Agenda - 05-17-2016-13-5 - Information Item - Memorandum Regarding Impacts of Changing Recycling Collection Strategies

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INFORMATION ITEM Memorandum To: Board of Orange County Commissioners From: Gayle Wilson, Solid Waste Director Subject: Impacts of Changing Recycling Collection Strategies Date: May 9, 2016 At the April 19 BOCC meeting a commissioner petition inquired about the impacts to the County's recycling collection program resulting from changing from two-stream' collection with paper in one container and cans and bottles in the other to single stream with all recyclables in a single container to be sorted at a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).This memo provides a response, but limits the analyses to the past four year period, thereby including the final two years of two-stream collection and the most recent two-and-a-half years of single stream collection. In the first two years of data shown in the table below, Orange County ran two-stream collection in which paper of all types was kept separate from bottles and cans.The performance of a single-stream collection system is reflected in the 2013-14 data and forward, [NOTE: Orange County does include corrugated cardboard in curbside but collects it separately at drop-off sites and excludes it from its commercial and multifamily recycling programs due to capacity issues.] No analysis is included of the performance of the earlier more separated system which required a six-way sort that the County used from recycling's inception in 1987 until 2007 when the collection was converted to two-stream. In the data presented below, when comparing 2014-15 (the first full year of single stream using carts at the curb plus carts and dumpsters in all other programs), to 2012-13,(the final year of two-stream using bins at the curb and carts and dumpsters in other programs), total tonnage from the five programs increased 14%. Urban curbside collection tonnage has increased 55%and rural curbside increased 14%. The budgeted annual contract collection cost of the urban curbside recycling program for the current fiscal year is$758,915. Had the cost per household remained at the same level it was in FY 12-13 when recycling was collected two-stream in bins, the cost would have been 13.5% higher at$861,465, a savings of$102,550, reflecting overall increases in collection efficiency and collector safety. Improvements in rural curbside recycling program collection efficiency enabled the addition of more households with no increase in staff or equipment. The percentage of urban households participating increased using carts although weekly set out rates declined; using larger carts rather than smaller bins results in a need for fewer set outs, another measure of efficiency improvement. Drop-off tonnage declined 5%as might have been expected due to the convenience and increased capacity of carts at the curb. In the two smaller programs, commercial declined 14%and multifamily 10%during this period. We are not sure why these latter two categories have declined in tonnage but will continue to work on those sectors as well as overall program expansion and improvement.