1999 Trash Cutter Awards Program Case Studies

City of Berkeley: Best Organics Management Program

• Program Description
• Program Summary
• Costs
• Benefits
• Contact

Program Description

The City of Berkeley has a multifaceted program, including green waste collection, green waste and wood diversion a the transfer station, and a food scraps collection project. The city, in cooperation with commercial businesses, helps to divert 8,000 tons of organic waste per year from the landfill from all its organics programs.

Program Summary

The City of Berkeley (population 105,000) operates a municipal refuse collection service for the residential and commercial sectors. City collection is required for putrescible materials. Other companies may collect dry refuse. The 1995 refuse analysis showed 25 percent of the refuse the cty collects from the commercial sector is food scraps. In 1997, the city began a pilot program to collect separated food scraps from businesses.

This effective, low-cost pilot program collects food scraps from 18 businesses ranging in size from a locally owned supermarket to coffee shops, bakeries and diners. Generators may include any food scraps except meat, and may include flowers and waxed cardboard boxes. Pyramid Brewery also diverts the diatomacious earth from their filters. The businesses have been willing to separate their organics from other garbage. Sixty tons per month are diverted from these few businesses. This program uses standard technology and can easily be duplicated by other cities.

Food scraps are collected on the plant debris routes, in rear loader trucks, and by city crews. The city supplies customers with rear-loading one or 1.5 yard bins, and with 32-, 64- or 96-gallon carts according to the needs of the business. The carts are lined with biodegradable compostable plastic bags, also supplied by the city. Customers collect the food scraps at all generation points, such as receiving, food preparation and cleanup. City crews do the collection. The recycling program manager field representative and recycling operations supervisor do the outreach, education, and monitoring. The food scraps are combined with plant debris at the city's transfer station. Gilton Resource Recovery picks up the organic material in long-haul trailers and takes it to their plant in Modesto where it is made into compost.

The city obtained a list of all food generating businesses (using appropriate SIC codes) and targeted the largest ones for participation in this program. In addition, the city targets food-generating businesses in close proximity to each other to add efficiency to the program. The city promotes its plant debris collection and drop-off program with a brochure, articles, plant debris magnets, and yellow page ads.

One barrier to success of the food waste program was that the containers would get extremely dirty each day because only food was going into them. To solve this problem, the city purchased organic biodegradable bags to use as liners for the containers and to give to the merchants to use for their food waste. Another problem was the weight of the containers. A 2-yard container full of food was too heavy for a rear loader truck. The city resolved this problem by reducing the size of containers to 1.5 yards and purchasing a front loader truck with a grant from the Alameda County Waste Management Authority.

Costs

All of the programs are funded from the refuse fees collected from residents and businesses. There are no separate fees for any of the organics programs except for drop-off of clean organics at the transfer station which has a 30 percent reduced rate.

Customers are now charged the same amount for separated refuse and food scraps collection as they would be for the same level of garbage service. Disposal for compost costs the city $26/ton, compared to the tipping fee and transportation costs to landfill of $40/ton. The city is investigating charging a lower incentive fee for collection of separated food scraps.

Benefits

The city diverts approximately 8,000 tons of organic waste per year from the landfill from all of its organics programs. The cost per ton is approximately $80, lower than most other types of recycling programs. Most businesses participating in the food scraps program also recycle cardboard, brown bags, mixed paper, bottles, cans, and plastic bottles with the city's commercial recycling service.

Since the beginning of the program, 1,530 residents have indicated that they were already composting or were motivated to begin. Applying the estimate of 1,152 pounds of diverted yard waste per household to this number of potentially active compostors indicates that as much as 884 tons of yard waste has been diverted since 1993.  Although this is only an estimate, it does serve as an interesting indication of the impact home composting can have on reducing waste. Of course, it stands to reason that many more than the 1,530 compostors represented here are active and the real diversion is probably much greater.

City crews collect plant debris once a month (shifting to biweekly in spring of 2000) from all residents using 96-gallon carts supplied by the city. The city also works with food processors to help divert large amounts of their organic residues. Two breweries sell spent grains and hops as animal feed. Two wineries bring their grape pumice to the transfer station and add it to the compost pile. The city's transfer station charges 30 percent less than refuse rates for clean loads of compostable plant debris and wood brought by the public. 

In the 1998 annual bulky cleanup, residents were asked to separate plant debris and unpainted wood from their other trash. In the first two cleanups, 295 tons of trash and 55 tons of separated compostables were collected, reducing the landfilled amount by 16 percent. To further encourage separation, each household also received a coupon for tipping one free load (up to four yards) of compostables at the transfer station.

In 1995, the city started a fire fuel collection program wherein as much plant debris as a household generated was collected from a high fire danger area twice in a summer by the Parks Department. Prior to 1997, the Parks Department collected the material in green plastic garbage bags which were a contaminant forcing all this material to be landfilled. In 1998, the recycling office worked with the Parks Department to encourage them to purchase biodegradable bags which are given to residents in the area for this material. Since then, an additional 500 tons per year is recycled from this program.

The city was also one of the earliest promoters of backyard composting. Fifteen percent of Berkeley households have purchased backyard composting bins through the city and now the ACWMA subsidizes bin programs, giving the city one of the highest rates of backyard composting in the country.

For Further Information Contact:

City of Berkeley
1201 Second Street
Berkeley, CA  94710
(510) 644-8891 ext. 224

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