During the San Francisco leg of the Prize tour, 2013 recipients Rossano Ercolini and Nohra Padilla had the opportunity to visit Recology’s Pier 96, San Francisco’s state of the art recycling center.
The employee-owned center diverts 30 large shipping containers of recyclable material from landfills six days a week while providing 180 full-time jobs to the city.
Ercolini and Padilla are both working to reduce waste in their communities. Ercolini, who is leading the effort to stop waste incineration in Europe, used San Francisco’s recycling program as a model for his own Zero Waste program.
Padilla is leading the effort to make recycling a legitimate part of waste management in Colombia. She recently received partial financing from the Inter-American Development to create a new recycling center in Bogota- which may also be influenced by the San Francisco model.
During their tour of the Recology center, Ercolini and Padilla met with Paul Giusti and Robert Reed from Recology, as well as Melanie Nutter, Director of San Francisco Department of the Environment and Jack Macy, Commercial Zero Waste Coordinator with San Francisco Department of the Environment.