Municipal Curbside Compostables WHAT WORKS AND WHY? Collection MUNICIPAL CURBSIDE COMPOSTABLES COLLECTION What Works and Why? The Urban Sustainability Assessment (USA) Project: Identifying Effective Urban Sustainability Initiatives Department of Urban Studies and Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology Pl: Judith A. Layzer ([email protected]) Citation: Judith A. Layzer and Alexis Schulman. 2014. Primary Researcher: “Municipal Curbside Compostables Collection: What Works and Why?” Alexis Schulman Work product of the Urban Sustainability Assessment (USA) Project, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Team: Yael Borofsky COPYRIGHT © 2014. All rights reserved. Caroline Howe Aditya Nochur Keith Tanner Louise Yeung Design: Gigi McGee Design CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i INTRODUCTION 1 THE CASES 4 THE CONTEXT FOR CURBSIDE COMPOSTABLES COLLECTION 10 DESIGNING AN EFFECTIVE CURBSIDE COMPOSTABLES COLLECTION PROGRAM 22 GETTING STARTED 36 CONCLUSIONS 42 REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX A: THE BENEFITS OF COMPOSTING 49 APPENDIX B: CASE STUDIES 52 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are grateful to the Summit Foundation, Renee Dello, Senior Analyst, Solid Waste Sue Patrolia, Recycling Coordinator, Townships Washington, D.C. for generously funding this Management Services, City of Toronto. of Hamilton and Wenham. project. In addition, for their willingness to speak openly and repeatedly about composting Kevin Drew, Residential Zero Waste Charlotte Pitt, Recycling Program Manager, in their cities, towns, and counties, we would Coordinator, San Francisco Department of Solid Waste Management, Denver Department like to thank the following people: the Environment. of Public Works. Bob Barrows, Waste Policy Coordinator, Dean Elstad, Recycling Coordinator, Department Andy Schneider, Recycling Program Manager, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. of Public Works, City of Minnetonka. Solid Waste Management Division, City of Berkeley. Denise Bartlett, Manager, Organic Soil Ron Gonen, Deputy Sanitation Commissioner Solutions, Cedar Grove Composting Inc. for Recycling and Sustainability, New York City. Ray Scott, Administrator, Mountainside Disposal Inc. Sue Bast, Environmental Specialist, City of John Jaimez, Organics Recycling Program Man- Burnsville. ager, Hennepin County Environmental Services. Arianne Sperry, Solid Waste and Recycling Planner, City of Portland Bureau of Planning Julie Bryant, Zero Waste Coordinator, Dick Lilly, Business Area Manager for Waste and Sustainability. San Francisco Department of the Environment. Prevention & Product Stewardship, Seattle Public Utilities. Brett Stav, Senior Planning and Development Jeff Callahan, Zero Waste Program and Specialist, Seattle Public Utilities. Recycling Manager, County of Boulder Randi Mail, Recycling Manager, City of Resource Conservation Division. Cambridge Department of Public Works. Bruce Walker, Solid Waste & Recycling Manager, Portland Bureau of Planning and Gretel Clark, Hamilton Township resident Josh Marx, Program Manager, Recycling and Sustainability. and chairperson of the Hamilton Recycling Environmental Services, King County Solid Committee. Waste Division. Richard Conlin, President, Seattle City Council. Brian Mathews, Senior Program Manager, StopWaste, Alameda County. Carolyn Dann, Municipal Assistance and Regional Recycling Coordinator, Massachusetts Kara Mertz, Local Environmental Action Division Department of Environmental Protection. Manager, City of Boulder. i CC BY-SA 2.0 Image courtesy of John Markos O’Neill on Flickr INTRODUCTION This assessment analyzes local efforts to undertake curbside collection of compostables in the United States, with the goal of enabling more communities to undertake such programs.1 Composting has become a tool for municipalities to pursue a variety of environmental goals, from “zero waste” to greenhouse gas emissions reduction. In addition, composting can save cities money on tipping fees by diverting waste from landfills. And composting can enhance public health by return- ing vital nutrients to the soil, reducing groundwater contamination, and keeping pests out of landfills. (See Appendix A for a more extensive discussion of the benefits of composting.) As of 2013, only 183 U.S. communities in 18 states were collecting compostables at the curb, but many cities—including Washington, D.C. and Austin, Texas—were signaling interest in adding this service.[2,3,64] To help municipalities develop curbside compostables collection programs, this assessment describes the critical elements that enable the establishment of such programs, identifies aspects of program design that enhance implementation, characterizes the obstacles new programs face, and explains how different cities have overcome those barriers. Our analysis focuses on the most com- prehensive approach to composting, curbside collection, but also includes smaller-scale alternatives (or complements), such as the provision of drop-off sites and encouragement of backyard and community-based composting. Although we consider commercial and institutional composting, we emphasize residential programs and the residential components of more comprehensive programs. We base our conclusions on in-depth interviews with municipal officials, waste haulers, and nonprofits, as well as reviews of web-based information, prior studies, and published data. To assess program effectiveness, we rely on measures such as the amount of compostables collected by weight, in total and per capita; the rate of participation in the program; and the program’s contribution to a city’s overall waste diversion. Where data are available, we also consider customer approval ratings and feedback from program staff. 1. The term “composting” refers to the process—either anaerobic or aerobic—of breaking down organic waste into a usable by- product. We use the term “compost” to denote this byproduct and the inputs to the process— including yard waste, food scraps, and soiled paper—as “compostables” or “organics.” Occasionally, we refer to Source Separated Or- ganics (SSO), which are compostables that are separated by households, commercial entities, or institutions prior to arriving at a processing facility. (The alternative to source separation is mixed municipal solid waste composting, which involves separation of materials at the facility.) 1 In a nutshell, our analysis yields several important insights about formulating, designing, and implementing an effective curbside compostables collection program—that is, one that achieves high participation and diversion rates with low levels of contamination. n Effective curbside compostables collection programs tend to arise most readily in places where conditions are favorable in two respects. First, an ambitious waste diversion mandate at the state or county level and/or high or rising landfill costs create incentives for a municipality to divert its waste from landfills. And second, two factors enhance a municipality’s ability to respond to those incentives: (1) a nearby processing facility that can handle the city’s food waste and (2) preex- isting infrastructure for collecting and processing yard waste.Without a strong incentive to divert organic waste and the capacity to do so, it is more difficult to establish a program; that said, even communities with relatively inhospitable initial conditions are finding creative ways to institute curbside compostables collection. n In designing an effective curbside compostables collection program, municipalities must do two things. First, they must gain the cooperation of haulers, something that is easier for communities that directly provide collection service or contract with a single hauler. Gaining hauler cooperation involves recognizing that for haulers the efficiency of collection routes (maximizing the tonnage collected while minimizing distance traveled) is a paramount consideration. And second, municipalities must motivate waste generators to both participate at high rates and separate organic materials properly in order to minimize contamination. To these ends, municipalities can provide incentives that make it relatively cheap and convenient to separate organics, disseminate adequate and well-designed information that makes composting readily comprehensible, and—most effective of all—mandate participation. n Finally, in launching curbside compostables collection, municipalities with effective programs almost invariably begin with a pilot program that reveals which approaches are likely to work best in that particular place and demonstrates the program’s viability to local skeptics. Whenever possible, program officials have pursued state or county grants to launch their pilot program(s). And several effective programs have worked with local nonprofits to get composting off the ground and then to enhance participation and set-out rates through education and incentive campaigns. 2 Seattle, WA Hamilton and Wenham, MA King County, WA Hennepin County, MN Cambridge,MA Burnsville, MN Portland, OR Toronto, Ontario New York City Berkeley, CA San Francisco, CA Alameda County, CA Arvin, CA Denver, CO Boulder, CO 3 THE CASES We selected for in-depth study fourteen U.S. jurisdictions and one Canadian city with a range of experiences and chal- lenges in collecting food waste. In addition to nine large and medium-sized cities and three smaller cities/towns, we in- cluded three counties, in recognition that initiating composting programs at a county scale can provide financial, political, and logistical