Where we are and where we’re headed

As the well-known song goes, “It’s not that easy being green.” But what if it were? Between recent legislation and growing interest in being more sustainable, demand for organics collection continues to rise, giving the waste industry a unique opportunity and responsibility to take a leap forward in becoming more environmentally friendly.

While organics collection is undoubtedly growing in popularity, a discussion of the subject would not be complete without an understanding of why it’s important, how we’ve gotten where we are now, where we’re headed and how the waste industry can and will continue to drive progress as we shift from a linear to a circular economy.

Why organics collection matters

The traditional economy has been overwhelmingly linear, using the planet’s resources to produce goods that are used by consumers and discarded into the waste stream. Now, the market is shifting from a linear to a circular model focused on reducing waste, reusing items and recycling materials, leveraging the landfill as a last resort rather than a go-to solution.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. generated 292.4 million tons, or 4.9 pounds of waste per person per day, in 2018. Of this waste, 25 million tons of food and other municipal solid waste (MSW) organics were composted, up from 16.5 million tons in 2000.

Despite these gains, food waste still comprises more than 20 percent of landfills’ contents. According to the most recent U.S. Public Interest Research Group “Composting in America” report, Americans landfilled or incinerated more than 50 million tons of compostable waste—enough to fill a line of fully loaded 18-wheelers stretching from New York City to Los Angeles—in one year.

When that food decomposes, it produces methane—one of the main greenhouse gases (GHGs) fueling the climate crisis. In fact, food waste in landfills is responsible for roughly one-third of all annual methane emissions. By decreasing GHG emissions and conserving landfill space, any efforts to reduce the amount of food waste in our landfills through organics collection is beneficial to the environment.

Governmental efforts

Composting is one of the simplest and easiest ways to divert organics from the waste stream to benefit the circular economy.

Despite greater interest in doing the right thing, most communities lack the infrastructure needed to expand these efforts. A growing number of states and municipalities have increased investment in infrastructure by building composting facilities and funding organics collection programs while adopting mandates and incentives that have driven greater participation and compliance.

The city of San Francisco was among the earliest adopters of mandatory organics composting. In 2009, a city ordinance was passed that requires all residents and businesses to separate their waste into three streams: mixed recycling, compostables and trash. According to the EPA, San Francisco’s current 80 percent waste diversion rate is the highest of any major U.S. city.

Based on this success, the state of California recently passed legislation (S.B. 1383) to require all cities in the state to reduce landfilling of compostable materials by 75 percent by 2025. To help attain this aggressive goal, California cities are enlisting the help of the waste industry to start curbside organics collection and to provide the equipment needed for end users and haulers to collect and process items such as food scraps, sticks, grass and leaves.

This will produce thousands of truckloads of finished compost to help the state’s many farms, orchards and vineyards and to get the carbon out of the atmosphere and back into the earth, where it belongs.

Seattle is another early adopter that banned disposing food waste in the garbage in 2015. In fact, more than 200 cities across the country, including Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; Boulder, Colorado; Denver; and New York City, have launched or will soon launch or mandate citywide composting programs. A total of six states have composting and food waste laws, with federal provisions for organics collection and composting built into legislation such as the Build Back Better Act and the COMPOST (Cultivating Organic Matter through the Promotion of Sustainable Techniques) Act.

While the benefits are clear, jumping into the organics fray can be daunting for haulers and end users alike.

Smart government groups understand that mandates and money alone won’t be sufficient, so they’ve supplemented regulatory efforts with a carrot-and-stick approach to increase residential and business participation in organics collection. The most effective of these strategies are:

• offering convenient curbside collection of organics;
• conducting waste stream audits to determine need and impact;
• providing financial incentives for participation, including reduced monthly disposal rates for homes and businesses with smaller trash cans, which encourages residents to recycle and compost as much as possible to reduce total volume of waste;
• investing in public education programs to convey the importance and positive impact of organics collection and composting;
• developing community gardens and farming programs that use composted organic material;
• increasing the frequency of pickup;
• levying fines and penalties for those who do not separate waste streams or who contaminate these streams; and
• providing the equipment needed for curbside collection and backyard composting operations, including free countertop collection bins and a starting supply of compostable liner bags, as well as three-section waste pickup containers to accommodate organics, recyclables and regular trash.

Industry response

All of these actions have helped organics collection grow exponentially, but a great deal of work remains to be done.

According to the 2021 “State of Composting in Our Country” report from Emmaus, Pennsylvania-based BioCycle, the U.S. has 4,914 composting operations in the U.S. While the number of communities with composting programs has grown by 65 percent in the past five years, these facilities only serve roughly 2 percent of the American population.

The most significant barriers to entry are finding qualified haulers, securing additional funding and creating the means and products required to make it easier to embrace organics collection. That’s where the waste industry comes in.

The more convenient the waste industry can make the collection process for municipalities, residents and businesses, the more we can pump up participation and impact.

As the place where the rubber meets the road in the ultimate success of these initiatives, waste equipment manufacturers such as Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wastequip, its brands Toter and ContainerPros and others have developed products that address the logistics of organics collection, such as potential odor, moisture, added weight, contamination risks and transportation, as well as the convenience of organics collection for residential and commercial end users.

While the benefits are clear, jumping into the organics fray can be daunting for haulers and end users alike. A few rules of thumb for making equipment choices will ease haulers’ lives while encouraging consumer adoption of organics collection through simplicity and ease of use.

It’s hard to teach an old truck new tricks. It can be difficult to retrofit a truck to handle food waste. Traditional packer panels or push-out blades might not be able to clear the material fully, and waste could squirt out or get stuck in cylinders and other components, running the risk of jamming or clogging.

Keep an eye on weight. Depending on the size of the collection containers, the weight of organic material could necessitate a heavier-capacity chassis and engine and more robust lifting capacity. When investing in organics collection trucks or trying to leverage existing equipment, haulers should pay careful attention to the weight capacity of the bins and carts they will be collecting and consider using only sealed units to ensure power, strength and cleanability.

Consider plastic. Plastic containers offer distinct advantages in organics collection because steel corrodes and adds weight. That said, not any plastic will do. Look for containers reinforced with steel to prevent bending and bowing and avoid injection molded products in favor of rotationally molded products.

Get the water out. Some commercial organics collection operations use de-watering containers to reduce weight and separate liquids from solids.

Eliminate leaks and odors. It’s no secret that organic waste is generally unpleasant smelling and likely to leak or seep, making it unattractive for people to handle and haulers to transport. Continuous lips, single-piece bodies, gaskets, compatible liners and reinforced seals are features that can help minimize odors. These equipment options, paired with frequent cleaning, are critical to long-term success.

Portability and easy emptying are paramount. The ability to move and lift heavy loads safely and easily is core to organics collection. Wheeled carts and cart lifters are key equipment types for moving and emptying containers filled with heavy, wet organic waste.

Size matters. To get more people and businesses to adopt composting and organics collection, the waste industry must recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Roll-away carts, totes and bins should come in a variety of sizes to fit various needs and uses. These can range from larger commercial containers and residential curbside collection carts to individual countertop composting bins and compostable liners. Given the higher weight of food waste versus MSW, consider smaller carts and bins.

Try to make it foolproof for users. Even the best efforts can be derailed if users make a mistake and put the wrong item in the bin or cart. Clear signage is a major key to compliance.

Cart colors, stickers and in-mold graphics guide residents on how to use their carts and what should and should not go in them to avoid contamination. Including educational materials during the cart delivery process also is a smart step.

Solving issues such as climate change, land use, resource consumption and pollution will require vast, coordinated global cooperation. Through our efforts to reduce GHG emissions and the volume of trash sent to landfills by enhancing organics collection, the waste industry can have a significant impact on these problems by making it just a little bit easier to be green.

The author is director of product management at Wastequip, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Visit www.wastequip.com for more information.