project overview
With a population of 1,000,000 people, San Jose is the third largest city in California and the 10th largest city in the United States. As increasing gentrification in Silicon Valley pushes evicted residents from nearby cities into San Jose where they have more housing and job options, the City is committed to providing a healthy living environment for its growing population by ensuring safe air, water, and soil quality. One way the City of San Jose has committed to urban sustainability is by implementing initiatives to try and divert household hazardous waste (HHW) from entering the landfills. The successful execution of these waste management efforts would hold significant environmental impact. Household hazardous waste that is poured down the drain or disposed of illegally through municipal trash collection harms natural ecosystems. Toxic chemicals from hazardous waste run off as groundwater and enter the storm sewers, bypassing wastewater treatment facilities and flowing into Bay Area waterways. Hazardous materials that end up in a landfill leach into the surrounding soil. Ultimately, without the regulation of HHW disposal, the housed and homeless populations of San Jose and Santa Clara County face the risk of suffering from public health hazards posed by a contaminated natural environment.
In October 2013, the City of San Jose opened its Household Hazardous Waste Facility, managed by the Environmental Services Department. Statistics gathered from the County of Santa Clara show that during the facility’s first fiscal year after opening (July 2013-June 2014), a total of 8,717 San Jose households made appointments to drop off their hazardous waste at the facility. The current goal of the City is to increase participation to 11,000 households (a little under 4% of San Jose households) for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. We--Stanford students Aitran Doan and Adam Ellner--worked under the mentorship of City of San Jose Integrated Waste Management team members, Lauren Romanazzi and Alana Rivadeneyra, to help further public outreach efforts, collect data on Santa Clara County residents’ knowledge of HHW, create an interactive map of retail drop-off sites that accept types of HHW, and plant the seed for a potential local partnership for future outreach workshops and education.
This is where the HHW Facility is located:
In October 2013, the City of San Jose opened its Household Hazardous Waste Facility, managed by the Environmental Services Department. Statistics gathered from the County of Santa Clara show that during the facility’s first fiscal year after opening (July 2013-June 2014), a total of 8,717 San Jose households made appointments to drop off their hazardous waste at the facility. The current goal of the City is to increase participation to 11,000 households (a little under 4% of San Jose households) for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. We--Stanford students Aitran Doan and Adam Ellner--worked under the mentorship of City of San Jose Integrated Waste Management team members, Lauren Romanazzi and Alana Rivadeneyra, to help further public outreach efforts, collect data on Santa Clara County residents’ knowledge of HHW, create an interactive map of retail drop-off sites that accept types of HHW, and plant the seed for a potential local partnership for future outreach workshops and education.
This is where the HHW Facility is located: