In 1910 Portland's first garbage crematory, located at Guilds Lake (what isnowthe NW industrial area) was completed by Public Works Engineering Company. It was lauded in the mayor's annual municipal report as "sightly and substantial" and "appearing to be a modern up-to-date destructor." After undergoing six months of required testing, the garbage crematory was accepted by the Health Department and declared taken "in full control [by] the city." However, then Mayor George Rushlight noted the "systematic and wanton destruction of human foodstuffs" by the carloads "sent by certain fooddealers to the crematory to uphold food prices." Rushlight deplored such action, asking the council to pass an ordinance to "prevent such criminal waste." The crematory incinerated almost 30,000 tons of garbage in 1910, averaging 660 per ton. Because there were as yet no municipal landfills, the incinerator was working to capacity and beyond. In 1912 the voters rejected a bond issue to provide fora second "sorely needed" incinerator. A major problem arose with the need to shut down the facility for repair; because there was nowhere to dispose of the "vast and increasing garbage," the incinerator continued to operate until a fire caused its closure in 1914. During the next six weeks, the upper end of Marquam Gulch became the city's first experimental landfill. Acute shortages of raw materials during World War I prompted the federal government to launch a recycling program. The Waste Reclamation Service was created in 1917 as a section of the War Industries Board and transferred in 1918 to the Department of Commerce. Portland's attention was turned to its waste stream. The precedent set by its 1910 waste separation ordinance helped establish a citywide waste recycling system. The scavengers were no longer alone in their efforts. Rubber, metals, and glass were reclaimed by patriotic individuals and groups to aid production in war industries. In the city's 1921 annual report, C.A. Bigelow, Commissioner of Public Affairs, noted that In conjunction with the treatment of garbage and city waste there was submitted to the Council and the Commissioners of the City of Portland a proposition by the Northwest Nu-Fuel Company. In their proposition they covered the disposal of household garbage or kitchen waste and all other waste food; also manure or stable waste, street sweepings, combustible and non-combustible debris and building materials; in fact practically all waste material. Their process provided for the full conversion of the fuel waste into commercial products, the principle one being fuel. . . in the manufacture of briquets. The other waste products are converted into fertilizer or chicken food. The paper and pasteboard is baled and sold to paper factories, while the greases are extracted and used in the manufacture of soap. The metal wastes are converted into babbit metal and in a similar manner practically all of the wastes are converted into some useful substance or sold for useful purposes. There was no further mention of what happened to the proposition by the Northwest Nu-Fuel Company. By 1926 two new landfills had opened, helping to alleviate the incineration problem. Over 95,000 tons of garbage at the cost of 450 per ton were disposed of in the landfills, while incineration at 880 a ton burned 11,000 tons in that year, a dramatic decrease in tonnage previously burned. Portland's populace showed a preference for burying over burning their garbage. But the landfills had problems of their own: odor, equipment breakdowns, spontaneous combustion, and shortages of covering materials. The new and more accessible incinerator on the west side made garbage so easily disposible that people no longer took the time to separate their wastes. The annual report by the Bureau of Public Works reported that it had become impossible to enforce the ordinance covering garbage separation. During the Depression, the efforts of many groups that had cooperated with the Waste Reclamation service were discontinued. Although individual scavengers and local waste reclamation efforts continued on a smaller scale, large scale conservation efforts would not emerge again until the 40s, when, during World War II, thousands of tons of material were recycled to support the Allied cause. Following World War II Americans quickly fell back into their habits of wastefulness. The American dream of affluence and abundance—and with it conspicuous consumption—had been only momentarily interrupted. But by the 1970s, when Portland was accumulating 1800 tons of garbage a day, a great number of people who were concerned about environmental degradation and dwindling resources began to regard recovery and re-use of solid waste as a relevant issue. Other problems such as the growing scarcity of landfill sites and escalating costs for collection, transportation, and disposal of garbage underscored the need for waste reduction. Currently Portland's solid waste system, except for waste collection, is the responsibility of the Metropolitan Service District (Metro). In this endeavor, Metro is confronted by serious problems. By the mid 1980s, the present municipal landfills in the region will reach capacity. Recent federal mandates have closed open-burning dumps. Placement of new landfills has become difficult given the dilemma of locating an environmentally sound disposal site, compounded by strong public opposition to siting these facilities. In 1979 state legislation SB925 passed, requiring that an effort in waste reduction take place where state assistance is provided to landfills. Having received a grant and a loan for the expansion of the St. John's Landfill, Metro is now committed to a waste reduction program as part of its contractual agreement with the state. Metro's waste reduction plan includes four major components: resource recovery, landfilling, transfer stations, and recycling. A yard debris program is a fifth component. Until recently, Metro has concentrated on energy recovery from solid waste over materials recovery options. Energy recovery from solid waste is the designated function of a planned garbage-to- energy plant that burns garbage to create energy. Metro's proposed plant, to be located in Oregon City, is currently estimated to cost $171 to $210 million (depending on whom you talk to), will burn 560,000 tons of garbage a year. The energy created will be sold to nearby Publisher's Paper Mill to dry paper and generate electricity. Dan Knapp of Urban Ore and Whole Earth Recycling in Berkeley, California, and a former member of Lane County's now defunct Office of Appropriate Technology, raises questions about the value of incineration as a tool, "since any garbage-to-energy plant will com63
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