Interview: What is Santa Monica doing to minimize waste?
The interviews were done to the manager of the Santa Monica Beach Waste Management and the owner of the company “Southern California Disposal and Recycling Company Inc & Transfer Station” located at 1908 Frank Street. My main conclusions about these two interviews are:
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After 2018 and COVID most of the programs that aimed to foster the recycling program in Santa Monica ceased to exist. Currently the city is not enforcing any recycling programs, so these two service providers comply with collecting garbage and sending it to the recycling centers outside the city.
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Even though there's no recycling program in the city, trucks still go through the allies and pick up the curbside trash cans and then they go to the transportation center where the sourcing happens.
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Homeless are a very interesting figure in the recycling process in Santa Monica. When there were still Buy Backs Centers they brought trash and helped with the recycling. The downside of it was that they were also stealing trash from the official recycling centers and there was no track of where the trash was coming from. This wasn’t helping the authorities to keep reliable data on their goals.
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Buybacks Centers disappeared after COVID, they stopped receiving financial resources.
Where does your waste go after it is picked up?
Waste on the beach is picked up and taken to the nearest waste disposal facility. They recycled before 2018, but now they just move the trash to the collection center.
How much waste is produced annually?
According to Santa Monica’s City website, the City of Santa Monica collects and disposes of around 176 million pounds of waste annually, including landfill trash, recyclables, and organics. Is known, however, that the pier main waste is organic according to the 2014 UCLA research “Fifty-four percent of the pier’s waste was found to be organic, or biodegradable. That includes food waste, but also paper and other plant or animal-based products. Organic waste can be taken to facilities to be broken down in a sustainable way”
Where does your recycling go after it is picked up?
After the trash is sorted in the Southern California Disposal and Recycling Company Inc & Transfer Station it is transported to the Sun Valley Recycling Center ATHENS. Which is a family-owned waste collection and recycling company that has been a fixture in the greater Los Angeles community. According to the owner of SCD, its facility counts with the technology to sort and recycle. On their website they state that they are “The first company to utilize the Max-AI commercial unit: an artificially intelligent autonomous technology that uses mechanical vision to help sort recyclables and waste” (2024)
Does it go to a Clean or Dirty MRF?
To Sun Valley, California,since it processes more than 330,000 tons of mixed waste annually,I would say it is a dirty MRF.
What is and Isn’t recyclable in your area?
Household hazardous waste including paints, cleaning supplies, electronic waste, tires,liquid waste do not belong in any of the three containers (black, blue or green)
Detail Special programs currently available such as e-waste, organics, HHW and etc.
In 2014, Santa Monica established a Zero Waste Plan (ZWP) that aimed to reduce waste from landfills by 95% by 2030. However, after 2018, it was over. Today’s main recycling programs don’t have economic help from the government.
The City’s Resource Recovery Recycling Division allocated $37 million for FY 2022-23, that included operating costs, capital improvement programs, and non-departmental transactions. The majority of expenses fall into either labor (33%), vehicles and capital assets (32%), or post-collection activities including the transportation, disposal, and recycling of solid waste materials (23%). Some of the changes the City Council adopted for a five-year schedule of solid waste rates for sanitation and enhanced sweeping, recycling, and solid waste collection services are:
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Rate increases that would allow for the continuation of essential service delivery.
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The reestablishment of adequate staffing and services that were partially reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The ability to implement the State's organics recycling mandate, to continue the City's efforts to implement sustainable zero waste programming.
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Address the community's demand for enhanced alley cleanups, and the implementation of a new volunteer-driven community cleanup program.
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Establishment of a low-income assistance program (based on eligibility in the CARE program). The low-income rate is 10% off the listed rates.
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Meeting California's mandatory organics recycling requirement and addressing illegal dumping.
When do businesses have to comply with AB 1826 before they are fined?
The AB 1826 requires businesses to divert their organic waste (food, food-soiled paper, grass clippings), depending on the amount of waste they generate per week. As of January 1, 2022, AB 1826 requires that businesses generating two cubic yards or more of solid waste (which includes organic materials like food waste, green waste, landscaping waste, etc.) per week must arrange for organic waste recycling services.
Fines may begin if a business fails to comply after receiving a notice.Once the local jurisdiction has verified non-compliance and taken steps to notify and assist the business with compliance measures. Specific timelines for when fines start may vary by jurisdiction, but the law allows local authorities to impose penalties on businesses that do not comply after receiving a warning.
Do you have a food waste recycling program?
One of the programs that catched my attention is the homeless program the city is working on. I think this is not only about cleaning the streets but also about education and giving opportunities. I also think this program could work with the food of the restaurants of the area, since there is so much food that is going to be thrown away, that food could also go to the Homeless Support Team, like the app of “Too Good to Go”.
The city of Santa Monica deployed a Homeless Support Team, or HoST, which is a permanent city team dedicated to keeping Santa Monica’s public spaces clean and to remove waste from encampments. The team is supposed to respond to complaints filed through the city’s 311 system and work closely with the Police Department’s Homeless Liaison Program (HLP). They operate out of the Promenade Maintenance Division of the Public Works Department and they receive special training to keep themselves and the community safe, including ladder, workplace, respiratory and bloodborne pathogen safety training as well as training in de-escalation, Narcan use, encampment cleanup hazards and more.
Sources:
https://www.smgov.net/Departments/PublicWorks/ContentRecycling.aspx?id=53687091674
https://calrecycle.ca.gov/recycle/commercial/organics/
https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/article/ucla-students-dig-into-santa-monica-piers-waste-problem/