Weekly garbage collection, supersaver rate, foodwaste collection
SchneiderAnn
I was waiting for Lori's reply but didn't see one so here is the history
on why garbage "wet waste" is required to be collected weekly. It is
based on the life cycle of the fly. As municipalities began dealing with
waste collection and the need to reduce disease and flies lay eggs and
produce the next generation in a week, so weekly collection for
putresible wastes were set into law.
Now as communities are moving to separate food waste collection systems
that leave the remaining waste "dry" the need for weekly collection is
reduced. BUT, foodwaste collection like San Francisco is doing would
have to be weekly.
So if Mtn. View were to add food waste to the yardwaste collection cart,
then it would have to be collected weekly as San Francisco does.
Foothill Disposal is a subsidiary of NorCal now called Recology and they
run the San Francisco garbage and recycling collection contracts. Since
I am not sure when the contract expires, at minimum residents could ask
the Council and staff to ask Foothill why we can't get the same services.
I recall that the Mtn View did give Foothill, the state law required five
year notice, that Mtn. View was considering going out to bid for the next
garbage/recycling contract but I can't remember when that happened,
several years ago though. This means that the timing for developing
services for the bid language and contracts could be happening now. I
hope that Mtn. View makes this a public input process.
Back in the late 1980s when Mtn. View started its curbside collection of
recyclables with burlap bags, they considered a supersaver "super
recycler" container. It would have been much less than the smallest cart
(the current 32 gallon cart with a 20 gallon insert). But Mtn. View
dropped that idea as they converted to the automated collection system.
I would have to do some research to find out how super-recycler
containers could work in an automated collection system. It might be
that it does move to bi-weekly collection but residents would then be
dealing with potentially smelly carts.
Hope this provides background.
Ann Schneider
____________________________________________________________
All is not lost! Click now for professional data recovery.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTLygHfg2jUKH4xSjnHR1s2UcQ6do6Y1BUvYGogLEj9wO5iunPEmpK/
Topley, Lori
To be more specific about Foothill's contract. In 2003, the Council
exercised their option to extend the contract for another 10 years. At
that time, they did notify that MV would consider going out to bid for
next contract. We will be bringing this up to Council in FY 09-10,
maybe during preparation of the Zero Waste Plan. If the direction is to
proceed out to bid, then that process would begin late 2010 and would
include some kind of public input process. However, we will learn a
great deal about what we want in the future through the ZW Plan public
process.
The reason we are not getting the same services as San Francisco is
location of available processing facilities, which translates into cost.
SF's food waste primarily goes to a facility in Vacaville. That is not
going to work for MV. The facilities in Santa Clara County are
impacted. The Vacaville facility is close to, or has just gotten, the
permits needed for expansion. This might free up a little capacity at
Recology's other facility in Gilroy. We have had and will continue to
have discussions with both Recology and Greenwaste (our pilot provider).
San Jose's announcement of a new organics biogas facility will help
expand processing capacity in Santa Clara County as well.
Lori
Bruce England
I'm wondering if we at Green Mountain View ought to consider creating
a "zero waste plan" project. I can bring it up as something to
discuss at our next meeting (early July), as our taking this up might
be useful toward continuing work done by the task force waste working
group as appropriate.
Any thoughts or comments regarding our doing this, folks?
Bye for now!
Bruce