Seniors Hear About Organics Recycling

FINAL PUBLIC MEETING ON ORGANICS RECYCLING
This morning Scott Carroll, General Manager of the Costa Mesa Sanitary District, and Mike Silva from CR&R Environmental Services presented the final public outreach workshop to a very small group of seniors at the Costa Mesa Senior Center.  Fewer than a dozen of us geezers showed up to hear their presentations, but we all stayed awake and asked good questions.  Each of the other four recent meetings played to packed houses - in a couple cases standing-room-only - so this turnout was not unexpected.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW...
Although I've attended the earlier version of this presentation several times, this is the first time for me to hear the current pitch, with the current numbers.  I'm not going to bore you with all that stuff - you can visit the CMSD website, HERE, which has ALL the information you'll need to know about this change in how our residential waste will be handled.   There's a link on the website to an excellent video presentation from the Town Hall held on June 2nd, too.

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NEW SORTING REQUIRED
In a nutshell, instead of just dumping all our household waste - trash, green waste, recyclables, etc. - into a single cart each week as we do now, once the new carts are delivered over the next few weeks we will be required to sort our waste.  Green waste and food scraps will go into the new cart - the one with the light green lid - and everything else will go in the old one.  As Silva said in response to one of the questions today, "Don't overthink it."

SAVING LANDFILLS FOR TWO BUCKS A MONTH
This new process - the CMSD is the first company to sign up with it and, as a result, will ALWAYS have the lowest rate for this process - will end up costing each ratepayer about $1.72 per month.  That charge will be assessed on your property tax bill.  The new facility in Perris will eventually end up costing around $100 million when fully built-out.  The initial phase, which will be processing our waste, will cost around $30 million, part of which will be offset by grants received.  The objective is to reduce the stuff being taken to landfills.  We are running out of landfill space.  Presently Costa Mesa diverts over 50% of it's trash from landfills.  The goal of this process is to divert AT LEAST 75% once it's implemented.

SOME INTERESTING INFO

I've provided some slides from the presentation.  These and others are shown in the video presentation.  If you're really interested, take a few minutes to watch it.  The direct link to it is HERE.   

(click on the images for easier viewing)

The Team

 The Goal

 The Incentives

GOT MY FOOD SCRAP BUCKET...
On the way home I stopped at the CMSD offices at 628 West 19th Street - kind of just across the street from the Senior Center - and picked up my brand new counter top, dishwasher-friendly food scrap bucket.  If you choose to use one of them, the CMSD has them for free.  Or, you can just wrap your potato peelings, steak bones and other food waste in newspaper and toss it into your Organics cart. 

...AND BAGS TO LINE IT
Then I stopped at Mother's Market at the corner of 19th Street and Newport Boulevard and got a box of COMPOSTABLE bags to line the bucket.  Similar products are marked "biodegradable", but should NOT be used in this process.  You can use newspaper if you wish, but I wanted to be sure Mother's actually had this product on hand since the CMSD information lists it as a supplier.  I chatted with the managers and told them to stock-up!  This box of 25 cost $5.00.  I showed the gift card, since that might be a nice gift for your friends... give them a $5.00 gift card and they can buy a box of bags.

 

 NO "TRASH POLICE"
And, per the conversation today, if you choose NOT to put your food scraps into the new Organics Recycling cart, it's OK.  There will NOT be trash police patrolling the streets, inspecting your trash.  Here's a nifty chart from the CMSD website that shows what kind of waste should go into which cart.

(click on the image to enlarge)

TWICE AS MANY TRUCKS
What WILL be happening, though, is that we'll have twice as many trash truck trips through our neighborhoods.  One truck will pick up your trash, while another will pick up only the Organics.  If you're only using one can each week now, soon you'll be using two.  The schedule for distribution of the new carts is shown on this nifty chart, HERE.  It's a PDF file and looks like this, but much bigger.

THE PROCESS BEGINS NEXT WEEK
So, neighbors, the distribution of the new carts begins next week through August 14th and the collection of trash using them will follow the next week after distribution.  If you need another Organics cart, just call the CR&R at 949-646-4617.

Another Good Turnout For Organics Recycling Town Hall

MORE RESIDENTS TURN OUT
Wednesday night the Costa Mesa Sanitary District hosted yet another - the third - town hall for residents to learn about, and ask questions about, the proposed Organics Recycling program.

UPDATED PRESENTATIONS
Approximately 30 residents attended the event at the Halecrest Community Center.  Sanitary District General Manager Scott Carroll and CR&R Environmental Services Project Manager Mike Silva again made presentations explaining the new program, both of which had been updated with information in response to questions asked in the earlier two meetings and the most recent Sanitary District Board meeting last month.  You can view the slide show of Carroll's presentation HERE, Silva's HERE and view a video recorded by Barry Friedland for his Costa Mesa Brief YouTube channel of the second town hall HERE.

SPEAKERS INVOLVED
Nearly a dozen of the attendees stood to ask questions and/or to make observations.  There were many new faces in this audience.  I estimate that between the three town halls and the Sanitary District meeting last month, nearly 200 residents have attended these briefings, with one more to go on Saturday.

THE FUTURE IS HERE
Once again Silva did a good job of describing the technology to be employed in this new process, and the reason why it was necessary.  In a nutshell, new laws require municipalities to divert at least 75% of its waste from landfills by 2020.  The CMSD currently diverts 57%.  The new process, if followed by most ratepayers, could result in 75% diversion by 2015 and 90% by 2020.  CR&R is building a $20 million facility in Perris, CA to handle this new process, which will produce fertilizer and clean natural gas as byproducts.

COSTS AND HANDLING
Carroll explained the collection process and the finances of this new system.  He discussed the possiblity of using $4 million in solid waste reserves to cover the increased costs for the next several years, and also alternatively use an incremental increase over a period of time.  He also discussed the practicalities of the change and his location of biodegradable bags.

FIRST, WITH GUARANTEED LOWEST RATES
CR&R wants the CMSD to be among the first to use this new process and has guaranteed us the lowest rates for using it, even if they negotiate lower rates elsewhere later.  If the Sanitary District Board approves this change at their meeting on February 25th the new process - and new carts to be used - would not take place until a year from now at the earliest.

 ONE PROBLEM SOLVED
One of the main concerns many residents had at previous meetings was how to manage the table scraps - the food waste we all now either just run through our garbage disposals and down the drain or throw in our trash cans.  Under the new proposal green waste - grass, tree clippings, etc., would be mixed with food waste in an "Organics" cart.  All other trash would go in our old familiar trash carts.  It is proposed that a small tub be used in the kitchen to collect the food waste, which would then be emptied into the Organics cart.  The CMSD management has identified compostable plastic bags that fit in the kitchen-top tubs that could be used to transport that waste to the cart.  That seems to solve one of the main concerns.  A simple Google search identified several sources, including Amazon.com and Target Stores.

NEXT STEPS...
The following image shows the time, date and place of the next town hall - on Saturday - and the next Sanitary District Board meeting on the 25th.  I expect the Board to approve this new process and will probably decide to spread the cost of the new program out incrementally each year by raising the current rates approximately $1.95 per household per month.  If that's the case, the rates will reach the level they were at two years ago by 2020.  The Sanitary District has reduced rates twice in the past two years.

SOUNDS GOOD TO ME
I'm in favor of this change.  It will take a little getting used to and will likely not end up being very inconvenient for most ratepayers.  In cases where space for an additional cart is a problem the CMSD staff will review those on a case-by-case basis.

ONE MORE TIME...
See you Saturday at the Back Bay High School at 9:00 a.m..

Second "Organics Recycling" Workshop Plays To Packed House

REACHING OUT...
The Costa Mesa Sanitary District held the second of what now may turn out to be a series of workshops for ratepayers on the proposal being considered by the Board of Directors to make a change in the way we - and their hauler, CR&R Environmental Services - handle our waste.

SRO
As was the case with the first one, which I reported HERE, there was a good turnout of interested folks.  In fact, as you can see from the accompanying photos, it was standing room only at the Neighborhood Community Center Saturday morning.

CR&R WENT FIRST
This time around Scott Carroll, General Manager of the Sanitary District, flipped the agenda.  After an introduction, Mike Silva from CR&R Environmental Services spoke first, providing a detailed overview of the process being proposed.  That slide show can be viewed HERE.

THEN CMSD PERSPECTIVE NEXT
Then Carroll took over and gave the Sanitary District perspective, including how we might be required/requested to change the way we handle our household waste.  He also addressed the costs associated with this change, projected at $1.81 per household per month.  The overall cost mentioned to the Sanitary District slightly exceeded $500,000 per year.  You can view the slide show he used HERE.  This time around all questions were held to the end, which made for much more understandable presentations and better questions.

WHAT IT MEANS
In a nutshell, instead of simply dumping all our household waste - green waste, recyclables, food waste and just plain old trash - into the same container (carts), we would be asked to place the green waste and other "organics", like food waste, grease, certain plastics, etc., into a specific cart and everything else in one of those we presently use.  Each household would be permitted to have two each without additional charge.

WHY?
This all comes about because of legislation that requires greater diversion of our trash from landfills - we're just flat running out of space.  It seems not so much of IF we have to make this kind of change, but WHEN.  Silva told us they've asked the CMSD to be the first to use their new Anaerobic Digestion System, located in Perris, California, and that we would be guaranteed the lowest rate of any city participating as this process signs up more municipalities.  It will add, under the current proposal, roughly $20.00 per ton to the cost of processing the "organic" waste.  Organic waste represents approximately one third of the total waste, so the increase does not go up for the other waste materials.

MORE MEETINGS?  MAYBE...
Carroll, impressed with the second large turnout, indicated that there may be more such meetings to further take the pulse of the community on this issue.  The Board is scheduled to meet on January 23rd to discuss this issue, but he implied that they may not vote on it until more meetings are held.  He also indicated that the meeting in two weeks MIGHT take place at the Neighborhood Community Center instead in the cramped facilities at CMSD Headquarters on 19th Street.

MANY SPEAKERS, GOOD QUESTIONS
More than thirty speakers stepped to the microphone and asked questions important to them and others in the audience of approximately 75 people.  They included concerns about how we physically handle the food waste, how already crowded streets near multi-family units will manage more cans on trash day, increasing the number of trucks on the streets, etc.  I'm not going to list them all.  Scott Poetter, field representative for lame-duck Assemblyman Allan Mansoor, stepped to the microphone to ask politically-charged, snarky questions of Carroll about Newport Beach rates and other irrelevancies.

VIDEO COVERAGE, TOO
Barry Friedland, who provides Costa Mesa-oriented video clips on his Costa Mesa Brief YouTube channel, HERE, was there to tape the meeting.  I presume, although I'm not sure, that it will be available for viewing at that site within a week.

NOW WAITING FOR THE BOARD
I guess now we just have to wait to see if more of these meetings will be scheduled, and when.  And, of course, we'll look forward to any word from the Board about their decision on this efficient, but costly, change.