1. Establishes workplace safety and living wage requirements for employees at City-certified waste processing facilities;
2. Requires trash haulers to meet the City’s diversion goals; and
3. Removes any requirement for source-separated collection

Under previous proposals, residents and businesses would have to separate recyclables from other waste, but all waste would go to a city-certifies sorting facility, creating an extra layer of inconvenience and route-duplication for collection.

But under the plan going to City Council this week, if a trash hauler wants to have a single-waste stream and can meet the City’s diversion goals, they are free to do so.  If that’s the case, then we’d call it a winner.

I agree with the statement released earlier this year by the chief executive of the Central City Association that the proposed franchise plan will “increase the cost for every business, every commercial property owner and thousands of apartment tenants.”

I support maintaining the current system in which haulers (both large companies and small businesses) must get a permit from the city, but then can contract with customers with no restrictions. All trucks must be compliant with existing state and local environmental regulations. This kind of competition is by far the best option for the city’s residents.

We respectfully disagree that the status quo is the best route for the City is the status quo.  In order to best protect the environment and solid waste workers–and balance the city budget–a non-exclusive franchise like the one proposed by the City Administrative Officer in August, with a single waste stream, is the best way to guarantee increased diversion, a safe workplace and a living wage for solid waste workers.

A retooled, non-exclusive franchise system could achieve the same recycling goals, protect small businesses and generate up to $30 million for the cash-strapped city as early as next year. Granting exclusive franchises and making them operational would take several years, he said, meaning the city would not see new revenue until 2016.

What’s missing from Santana’s report, however, is how to achieve recycling goals under a source-separated system.  Currently only 2.5% of multifamily waste is recycled and expanding the program to all apartments will only increase that number by 0.3%

The proposal going before the City Council is part of an extension of the City’s franchise agreement with its trash hauler.  In exchange for the extension, they will will not only send all apartment and condo trash to a MRF, but it will provide additional ancillary services to the City--at no cost to renters, landlords or HOAs.

By going from two pickups per week (one for recyclables; one for “trash”) to one, our trash company expects to significantly increase the diversion rate in the City. By eliminating the route duplication caused by separate pickups, they expect to be removing one trash truck’s worth of trips from the City streets per day–that means less greenhouse emissions, less traffic and less wear and tear on City streets.

This netroots community, Recycle Everything, was born out of the City of West Hollywood and the fact that the City’s apartment dwellers send tons upon tons of recyclable materials to the landfill every year.

Just a year later, this goal may be accomplished–but there is still work to be done until all trash in Southern California gets processed before going to a landfill!

For starters, the City pays $1108 per ton of recyclables it collects from source-separated recycling at apartments and condominiums.

Each apartment and condo served by the program separates only one pound per week of recyclables from their trash.

Mandating source-separated recycling for all multifamily housing, as proposed by the Board of Public Works, only contributes 0.1% to the City’s diversion rate–a rounding error.

On the other hand, the $12 million spent on blue-bin programs for apartments and condos could send about 400,000 tons of solid waste to a materials recovery facility, which with a conservative 30% diversion rate would divert 120,000 tons per year from landfills–more than ten times more than are diverted by LA Recycles!

This kind of “trashy math” is why we came up with the “Recycle Everything” model–it’s cheaper and more effective than the blue bins…

1. San Jose adopted a non-exclusive franchise model in 1995–allowing for consolidation of seventeen years before moving to an exclusive franchise.
2. San Jose’s innovation came in setting variable franchise fees with a higher fee for landfilled waste and a much lower fee for recycled materials.
3. San Jose’s winning franchise adopted a model where ALL waste is processed for recycling, whereas Los Angeles is proposing a mandate for source-separated recycling.

In essence the Board of Public Works report is like buying an iMac, loading Bootcamp, then only running Windows ME on the computer.  It has many structural similarities to the San Jose model, but lacks the innovation and environmental benefits of the San Jose system.

Recycle Everything was represented among the eight hours of public testimony. Here is what we had to say…

Good morning, my name is Scott Schmidt. Last year, I created Recycle Everything, a netroots community committed to sending as much solid waste as possible to recycling centers for processing and diversion.

In July, I participated in the Environmental Community Stakeholder meetings, and am surprised at the staff recommendation to mandate source-separated recycling in Los Angeles’ businesses and apartments. The recommendation was not supported by comments in the stakeholder meetings, is not supported by statistics on recycling efficacy and runs contrary to State recycling mandates, goals outlined in staff’s own report.

The Staff report asserts that, “businesses within the City have demonstrated a relatively high recycling rate with voluntary programs.” Your consultant’s report suggests otherwise. In 2010, less than 20 percent of commercial waste was diverted from landfills—and of those 383,177 tons diverted, a mere 1,572 tons were recycled by source separation. Commingled recyclables—sent to materials recovery facilities for processing—accounted for 29 times more diversion than source separation.

The shortcomings of source separation are borne out across the Country. At San Francisco Airport, source separation accounts for one fifth of the waste-stream, while more than half of the Airport’s solid waste is diverted by sending the solid waste to a materials recovery facility.

Alhough source separation can reduce contamination of recyclables with diligent, informed, motivated and meticulous participants, in reality, it is not a route to zero-waste.

The State’s new recycling mandate, AB 341, allows for both source-separated and commingled “recycling services.” In practice, source-separation requires a new infrastructure in multifamily housing and commercial businesses, from additional bins taking up existing parking spaces to the need to install additional trash chutes for each new waste stream. Some building owners may prefer a commingled recycling system to maximize convenience for their tenants.

An additional waste stream, required by source separation, required additional truck trips, along with the health and environmental impacts those come with. If the Board is concerned about reducing route duplication, you will mandate a commingled recycling system—and forbid source separation.

At a minimum, Los Angeles should establish numerical diversion goals, like San Jose and other cities, and allow building owners, their tenants and the haulers to figure out how they can best meet those targets.

Thank you for your consideration.

How Los Angeles gets to its recycling goals is up to debate. While we’d like for the City to mandate that all solid waste be sent to recycling centers and sorted before it goes to a landfill, as a practical matter, Recycle Everything is asking the City to adopt a numerical target to require trash haulers to recycle a certain percentage of their waste stream–or be liable to pay the City when they don’t meet the goals.

Recycling creates twice as many jobs as landfilling, and it’s good for the environment to boot. In order to see these gains in jobs and recycling immediately, we’re asking the city to adopt a voluntary franchise model so the recycling can begin in 2012–not five or more years from now.

If you agree, please sign our petition and ask the City of L.A. to recycle (almost) everything!

LINK

One statistic jumps out immediately: Only 0.1% of the City’s commercial waste is diverted from landfills by source-separated recycling.

Another 2.9% is diverted as commingled recyclables, using the Recycle Everything model.

With fully 80% of commercial waste going to landfills, the least we can say is that there is room for improvement!

Targeting a materials recovery facility, Teamsters marched Thursday to expose working conditions at the recycling center. Their solution? A source-separated, exclusive trash franchise.

Unfortunately, traditional source-separation sends tons of recyclable materials to landfills and means more trash trucks on the road. While that may be good for the Teamsters, it’s bad for the environment.