The single-stream switch: San Jose's move to single-stream recycling will involve changes for residents, employees and processors - MRF Series - Statistical Data Included

Recycling Today, May, 2002 by Elaine Leung

The dome-like building on Charles Street in San Jose is bustling, as it always is on weekday afternoons. Collection trucks arrive in a steady procession to deliver their contents, which are weighed, dumped, sorted, crushed, baled and stacked.

The scene is a familiar one, but it's not business as usual at the GreenTeam materials recovery facility (MRF), where dramatic changes are taking place in a closed-off section of the 20,000-square-foot structure. There, standard conveyors, bins and "10-finger picking" operations have given way to mechanical sorting and separating equipment that will soon accommodate the City of San Jose's move to single-stream recycling.

About a mile to the east, similar machinery is being installed in a vacant building that will become the MRF that Norcal Waste Systems, San Francisco, will use to process its share of San Jose's residential recycling stream, through a subcontract with California Waste Systems.

PLANNING THE SWITCH

Starting July 1, San Jose will switch from source-separated to single-stream recycling for its 195,000 single-family and 85,000 multi-family dwellings. Clean 'n Green San Jose--a modification of the nine-year-old Recycle Plus program that virtually tripled residential recycling volumes when it was introduced-will allow residents to put all of their recyclable materials into a single cart. The changeover, four years in the making, is part of a growing national trend that is altering the culture of curbside pickup, waste industry employment patterns and MRF operations.

Research determined the benchmarks for success: simplifying recycling for residents, improving collection techniques and maximizing landfill diversion rates to exceed state mandates--and doing all this as cost-effectively as possible. Based on a detailed list of criteria to ensure fairness and objectivity in awarding contracts, the City selected GreenTeam of

San Jose and Norcal Waste Systems. GreenTeam, which has worked with the City since 1993, will service about 45,000 single-family homes in one of three districts and all of the City's multiple-family dwellings.

Norcal, which is new to San Jose but has extensive experience in Northern California, will service the other two districts, which comprise about 150,000 single-family homes.

"The division of labor makes sense in a large City such as San Jose," says Harvey Gershman, co-founder of Gershman, Brickner and Bratton, a national solid-waste management consulting firm based in Fairfax, Virginia. "It's a nice way to spread the work around and have some [options]," he comments.

Such arrangements are certainly prudent, and contracts with both haulers include performance guarantees for reliable, litter-free pickup. Both Norcal and GreenTeam have impressive track records for customer satisfaction, innovation and materials processing--all requisites for their selection. In fact, the manner in which they addressed the requests for proposals (RFPs) call for the phased introduction of alternative fuel vehicles and operational efficiencies demonstrates their resourcefulness. Both proposed using cleaner burning diesel derivative fuels and split-body collection trucks for their single-family-home routes.

"We were obliged to bid the contract as a single-stream commodity, but the trucks were our option," says John Nicoletti, Norcal's general manager in San Jose. "The use of the split-bodied vehicle, with one compartment for recyclables and the other for trash, matched perfectly with San Jose's requested system."

Both companies will use split-body trucks that allow for collection of the wheeled recycling carts and garbage carts in the same trip. This option will also help to improve workplace safety because drivers will remain inside the truck using interior controls to choose the correct compartment. While automated garbage collection began in 1993, source separated recyclables were collected manually. A key element of the split-body trucks is the packer paddle or flipper gate, which sits inside the hopper and rotates 180 degrees to allow for appropriate distribution of recyclables and garbage and ensure they aren't mixed. Compaction ratios in the recyclables compartment have been gauged to maximize loads while minimizing glass breakage.

HIGH-YIELD RETURNS

Single-stream recycling helps to increase diversion, which is no small concern in California. San Jose, with a preliminary 53 percent diversion rate for calendar year 2000, already exceeds the state-mandated requirement of 50 percent but, given the exigencies of environmental legislation and public policy, it's a sound strategy to increase the diversion rate even more.

The contracts with both haulers, which run for five years with two three-year extensions if expectations are met, call for a minimum of 35 percent diversion from the single-family waste stream, an increase of about three percentage points from the current amount achieved.

Weslie Brandon, GreenTeam's community outreach supervisor, believes that 35 percent is well within reach based on GreenTeam's pilot program results. "When people don't have to think about where to put their recyclables, they recycle more," she says. "Also, the single-stream recycling containers are larger than the multi-sort containers, so residents have a bigger space in which to put more stuff."