Follow that Story

By Matthew Hirsch

Recyclers hang on Andy Pugni, executive director of the San Francisco Community Recyclers, told the Bay Guardian he met with Safeway officials in Sup. Bevan Dufty's office Jan. 23, two days after we published an article about Safeway's attempt to evict the recyclers (see "Trashing Local Recyclers," 1/21/04).

And for now the SFCR is still in business. Safeway gave the SFCR a new March 1 deadline to revamp the appearance of its recycling centers, particularly the ones at Safeway stores on Webster Street and Seventh Avenue.

To Pugni, that means painting butterflies and bunnies on white picket fences around the recycling equipment to make the recycling centers look more like Safeway's for-profit ones. The only problem, he said, is "we're almost completely broke." Safeway expressed the least concern about the recycling center at Market and Duboce, because at least that one is walled off from the grocery store's parking lot.

Safeway issued two other demands, Pugni said: (1) speed up the recycling service to have fewer people hanging around, and (2) stop collecting materials the for-profits don't collect, such as cardboard and newspaper. The San Francisco Department of the Environment strongly objects to the last demand because it would interfere with the city's goal of recycling 75 percent of its waste.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' City Services Committee held off on public hearings about Safeway's eviction threat Jan. 22, but Pugni said the SFRC is ready to go if negotiations deteriorate before the end of the month.

Victory at the CPUC Environmentalists and consumer groups scored a stunning victory Jan. 23 when California energy regulators agreed to hold back long-term power contracts for the state's big three electric utilities (see "The Russian Front," 1/07/04). The decision clears the way for renewable energy investments and programs that allow cities to purchase wholesale power on behalf of residents.

A coalition of activists called Ratepayers for Affordable Green Energy led the lobbying effort at the California Public Utilities Commission. Nowhere in California is the decision expected to mean more than in San Francisco, where Sup. Tom Ammiano plans to introduce legislation for renewable energy investments this month.

Unfortunately, the decision was not met with good news on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The same day, the energy news organization Platts reported a consortium led by Shell Oil began laying new oil and natural gas pipelines at Sakhalin Island off the coast of Russia. Environmental groups lobbying against long-term contracts for the utilities had hoped the decision would stop Shell from drilling on the island, but as yet their efforts go unrewarded.

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