While waste has fallen to pre-bubble levels, smelly food scraps along with their recycling brethren aluminum, paper and glass, continue to provide Oakland with valuable export commodities. And as we enter the holiday season, recyclers expect to see the usual spike in grey bin items.

Last month, Oakland’s waste stream was flooded with elections mailers. This month and the next, the stream will brim with holiday cheer in the form of apple cores, turkey bones, cranberry cans and gift wrapping. In both cases, the three major recycling collectors - Waste Management, the nation’s largest waste services provider; California Waste Solutions, a Bay Area-based and operating waste company; and Recology, a West Coast worker-owned waste business - will happily receive the albeit recession-reduced flow.

“The holidays are the busiest curbside season of the year. A tremendous amount of material is generated in a short period of time,” said Bruce Groulx, Recycling Program Manager for Civicorps, which partners with Recology to pick up recycling in Oakland.  “[Though consumption has gone down] recycling remains one of the few bright spots in our import export economy.”

Oakland now sends 25 percent less waste to the landfill, down to about 300,000 tons, and has also reduced amounts sent to recycling facilities.

But despite reduced consumption, the recycling industry remains optimistic in part because their line of work is in demand due to strong aluminum, steel and paper markets and due to increased regulations supporting recycling.

Ultimately, most Bay Area recycling is aggregated, sorted and sold as a commodity: paper ends up in China where it becomes cardboard packaging for consumer goods later sold in the U.S.; aluminum becomes new beer cans at Anheuser Busch; glass is transformed into cullet at Strategic Materials; and biodegradable waste is turned into compost by Recology and sold to local vintners and vegetable farmers. Biodegradable waste or green waste is also sold to East Bay Municipal Utility District where it becomes, among other things,  energy for powering Oakland homes.

How much waste are we talking about? According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 1997 the average American produced four pounds of waste per day. In current, local, biodegradable waste terms, this number translates to 700 tons of food scraps processed at Waste Management’s Davis Street Station. All told, Waste Management processes 3,000 tons of waste per day at its Davis Street facility.

Do your part

How much waste will your home produce this holiday season? Learn more about how to green your Thanksgiving and make or print out a pesticide guide to inform your holiday food shopping.

Not yet using a green bin in Oakland? Find out more about Oakland recycling and how to get a green bin by visiting Oakland Recycles or contact Waste Management of Alameda County (510) 613-8710 to get a green cart or food scraps pail.

Want to learn more about how to make recycling work? Read "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things." And if you have three minutes, watch this Trash is Cash music video by Wafalme, a Kenyan youth hip-hop group.