Report by David Von Seggern 5-20-10

Notes on Conservation Meeting (Great Basin Group, Sierra Club) 5/19/2010

Justin Caporusso, Greg Martinelli, and John ? of Waste Management, Inc. attended our meeting to fill us in on the status of “single-stream recycling” (aka, “comingled recycling”) in the Truckee Meadows. 

Each local government (Reno, Sparks, and Washoe Co.) has a separate contract with WMI, but WMI more or less treats it as one in its operations.  Under this contract, WMI has sole authority to collect “putrescible” garbage in these areas.  This is more commonly termed wet and dry organic garbage.   Currently, residential customers pay $1.25/month for curbside recycling pickups but are under no obligation to sort and put out recyclables.  This has been the rate since 1991 when the Nevada legislature passed a law mandating recycling in the two large metropolitan areas.  WMI says curbside recycling runs at a net loss of over $700K per year but that it is subsidized by other facets of their business.  WMI cannot raise the rate -- only the governing bodies can.

WMI recently ran a sizable pilot program for single-stream recycling.  In this program, residents had only one recycle container and used that for all recyclable material.  WMI found that participation increased by a factor of 3 and that volume of recyclables increased by a factor of 3.  It was a success by any measure.  But there is now no clear path for implementation of this program to the entire population, and it depends on the governing bodies taking action.  WMI estimates that an increase of roughly $3/month in fees is needed to support the single-stream recycling mode.  WMI wants to have it fully implemented and believes that higher recyclable recovery rates can only be met by doing that.  Also, WMI supports this from company policy perspective.

There was some discussion of MRF’s (materials recycling facility) -- dirty and clean.  WMI feels that we should first adopt the single-stream recycling approach and continue to look at the technologies for MRF’s.  Dirty MRF’s could take the entire waste stream altogether and separate out the recyclables, but they are labor intensive now.  There is also evidence that dirty MRF’s don’t recover as large a volume of recyclables as “single-stream” recycling. 

WMI would also like to see some legislative action to require apartment complexes to provide recycling containers.  Only a very few now do. 

WMI would also like to see a “green waste” pickup program for yard waste.  This could potentially mitigate a lot of the “desert dumping” we see on the fringes of the urban area.

WMI said that the Washoe Co. Health Board, which oversees their work, will soon mandate a 35% recovery rate.  This is not a big increase over the current 30% that is being realized.  This percentage is the amount of recyclables recovered versus the amount of regular trash.  California now has a 50% mandate, and San Francisco has declared it wishes to get to 90%.

There was discussion on how the SC can pursue this locally.  Certain city council members and county commissioners have been supportive, but it is not at the top of their radar.  Groups such as the SC need to approach our elected officials on this.