Recycling Gets Serious

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Residents and businesses that routinely toss the wrong kind of garbage into their green waste and recycle bins may now be fined for their negligence, one of several trash disposal changes the City Council considered last week.

Waste Management, the city’s garbage collector, prefers to first try to change behavior through education, said Elmer Heap, the company’s public sector manager. Even so, a revised contract will allow the company to charge penalties of $25 and $50 an incident for residents and businesses, respectively, should customers continue to contaminate bins after being informed of proper recycling practices.

In addition to the contamination penalty, the Council approved contract revisions to allow residents to schedule an extra midweek trash pick-up for a $35 fee and to adopt and broaden a trial commercial food-waste recycling program. They also endorsed revising a city ordinance to increase security deposits for construction and demolition recycling permits.

Waste Management officials took the opportunity to outline a previously negotiated upcoming hike in commercial rates, and to address Laguna’s compliance with a state law that requires diverting 75 percent of solid wastes from landfills by 2020. The latter requires most businesses and public entities to recycle.

In January 2014, 40 of Laguna’s 185 affected businesses weren’t complying with the recycling mandate, nor were five of 41 multi-family complexes. Now, all are recycling in the wake of outreach by Waste Management’s team. Heap said few cities can boast 100 percent compliance.

Heap also described the success of a pilot food-waste recycling program started in October 2013 with about 10 local businesses. Now, 39 restaurants seal food waste in bright yellow, leak-free bags placed in recycle bins.

If the city made the program permanent, they could boost participation to 66 businesses and eventually to 140, giving Laguna a jump on another state law requiring cities to recycle all organic materials by April 2016, said Heap. The Council agreed.

Waste Management proposes a one-time rate increase for commercial customers to fund the program and they will submit contract revisions for consideration next month.

This would be in addition to the increase taking effect July 1, based on adjustments to the consumer price index and rising landfill costs, that will bump commercial rates up between 1.5 and 2.55 percent, depending on bin size and pickup frequency.

The city’s current law to encourage recycling by contractors, which imposes a security deposit of $20 per ton of waste, falls short of its goal since most opt to forfeit the deposit rather than show proof of recycling, the staff report says. As a remedy, the Council approved changing the law to charge by project type rather than tons of waste and to raise the rates as follows: $1,000 for demolitions and new construction, $500 for remodels and renovations, $750 for additions to existing structures, and $250 for re-roofs that require tear off.

Waste Management aims to get the city to 50 percent recycling “as soon as possible,” said Heap. Currently, construction and demolition projects divert about 75 percent of their waste, residents about 50 percent and businesses are in the mid-20 percent range, which puts Laguna at an overall diversion rate of 40 percent, according to Heap, who said that improving business recycling is the key to achieving 50 percent.

Council member Toni Iseman suggested Waste Management survey businesses to learn how they can improve participation rates. While the company has addressed a number of issues, such as space constraints, staff awareness needs improvement, said Kevin Feeney, the recycling coordinator.

Iseman proposed holding a workshop on recycling for local businesses. “It can’t hurt,” said Feeney, who liked the idea of reaching a number of businesses in one place, rather than going out to each one.

 

 

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