Garbage: it’s gross, it stinks, and all anyone wants is to be rid of it.

For most cities, that means sending thousands of tons of unwanted flotsam and jetsam to landfills every day. But in San Francisco, garbage is treated like a resource that shouldn’t be wasted. And that means formulating a plan to reduce the city’s garbage output to zero. Yes, that’s right: zero.

Sound impossible? Well, thanks to the country’s toughest mandatory recycling and composting laws, the amount of refuse that San Francisco diverts to recycling and compost is nearing 80 percent, and keeps on climbing each year. (Read a Q&A with San Fran’s top recycling official to find out how the city makes it happen.)

The beginning

San Francisco’s zero-waste quest was touched off by AB 939, a 1989 law that required California towns to divert 50 percent of their trash away from landfills. Inspired, San Francisco decided it could do even better.

Recycling binsThroughout San Francisco, public bins offer options for trash, composting, and recycling.Photo: Christopher Porter”There was a perceived shortage of landfill space,” says the bill’s sponsor, former California Assemblyman Byron Sher. “San Francisco was a poster city for the problems. … [The city] had to transport its solid waste over the Altamont Pass at considerable expense to the city.”