The Resource Persons, in the order of interaction with us. I would like to thank the following resource persons for giving us invaluable firsthand information in their fields of expertise. They are the gurus in their fields. They took time out from their busy schedules to impart to us in person what they have written in books and publications. These sessions will forever be among our treasured memories.

Dave Williamson, Recycling Operations Manager of the Ecology Center and our everyday companion. He was one of the pioneers of the Berkeley Recycling and Biodiesel Programs. He also fought the incineration proposal for the City of Berkeley and worked with Urban Ore in the past. He discussed the Contract between the Ecology Center and the City of Berkeley to provide salient points for references that might be useful to us.

Martin Bourque, Executive Director of the Ecology Center. This was our first site visit. He explained the history and functions of the Ecology Center and the training program for the fellowship. I found many helpful reading materials on the protection of the environment through use of non-toxic chemicals, sensible and practical methods of gardening, controlling garden pests, organic farming, composting and recycling. The Center supports about 50 farmers and participates in the Berkeley Farmers Market every Tuesday and Friday.

Daniel Knapp, a guru on recycling and resource recovery parks, (especially the 12 Master Categories) explained the importance and advantages of recycling and resource recovery parks to increase the landfill waste diversion rate. Resource recovery parks are a vital component of a Zero Waste program. He said that the USA reuse and recycling industry is 5 times the size of the waste industry. The reuse and recycling industry has an estimated income of $236 billion against $40 billion of the waste industry annually and has generated 1.1 million jobs in 56 thousand enterprises.

Jeffrey Belchamber, General Manager of the Community Conservation Center, explained to us the buy-back and drop-off centers and the processing facility of the CCC. We experienced actual sorting of plastic containers, glass bottles, and paper. Waste paper for recycling are baled and shipped to the different Asian countries.

Cathie Evans, explained the CRV (California Redemption Value), its history and mechanics. She said that according to the CRV Law, there should be a recycling center within half a mile in an area. Where there are no recycling centers within half a mile there is curbside collection, drop-off and buy-back centers.

Kathryn Hyde, Susan Bluestone & Oliver Werner, UCSF Medical School, painstakingly explained the waste management program of the school and toured us around the campus, showing us the medical waste collection and hauling. Intensive recycling is practiced to reduce volume of medical waste for treatment. Cameras are used to monitor waste disposal.

Humberto Perez, Strategic Materials, a glass beneficiary. Very interesting for me. He patiently explained the processes involved in glass recycling. Mixed broken glass can be used for landscaping or counter tops or made into fiberglass. This use can be suggested in the far-flung provinces in the Philippines. All the glass beneficiaries in the Philippines are located in Metro Manila.

Jon Bauer, provided us with the technical aspect of the different methods of composting. GAIA provided each one of us a copy of his book on community composting. Jon brought us to the site of the former vermi-composting facility of the UC Berkeley and explained how it was operated before. This facility was discontinued because it was found out that the site was a Super Fund site. My knowledge on composting is raw and his lecture provided me with very useful inputs for our workshops. Compostable waste constitutes about 50% of our waste stream and composting plays a very significant role in our waste management.

Mark Gorrell, spent a whole Saturday (!) designing a suitable Resource Recovery Facility for each of us. The one he designed for Zini was very interesting because it will be used and tested in the forthcoming World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Shibu also was very pleased with his design for the MRF for Kovalam. Mine was a theoretical design, which can be used for a very big barangay with a big budget.

Denny Larsen also took time out to demonstrate how to use the 'Bucket Brigade' in sampling the air in an area being polluted by a facility. It was such a simple but accurate process but the bag used is a special kind of plastic, tedlar, which is an inert material. This was also on a Saturday and he had just come back from a trip!

Portia Sinnott, traveled to Black Mountain, a redwood forest in the Sonoma County, about an hour's drive (not considering the traffic) from Berkeley to lecture on community organizing. She was an example of an advocate who practices what she preaches. She lectured on community based activities in multi-family dwellings, such as waste management, sharing meals once a week to reduce waste and use less energy, and one carless day in a month, to name a few. She also discussed zero waste, extended producers' responsibility, sustainability and the conceptual tools in waste management (Natural Step and Ecological Footprint). She said that if people around the world followed the American lifestyle of utilizing an average of 25 acres/person, we would need 5 worlds!

David Baltz, of Health Care Without Harm, also traveled to Black Mountain from Berkeley. He lectured on toxic wastes of hospitals, such as mercury, expired medication, chemotherapy medicine, PVC with DEHP (diethylhexylphthalate, which is the plasticizer used in PVC bags to make them soft and pliable), DEHP is harmful especially to baby boys. He also stressed that although breast milk may contain dioxins if the mother takes food contaminated with dioxins or is exposed to dioxins, the advantages of breastfeeding still outweighs its disadvantages. He further noted that all medical waste can be disposed of without incineration per Dr. Jorge Emmanuel (I attended his lecture in Manila).

Adam Grover, owner of Grover Composting, gave us a tour of the facility. I was interested to see this composting facility to take a look personally of a commercial composting which we don't have in the Philippines. It is on a 40-acre property, processes 125,000 tons of green waste and sells 50,000 tons of compost a year. But it composted mostly yard waste (about 95%) and only about 5% food waste. The food waste is just a contaminant of the yard waste collected. The truck used to turn and add water to keep the compost heap moist costs about $240,000. It takes 8 - 12 weeks to produce compost compared to 4 weeks in the Philippines even without this very expensive truck. The climate in the Philippines and the tropics is a big plus for composting.

Rick Anthony, also a guru on recycling and waste diversion in a landfill. He stated that landfills do not and cannot meet environmental standards, and also violate nature. He touched on the California Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation Recovery Act, Solid Waste Management Recovery Act and the Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989. The new millennium rules, according to him, are: reduce, repair, reuse, recycle and regulate (take back). He also discussed the 12 major categories, to divert as much as possible waste going to the landfill, and to promote resource management and not waste management. He said that the best system is a zero waste system though program planning and effective education of all sectors concerned. He supports the single stream recyclable collection method.

Neil Seldman, anti-incinerator specialist and activist. He was active in organizing citizens, business people and local officials in the 1970's and defeated more than 300 incinerator proposals. Only 30 were built and only in places where there was corruption. He said that conservation of resources is more efficient than the waste to energy concept because the more energy you burn, the more you waste; when you turn energy to electricity you lose a lot of energy. He also emphasized waste characterization, reduction, reuse, recycling and composting and avoided costs as reasons to stop incineration. He cited as an example the Alameda County case where citizens, through a referendum, stopped incinerators and an over-sized landfill and instead put up the Alameda Resource Recovery program.