement still paying\u00a0big dividends worldwide.<\/div>\n

\nWe would not exist today if not for direct democracy, which David Brooks says he\u2019s against<\/strong>.<\/strong> I may <\/span>agree with him on the stupid California recall of Gavin Newsom, which is an expensive partisan\u00a0nothingburger, and before that on the recall of Gray Davis, which gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger as\u00a0Governor.<\/div>\n

\nBut I definitely don\u2019t agree that direct democracy, as in the California Citizen\u2019s initiative process, is\u00a0<\/strong>something that should go into the wastebasket of history.<\/strong><\/strong>
\nI myself have helped write three citizen\u2019s initiatives that first: stopped a mass-burn waste incinerator after\u00a0the elected City Council had voted unanimously to approve its procurement; extended the moratorium on\u00a0garbage burning and set one of the nation’s first 50% recycling goals four years later; and in 1989 created\u00a0StopWaste, a new Alameda County agency with a mandate annually to spend around $8 million raised by\u00a0higher wasting and garbage fees at all county landfills. That spending focused exclusively on building\u00a0recycling infrastructure, making loans and grants to provide working capital to resource trading businesses.\u00a0That\u2019s what we built into the initiative, and that\u2019s what has happened.<\/div>\n
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Around ten years ago, Alameda County\u2019s fifteen jurisdictions had reduced landfilling by 50%, with some\u00a0going as high as 70%. Wasting is on its way out thanks to direct democracy.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Had it been built, the garbage burner would never have survived even a year of operations because the\u00a0citizens would have stopped it, since everyone was downwind, and citizens were made aware during our\u00a0anti-burn campaign that the plant would release dioxins, dibenzofurans, and metals like mercury and\u00a0cadmium into the air. But they would still have had to pay its capital costs and endure yet more citizens\u00a0fighting over the spoils. The 63% vote margins for all three of our citizen\u2019s initiatives settled many of\u00a0those questions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead, material recovery has morphed in Berkeley into a $40 to $50 million-dollar set of material\u00a0<\/strong>recovery enterprises, with three of the largest owned by the city itself.<\/strong>\u00a0The dramatic growth of \u00a0<\/span>resource conservation would have been stunted had the City\u2019s staff and council mistakes not been subject\u00a0to citizen veto at the ballot box.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Thanks for your time and attention to this email post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Daniel Knapp, Ph.D.<\/div>\n
General Manager, Urban Ore, Inc., a Material Recovery Enterprise in Berkeley, California since 1980<\/div>\n
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