Moderator:
Paul Krekorian, City Council Member, District 2, City of Los Angeles
Speakers:
Enrique Zaldivar, Director, Bureau of Sanitation, City of Los Angeles
Pat Proano, Assistant Deputy Director, Environmental Programs Division, Los Angeles County Department of Public Works
Rob Costanzo, Deputy Operations Manager, City of Surrey, British Columbia
Since cities have incorporated, handling municipal waste has been a significant challenge for government, sanitation engineers, and the public who both produce the waste and have to suffer its consequences. For decades, sanitation professionals have experimented with various disposal methods, reduction strategies and conversion technologies, including burning for heat and electricity. While older waste-to-energy conversion technologies had onerous consequences for the environment, recent technologies may have changed the equation. How can trash be treated as a resource? What are the policy implications of a shift back to waste-to-energy with a renewable twist?
