Marin Women's Hall of Fame

        One of Gloria Duncan's proudest accomplishments was the well-earned but unusual title bestowed on her by Marin County as the "Garbage Queen."  She considered that role an even greater honor than a former role when, as a young woman, she appeared as one of the fashion models at the opening of San Francisco's I. Magnin department store in Union Square. 

         Hers was quite a journey; eventful as well as unexpected, but from runway to recycling, through it all, Gloria considered it a wonderful adventure.  She enjoyed each leap and step, and her enthusiasm, a marked characteristic which colored everything she participated in, swept her along and carried her into unimagined places.

        Ever driven by curiosity and a compulsion to learn, Gloria spent much of her life involved in a world of Marin politics where, as a leader, she forged a coalition of environmentalists, consumers, business communities and local governments.

         As a pioneer in the unique and burgeoning new field of recycling, Gloria focused primarily on the problem of litter control and waste management in her community. Otherwise known as.... garbage.

       But where would a burgeoning excitement for garbage begin?
For Gloria, it began early on.  As a child, each summer she vacationed with her family in their Carnelian Bay home at Lake Tahoe.  While there, one of the biggest treats her mother could give the young Gloria was a trip to the pig farm in the hills behind King's Beach.  "I don't know why," she admitted.  Hogs were moved up to the area each year by ranchers, specifically to a processing center for the garbage collected from Tahoe's north end.  Then, after the processing was completed, it was left for the hogs to forage through, to scavenge their way through the remains — while Gloria watched, fascinated by this practical and clever way of garbage disposal.

        As a further source of inspiration, Gloria would also recall, in another more distant memory, the sight and sound of the "rag man" in a "pre-recycling" era.   The ragman, who today could be considered an early recycler, followed a regular route that ran by her family home in the East Bay.  Driving a horse-drawn cart, he would periodically ride by and call out: "Rags, bottles, sacks,” offering seemingly worthless items for purchase by housewives.  Piquing Gloria's interest, the ragman sparked her imagination as she considered the contents of his cart, the junk lying within, what it was and where it would end up.

        Though she was driven by an enthusiastic curiosity, plus in incipient interest in garbage, as a teenager, Gloria's future plans veered in a different direction.  After graduation from Piedmont High School, the idea of college and the magnet of adventure sparked her interest in Stevens College where the curriculum included an Aviation Program.  At the time the United States was at war --- World War II — and the focus of the country lay in that direction.  As did Gloria's and she yearned to be a part of it.  Specifically she wanted to learn how to fly, and after that she wanted to join the Women's Air Force. 

         Since the potential job of a wartime aviator was a dangerous job — to ferry bombers to the fighting front --- her mother quickly nixed that idea.  Also, since the war was coming to an end and since recruitment for ferry pilots was diminishing, Gloria gave in and instead; she and a friend took a road trip across the country.  They ended up in New York where she stayed and pursued work as a fashion model. 

         After a year of the glamorous life and — "hard work in a big city" — she moved back to the Bay Area where, at nineteen years old,  she married and began a career at I. Magnin.  Working as a model in the custom salon, she was soon promoted to manager of the high fashion second floor, a position she held for thirteen years.

        Gloria's memory of a nearly unblemished Marin County during those post-war years would become one of the strong motivations for the unexpected career, which would eventually evolve for her.

        One of Gloria's first homes in Marin County was in Ross Valley, specifically in Greenbrae, above Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, where today the road leads to Marin General Hospital.  But there was no Marin General Hospital at the time, only a dirt road.  There was also no Marin Catholic High School where it stands today, but instead a marsh that lay wide and pristine, offering a natural habitat for birds and other wildlife — a startling expanse of nature, which lay practically in her back yard.

Until the developers came

        The developers bulldozed the surrounding hills in Larkspur to fill in the marsh, and then built a housing development and high school across the former wetland.  Having experienced that dramatic change almost in her own back yard — watching the mountains come down and the simultaneous destruction of the marsh  — Gloria became keenly aware of environmental concerns and of potential development that could happen so easily in Marin County.

       Gloria and her husband Bruce Duncan moved to Fairfax where they raised their two daughters, Lisa and Amy.  While her children were young, she became active in the community, starting with her involvement in the League of Women Voters.

        "It was a well of education," she said and, joining the organization was, for her, "an education in political activism."

       It was the League's purpose to keep voters well informed, and to this end not only local, but also state and national issues were studied by the members.  One of the issues being studied in the early ‘70s was the growing problem of how water and land resources were being handled.  That included waste management — or --- garbage disposal.  Naturally, with her interest that began as a child, this study perked Gloria's interest.  She quickly volunteered to serve on the League's study committee.

      "It was a vertical program," she explained, "the handling of which was studied from federal to state to local."

       Soon, Gloria became the League of Women Voters' expert on litter control and solid waste management.

        In 1971 Gloria was appointed to the Fairfax Planning Commission, which helped give her valuable experience in land use issues.  Loving the land, particularly the land of Marin County, and possessing the desire to keep it as clean and as natural as possible, Gloria rapidly developed into an environmentalist.

         A catalyst for this was a major high density development of the land around her home and creek in Fairfax.  While the bulldozers whined during the day, Gloria left her home each morning, not only to escape the noise and the dirt, but also to try to make a positive environmental impact on this county.  One of her first efforts in this new role was to fight against another proposed development.

Marincello

        Proposed as a new large community of 20,000 people, the plan was to build a new sprawling city on the magnificent Marin Headlands.  "The gates are still there," Gloria said, "near Tennessee Valley."  This new community would have draped buildings and roads across the ridges and valleys where the Golden Gate National Recreation Area now stands.  An on-ramp to Highway 101 was planned to be constructed near the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Gloria and other Marin environmentalists shuddered as they envisioned what a disaster it would be for 20,000 additional people in their cars to head toward San Francisco every morning.  The plan also called for an eight-land highway to curve across Bolinas Ridge, with high schools, shopping centers and other human habitation encroaching on the hills and valleys of West Marin.

        Gloria signed on immediately to stop the development.  But — surprisingly — many people in the County had different feelings about this potential disaster and were not immediately ready to sign the petition against it.  There was a reason.  People felt that the growth of Marin County was occurring in such a haphazard way that they felt that any plan was better than no plan.  Since the Marincello plan was the only piece of organized development they'd seen in Marin County thus far, they didn't look upon it as a completely negative one.

        But, despite a County reticence at the beginning, the development called Marincello was ultimately defeated.  Today the headlands are undeveloped, bare except for the remnants of bunkers and the gold and green mounds of hills that are the sweeping and dynamic introduction to the natural beauty of Marin County.

       Soon thereafter, the County, responding to a state mandate, developed a comprehensive County-wide plan.  With such a plan, areas for future development could be designated and areas for preservation could be withheld as open space and agricultural land.

        "We need eternal vigilance and eternal effort to keep Marin the way it is," Gloria said.

        Since Gloria was serving on the Fairfax Planning Commission, she was the Fairfax delegate to the City/County Planning Council.  This council was the entity which drew up the 20-year Marin County plan, a plan which addressed the same "hot issues" we face today: bay front preservation, providing wetlands for wildlife, open space, transportation, affordable housing, as well as the economic issues that go along with each problem.

        One of the problems that surfaced during discussion of the plan was what to do with Marin's growing amount of disposable garbage.  By the ‘80s the state had mandated that all cities and counties had to have solid waste management plans in place.  To reduce the amount of garbage, which was filling the ever-decreasing amount of available dumping area, recycling seemed the logical choice.

         At that time, the state had created a General Plan for land use.  Along with that General Plan, various appropriate elements were named.  One of the elements of the general plan was waste management, what to do with the garbage, and in particular, the need for a waste management plan for Marin County. 

        To help design and implement that plan a committee was formed — the Litter Control, Recycling and Resource Recovery Committee.  Gloria was appointed to that committee by the Marin County Board of Supervisors.

       "When I started out in garbage, it was a ‘man's world'," Gloria laughed, remembering.  "They didn't know what to do with me."

        But they soon found out, and they even appointed Gloria as Vice Chair, though she claimed it was because she missed the meeting (and never missed another one).  Along with the other appointees — Ted Wellman and Joe Garbarino (whom she called the "King of Trash" to go along with her title of  "Garbage Queen") she worked with the committee on environmental and recycling issues for the next ten years.

        One of the first lessons she and the committee learned was that environmental issues are also political issues.

        "To make a change," she said, "to make progress in any particular area, you're going to have to learn how to deal with it on a political level because all those decisions on those issues are also political decisions."

        So in order to make that significant change in Marin County's waste management system, the committee, led by Gloria, along with Ted Wellman, Joe Garbarino, traveled to Sacramento to procure financing for their new program for garbage disposal.  Armed with an idea for a curbside recycling program, these members of the Litter Control, Recycling and Resource Recovery Committee lobbied at the state capitol for funds for their curbside-recycling plan.  Since they knew from the beginning that there was funding available — under a state waste management bill --- they requested the amount of $500,000.  Their request was denied, but then they were asked to whittle down the amount.

        So next, they asked for $75,000 to begin a pilot project in Novato.  They were awarded the $75,000.  Then they realized they had to design their program…In detail.  They even had to design the curbside pickup trucks and the "source separators," the now-familiar plastic buckets that homeowners would place at the curb for papers, glass and cans to be separated and then recycled.

        "It was like tinker toys, starting out, "Gloria remembered, "it was so new."  The recycling program was declared a success and was expanded when state money was given for the whole program county-wide.  The committee was elated.

        Gloria remembered the first time she heard cans and bottles being dumped into a truck.  "It was music to my ears," she said.

        The committee had put into place a dramatic new program and one which would become state-of-the-art program and a model for other counties and states to emulate.

        "People come from all over the world to visit us."

From the initial pilot project of $75,000, the recycling program today is a million-dollar one. Sixty to seventy percent of Marin County trash goes to the Resource Recovery plant rather than to San Quentin landfill.  This is significant since Marin County generates enough waste to fill 3-Com Park twice in one year.

        But a continuing problem remains: what to do with secondary materials (the recycled waste).  Because of this problem, a whole new industry has begun: the distribution of trash.  Where to put it?

        Since many Pacific Rim nations have depleted their forests and no longer have enough wood products to harvest to make their own paper, they are currently the largest markets for American recycled goods.  We send much of our paper and cardboard to them but we need to find use for it here in the United States as well.  This disposal of waste has been mandated by the state via AB93: Recycle Reuse or Remove.  By 1995 25% of waste and by 2000, 50% of waste has gone places other than to landfill.

        Yet it will continue to be a battle, particularly with industry: how to dispose of their waste, especially the toxic waste.  AB93 consists of two parts: 1) toxic waste; and 2) household and industrial waste.  Gloria's work concentrated on the second part, the household and industrial waste.  She realized at a very early stage of her environmental and waste management work how complicated the whole issue could be, far beyond the simple way garbage handling used to be.

        "The only way we used to think of trash was to remember to put the trash out on Thursday night and the only trash problem was whether the garbage collector would spill the coffee grounds and wake up the neighbor's dog.  After Thursday night, it was out of sight, out of mind."

        Very much on her mind was always her community, and to this end, Gloria had a strong belief in public service.  Because of that belief, she served her community in countless ways ... beyond garbage.  She was a member of the Fairfax City Planning Commission for four years; then served on the Marin County Planning Commission for eight years.  Because of her credentials, her love of Marin County and especially because of her love for the California coast, she was appointed by then Governor Jerry Brown to represent the "North Central Coast" on the California Coastal Commission in 1977.

        She also sought public office.  She was elected to the Fairfax City Council and was Mayor of Fairfax in 1987.  Earlier election attempts included running for City Council and also once pitted Gloria against Barbara Boxer for a position on the Board of Supervisors.  She has also been a member of the Marin Community Foundation's Community Partnership Committee and the Marin County Economic Commission, the Bay Model Association Board and the Marin Conservation Corps Board, which helps young people to learn skills, gain credentials for their high school diploma and do environmental work in the community.  She even managed her daughter's softball team for nine years.

        Gloria was also a member of a citizen's committee, which advised the United States Bureau of Land Management on the use of federal lands along the coast from Marin County to the Oregon border.  Using her knowledge of hazardous wastes, she was also instrumental in banning the use of styrofoam products in Fairfax.

        As an active member of the community, serving the community, Gloria has been a shining example of volunteerism.  But one of her main concerns was the lack of volunteers to carry on the work.

        "There is an endangered species and that is the volunteer.  The demands on everyone's time, especially two-career families with children, are too high.  Programs which serve the community are suffering."  Recommended organizations like the Marin Conservation League and the Marin Environmental Forum are there for people to join and therefore participate in helping to forestall sprawling development and to preserve the natural beauty of Marin County. 

        Gloria felt that our community gives us a great deal, and that we should continually strive to improve it with our time and with our efforts.

        Even baking cookies for the elementary school bake sale, Gloria claimed, helps in its own way by giving back to the community in the effort and the rewards.

        Gloria's family was always supportive of her commitment to her work and to the environmental values for which she worked so hard.  Inspiring others began at home, and Gloria always understood the importance of example.
"What we do in Marin affects other counties," Gloria said, and what she did affected other people.