The Mandatory Commercial Recycling Measure adopted by the State and required by the City of Greenfield focuses on increased commercial waste diversion as a method to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is designed to achieve a reduction in GHG emissions of 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalents. To achieve the measure's objective, an additional 2 to 3 million tons of materials annually will need to be recycled from the commercial sector by the year 2020 and beyond. Mandatory Commercial Recycling was one of the measures adopted in the
Assembly Bill 32 Scoping Plan by the Air Resources Board (ARB) pursuant to the
California Global Warming Solutions Act (Chapter 488, Statutes of 2006).
According to 2008
Statewide Waste Characterization data, the commercial sector generates nearly three fourths of the solid waste in California. Furthermore, much of the commercial sector waste disposed in landfills is readily recyclable. Increasing the recovery of recyclable materials will directly reduce GHG emissions. In particular, recycled materials can reduce the GHG emissions from multiple phases of product production; including extraction of raw materials, pre-processing and manufacturing.