Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Thursday, June 02, 2022

Waste diversion, food waste versus yard waste composting and DC

For almost 10 years I've been writing about how DC could do a better job with waste diversion, especially yard waste--unlike all area jurisdictions, where state requirements force them to do it, DC doesn't do yard waste diversion.  Why I don't know.

According to the EPA, food waste is about 14.6% of the waste stream, and yard waste about 13.5% of the waste stream.


I've suggested that the city needs to have two different programs based on geographic, one for the outer city, where houses tend to have larger yards and generate large amounts of yard waste, and one for the core of the city, in particular the rowhouse neighborhoods, where houses with small yards tend to (but not uniformly) generate less yard waste.

-- "A way for DC to begin adding yard waste collection as a separate element of waste collection and reduction programming," 2013

In fact, as far as the core is concerned, a program could vary by block, depending on micro-local conditions, as there are plenty of blocks in rowhouse neighborhoods, especially in Capitol Hill and Columbia Heights, that generate fair amounts of yard waste. (Note that DC does some diversion of trees and branches, especially in conjunction with post-storm clean up.)

And I suggested the city could develop the program slowly, ward by ward, as it develops the capacity and expertise to do yard waste diversion.

I bring this up because WUSA-TV reports ("Public curbside composting? It could soon be a reality in DC") that the city is close to piloting to 10,000 households a program for picking up "organic" waste.  I am motivated to write this entry because according to the story:

“Making composting accessible to residents across the District is the single most meaningful step the District can take toward meeting its Zero Waste goals,” the committee report reads. “Organic waste, which includes food and yard waste, makes up roughly a third of the District’s waste stream.”

It's true, but judging on the proposed costs of the program, they aren't focusing on yard waste at all, just food waste.  From the report:

  • Opt-in mailers for all DPW-serviced households ($36,750)
  • Compost caddies for 10,000 households ($200,000)
  • Compostable bags (50 per household) ($24,000)
  • Curbside containers (5-gallon buckets) ($360,000)
  • Disposal costs ($93,600)
  • Collection costs ($3,640,000
  • Hauling costs ($37,440)
  • Ongoing education and outreach for opt-in households ($40,000)

First, more impact would be realized by yard waste diversion more generally, and rather than opening it up to the entire city as intimated by the report, pilot the program on a geographic-specific basis.

In my opinion, the most important steps the city could take wrt waste reduction ("More on zero waste practice (and DC)," 2015) would be to:

(1) institute yard waste diversion; 

(2) develop more focused waste diversion programs for other types of waste; 

(3) working with the private sector, develop recycling and waste diversion programs for multiunit housing; 

(4) expand food waste diversion programs from the current drop off program, working with community gardens, multiunit buildings, etc.; and 

(5) incorporate food waste diversion within regular yard waste programs, which is how it's done in Salt Lake City, San Francisco and other places.  But also encourage residents who are able to do on-site composting themselves.  Montgomery County, Maryland is a national leader on this, even though they have a formal yard waste collection program anyway.

This does remind me of the point I made in response to the development of a City Sustainability Plan during the Gray Administration (2011-2014).  I said the city has no chance in becoming the most sustainable city in the US by 2032 if even now, the practices that it adopts are nowhere near the best in class practices already adopted by the nation's most sustainably focused cities.

-- "Realizing all aspects of Sustainable DC," 2013

Conclusion.  In short, it seems like this pilot program won't accomplish all that much, compared to focusing on yard waste reduction first, developing geographically specific foci, targeting the outer wards initially, creating a pilot for rowhouse neighborhoods specific to their needs, and developing the yard waste diversion program in a manner where it can also handle food waste.

While simultaneously developing special waste diversion programs for multiunit housing and the encouragement of on-site composting for those households with the yard space to accommodate it, using Montgomery County's best practice as an example ("Urban/Community composting," 2014).

Labels: , , , ,

6 Comments:

At 12:11 PM, Blogger EWO said...

DC offers free yard waste pickup (up to 20 bags at a time) through 311 for the whole city, and you can leave large branches in a pile that they will pick up. They seem to come on a weekly schedule when requested. You just have to use the paper yard waste bags.

As for food waste, seems like providing people a garbage disposal would be a better option- https://www.citylab.com/environment/2017/08/garbage-disposals-new-york/538581/?utm_source=feed

 
At 12:20 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

But is it diverted from the waste stream? I don't believe it is, unless something changed since September 2019. That's the issue. Basically it gets burned in Fairfax's waste to energy plant.

I don't think the prevalent advice favors garbage disposal now.

... while I use cilantro stems in smoothies, I've always tossed asparagus stems into the compost. On PBS, Mary Berry used them in a creamy asparagus soup. I aim to try it out.

 
At 2:04 PM, Anonymous Alex B. said...

The big question for food waste is what percentage of that waste is residential, vs. what comes from restaurants, groceries, other businesses. I suspect the residential fraction is actually rather small, yet it gets the majority of the attention in these debates.

 
At 3:50 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Food waste from food service (and supermarkets) is more easily diverted which is why it is discussed more. Supermarkets increasingly are diverting their food waste to biodigesting, which makes methane that can be used in vehicles (which is why you see Waste Management trucks with signage saying they are run on natural gas).

It's just not clear from the DPW reporting on the waste stream, about whether the data is everything, or more likely DPW data, which is limited to residential properties no more than 4 units.

Commercial waste haulers often tip at DPW facilities for a fee.

But I think that the solid waste studies DPW does are based on samples. And do they do samples of both streams and then combine the data?

Good point about the residential. I can't remember the amount we did in a two person household. Now we're a three person household so we do more, between 3-4 gallons a week. And more when you have items like watermelon (although I saw a recipe for creating watermelon pickles).

It was probably usually around 2 gallons/week. I was always floored by the people willing to pay $10/week to Compost Cab to tote it away.

We cook a fair amount of our meals (and used to have 4 people in the household and generated even more).

But in DC, living in the outer city, it was easy for us to do on site composting, and at least for people who do some work in their yards, and have trees, this should be strongly encouraged. Then the city doesn't have to worry about it at all.

We ended up building a bin from pallets, using a MoCo publication. Later we used the Geobins, which we would pick up for free at the Montgomery County Ag Fair.

Oddly enough, some of the best vegetable growing we did was of volunteers from our compost bin. One year we got about 12 butternut squashes. In 2019 we lost a tree and I just emptied one of the bins into the spot. We got about 30 volunteer cherry tomato plants, which are awesome for this recipe:

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12861-orecchiette-with-cherry-tomatoes-and-arugula

(we use angel hair, and a lot more basil, arugula, and cheese compared to the actual recipe)

Plus a big tomato plant in the other bin.

But on site is great for leaves, etc. Our problem was we generated a fair amount of branches and stuff. I was thinking of getting a small chipper to break them down better.

In one of my old pieces I suggested having mobile chippers and log splitters that could go around neighborhoods certain times of the year.

 
At 3:52 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

The other thing is that 2-3 gallons per week, per household, yes, isn't all that much, and is costly to collect comparatively speaking.

By contrast it's easy in Salt Lake and SF because it's just put into the broader "organic" waste stream, which for most people is mostly yard waste.

Salt Lake has an active social media program for waste and recycling, but they need to do a lot more to promote composting.

I don't know how many people really do it. I don't think many of our neighbors do.

 
At 6:10 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

Reader's Digest: Meet the Activist Who Rummages Through Trash to Save the Planet.
https://www.rd.com/article/trash-walker-exposes-excess-waste/

 

Post a Comment

<< Home