City Looks Ahead at Recycling

By James Geluso, The Bakersfield Californian

Nov. 9–The Bakersfield City Council may have dumped mandatory recycling for now, but efforts to keep garbage out of landfills continues.

In the short term, city and Kern County officials plan to launch a promotional blitz for their voluntary curbside program. That will start in January, when the county drops its rate for the program to $48 a year — the same cost as the city.

And the city and county are looking into the cost of an ambitious system to pull recyclables out of the garbage.

The two governments should have numbers about a MRF — that’s "material recovery facility," pronounced "merf" — and report back by late spring, said Kevin Barnes, city solid waste director.

The MRF could be a way for the governments to balance competing demands of the state — to divert more waste from landfills while also minimizing air pollution by keeping trucks off the road, said Larry Moxley, president of Kern Refuse, the association of the five private haulers who pick up trash in metro Bakersfield.

In a MRF, all metro Bakersfield garbage — commercial, residential or industrial — would go to a single site where recyclables would be pulled out.

How well that works is debatable.

The recovery rate of recyclables in a MRF is lower than when people separate their recyclables, said Mark Oldfield, a spokesman for the state Department of Conservation. The biggest issue is that with current technology, a lot of recyclables get missed.

But Barnes said most existing MRFs are about a decade old, and recovery rates will improve. And a MRF would have all the garbage in the metro area to pick from, while a residential-only, blue-cart system would have drawn recyclables only from one-third of the waste stream.

The city also has recycling programs for businesses, but they suffer from low participation as well, Barnes said.

"People have a hard time making extra space, and they don’t like to pay for it," he said. On the other hand, he said, "we have full-on commercial routes where we run nothing but cardboard."

The MRF would be at a planned city-county transfer station, which itself is up in the air. The city and county hope to have trucks bring their collected garbage to the site on Mount Vernon Avenue instead of taking it all the way to the landfill, saving fuel and cutting air pollution.

But the transfer station, where garbage is compacted before being sent to a landfill, will cost money, and the locals are hoping that the state will pony up enough to keep the costs down.

In addition, Public Works Director Raul Rojas warned the council Wednesday, the project will require improvements to Mount Vernon Avenue and the off-ramp from Highway 58.

Rojas said a MRF would be five years away if the city decided to go that route now. But he asked the council to wait on a decision until the numbers come back next year.

The Bakersfield City Council on Wednesday decided not to apply for a state grant to buy equipment to bale recyclables. Taking the grant would have required every house in the city to pay $36 a year for a blue recycling cart to go with the tan cart for garbage and the green cart for yard waste.

Karen Ash spoke against mandatory recycling during the public comment period of the meeting and then sat through the two-hour discussion until the 10 p.m. vote.

"I’m pleased that it went the way it did," Ash said Thursday. "I’m not opposed to recycling, I’m just opposed to the mandatory."

Bob Rutledge also spoke — but in favor of the proposal — and stayed to the end.

He said Thursday he was disappointed that the council bowed to people who want things to improve, but aren’t willing to make changes or pay the cost.

"I’m proactive, I like to jump into something before it becomes a crisis," he said. "And this is quickly becoming a crisis."

WHERE TO RECYCLE Find out where to drop off recyclable materials in the Shop & Find section of NewToBakersfield.com.

The story so far

2003: Bakersfield begins a voluntary curbside recycling program. It costs participants $80 a year for a blue cart and biweekly pickup.

2006: The city applies for a $3 million state grant for equipment to process recyclables, but gets only $1.5 million.

July 2007: With participation in the program at 4 percent, the city cuts participants’ cost to $48 a year. By summer, participation is up to 5 percent.

Fall 2007: City staff apply for another $1.5 million for equipment to bale recyclables. To sweeten the application, the staff add a condition that the city would go to curbside recycling. The promise works, and the application makes it through the first stage.

Wednesday: The Bakersfield City Council decides mandatory recycling is not worth $1.5 million, especially when it would mean an increase in garbage bills of $36 a year. It votes 5-0 not to pursue the grant.

January 2008: Kern County is slated to lower the cost of its metro Bakersfield curbside recycling program to $48 a year. Once the city and county programs match, the two governments plan to launch a publicity campaign to get more homes signed up.

Spring 2008: The city and county should get a report on how much it would cost to convert metro Bakersfield’s garbage system into one where recyclables are sorted out.

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