Grand jury recycles blue bag controversy
Again, recommendation is to drop them
A Placer County grand jury report is putting renewed pressure on participating communities, including Auburn, to toss out programs that now see residents bagging recyclables. The jury is asking for a second straight year that Auburn, Lincoln, Loomis and Placer County eliminate their so-called Blue Bag programs. The report says the Material Recovery Facility that takes the bags as well as unprocessed trash is efficient enough to pull recyclables from the waste stream and blue bag benefits are marginal. But Auburn’s representative on the county’s Local Solid Waste Task Force said he’ll continue to advocate keeping the bag program. Auburn City Councilman Bill Kirby said he’d like to see local communities consider expanding recycling efforts to possibly include household food materials. He added that the blue bag program helps foster home efforts to keep materials out of the waste stream. The grand jury report follows tours of the Western Placer Waste Management Authority Material Recovery Facility in Roseville, research into recycling rates and discussions with waste authorities. It concluded in a report released last month that there is “no evidence the time, effort or money spent on the Blue Bag Programs by residents contributed anything significant toward achieving the recycling goals of the jurisdictions.” But Kirby said that he and other City Council members voted unanimously when the issue was first broached a year ago to keep the program because it’s an important gesture that keeps recycling in people’s minds. “The bottom line is we understand blue bags are probably not the most efficient way to do things,” Kirby said. But the popular program – 67,000 blue bags were turned in by Auburnites in 2007 – is worth it in terms of encouraging waste reduction behavior patterns, he said. Extrapolating the use of 52 blue bags a year for weekly pickups, Auburn – with a population of about 12,000 – would have about 1,300 households taking part. Lincoln is also resisting the grand jury recommendations. Like Auburnites, Lincoln residents are provided with free bags. The city pays $26,000 per year for the bags, which are picked up at city hall. In Auburn, the bags are delivered upon request. The grand jury points out that blue bags comprise a “very small percentage” of the total volume of processed refuse at the Roseville area Material Recovery Facility on Fiddyment Road. The facility is operated under contract by Nortech Waste Inc. and under the authority of the Western Placer Waste Management Authority. The authority is a joint-powers authority that includes representation from participating cities and Placer County, which own the adjoining regional landfill. Jim Durfee, Western Placer Waste Management Authority executive director, said he didn’t see the issues changing much from last year’s grand jury report, when his board chose to make no response to the recommendation. Instead, the authority remains supportive as long as those agencies elect to continue their involvement in the program. “Although the blue bags themselves (not the contents) are not currently marketable as a recyclable commodity and are landfilled, a majority of the contents within the bag are successfully recovered,” Durfee told the jury last year in an official response. “Although they represent only a small fraction of the overall waste processed at the MRF, due to the relatively high recovery rate achieved from the blue-bagged materials, the program serves to marginally decrease waste.” The grand jury gives jurisdictions 60 days to respond to its recommendations. The Journal’s Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com.
Keywords
Placer County grand jury report, Auburn, Lincoln, Loomis, Placer County, Blue Bag, Local Solid Waste Task Force, Auburn City Councilman Bill Kirby, Western Placer Waste Management Authority Material Recovery Facility, Roseville, Fiddyment Road, Nortech Waste Inc., Western Placer Waste Management Authority, Jim Durfee,
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It is gratifying to see the outgoing Placer County Grand Jury fulfill its critical responsibility to the courts and citizens by recommending extended usage of blue refuse bags. This marks a milestone for the Grand Jury system in Placer County; they have unilaterally developed a viable suggestion well worth placing their reports in.
Could it be that next year they undertake the extensive examination of the floor wax used in municipal buildings? Please, some one, file a Request for Grand Jury Action asking for their detailed examination of the application, usage and cost of floor wax in municipal structures. You can obtain the appropriate filings at the Grand Jury Office at DeWitt, during the hour they are open each month
I hope these hypothetical examples help the Grand Jury understand the issue better.
1) I have a trash compactor. With the blue bag program, I don't put recyclables in the compactor, so they're easily separated out at the materials recovery facility. However if the blue bag program is discontinued, I will place all my trash into the compactor. Question for the Grand Jury: how likely is it that materials recovery employees will pry apart compacted trash, mixed in with my gooey food waste, in order to glean out a wad of aluminum foil, a plastic bottle, and some newspapers smashed into the center of the compacted mass?
2) Like almost everyone else, I use plastic bags for my refuse. I fill two bags per week (not compacted). Two bags, whether they're white or blue. Question for the Grand Jury: why is the color of the bags important? Why not one blue-- identifying recyclables only-- and one white, instead of both being white?
The Grand Jury should estimate the exact percentages of trash that will not be recycled due to stopping the blue bag program, and balance that against the 'extra' blue bags that are used, after determining and removing from the equation how many blue bags will simply be replaced with white bags.
Saving 26k per year is 26k no matter how you look at it...the whole CRV system the state has is a hoax...I pay 10c on a plastic bottle CRV i get back 2c at the recycler...where does the other 8c go? If I got 8c back, there wouldnt be any bottles in the ditches...like there are now.
The Grand Jury is a perfect example of being a "Jack of All Trades, but a Master of None". Their expertise on the subject for which they make recommendations is sorely lacking. How did they come to conclusion that the labor intense duty & extra work hours it would take to separate the recyclables from the waste stream would not be significant. Perhaps they should have worked on the line for a day prior to coming to a determination.
How about a program that works and it user friendly? The blue bags seem like a pain to use, in my opinion. We liked a program in another town in which we put all of our recycling in a separate can. A separate truck picked it up and took it straight to a recycle center- never got mixed with other garbage. New programs in bigger cities which encourage composting to eliminate waste may be helpful, too. In both cases, there is an initial cost for the cans, but those are used for years.
One thing I am concerned about with the blue bags is if you collect your cans separately, it is easier for you to recycle them yourself (or someone to steal out of the garbage, which used to happen to me all the time somewhere else were we sorted in bins). This ultimately would lead to less income to the Waste Management Authority, which could, if significant, result in higher bills for the rate payers.
IMO, this is just $$. I live in an unicorporated area. I have to buy my blue bags at a store. I pay Auburn-Placer Disposal for 1 self-owned, 30 gallon can per week. You can put out the separate blue bags with no additional weekly cost from A-P Disposal. As a single occupant home, some weeks I don't even take a can or bag out cuz it's not full enough. By doing away with blue bags, customers may need to "rent" one of the bigger cans from A-P. More $$ for them. And on that vein, since the rented cans are hoisted mechanically by the truck, reducing possiblity of injury and associated medical & disability costs to collectors, why do we have to pay for them on top of the weekly collection fee?
If you cut the blue bags just right, they make great covers for the Grand Jury report.
skyisblue: Although I don't have any evidence, a separate truck for a separate can seems to add expense and truck-generated air pollution, cancelling out at least some of the benefit of recycling. Two trash trucks driving down your street every week and taking trash to the dump (way down by Lincoln) instead of one truck a week.
I like the idea of composting but in reality, how many people have the dedication to do this habitually over many years?
To the grand jury: What does "efficient enough" and "marginal benefit" mean to you? Either this isn't very in-depth reporting by the AJ or the Grand Jury is lacking in it's assumptions. Can someone please qualify these statements with data? All I get from the Grand Jury's floppy report is that the blue bag program is a benefit, even if it is marginal.
skyisblue: I used to visit my grandmother a lot down in LA. There they have a 3 bin system; recycling, green waste, and waste. And all day long once a week you would hear the very loud sound of trucks coming and going collecting the contents of those bins. To me that is a very wasteful system and it has the reclamation centers laughing all the way too the bank. Blue bag is very simple and the system is in place at the WM facility to process it.
I live in unincorporated Placer County and so I buy the blue bags myself. The cost is marginal to me but recycling is quite important without factoring in the dollar cost. I think it is wonderful that Auburn and other area cities provide bags to their residents. It models to the community the importance of recycling. I think the benefit would be greater if more people participated in such a simple program and am disappointed that the GJ didn't make that statement.
I was disappointed reading about how narrow minded the Grand Jury findings were. Yes, many can agree the blue bags are some what a pain in the butt, but then again, they do keep the recyclable materials separated. It is important to understand some basic principles of recycling materials and the processing of those materials. To make it work you need the residents/customers participation along with a convienent way to separate the materials without contamination and last, a site that is capable to process those materials without contaminating them. Recyclable materials are not of a value unless you have a noncontaminated product. Mixing newspapers, and paper products in general with the general refuse would contaminate the recyclable paper products, which means less of a market for that product. The blue bag program allows the recyclable items to be separated much easier than trying to sort each paper and bottle as the material goes across the sorting belt. without the blue bags you would need several more sorters on the sort line to pull the recyclable items and then those items may be contaminated with residue from the general refuse. It was commented that other counties use separate bins for your paper, glass, plastics and metal recyclables and why doesn't Placer. I agree that may be the most efficent way to do it, but every city and town in Placer county would have to require the collection company to provide a separate toter to each residence. what's next GJ.
Perhaps food scraps can be collected in the green waste bins for composting or other conversion techology. Seattle does it: http://your.kingcounty.gov/solidwaste/wdidw/category.asp?CatID=9
The recyclables can be placed in the One Big Bin (onebigbin.com) instead of blue bags. Saves on purchasing bags, and the recyclables will be cleaner, possibly garnering higher prices from buyers.