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Amid fears of foul diapers and pet waste spilling into the streets, the Mountain View City Council on Tuesday night decided to dump a controversial composting program that would have reduced trash pickup to every other week.
The garbage proposal rejected by the council at its Dec. 13 meeting was seen as a surefire way to nudge residents to compost more of their food scraps. If implemented, the proposal showed the potential to reduce about 50 percent of the waste going to the landfills, decrease greenhouse gases and encourage aggressive recycling practices throughout the city, according to city staff.
But those gains would have come mainly from switching single-family homes from their current weekly garbage pickup to an every-other-week schedule, essentially forcing residents to compost and recycle to free up space in their trash cans.
A large turnout of residents at the council meeting explained that the biweekly schedule was simply asking too much of many households. A similar program attempted in Portland, Oregon resulted in residents reportedly throwing 120 pounds of dirty diapers each day into their recycling bins since their garbage cans were jam-packed, said Lori Robbins, a Mountain View resident who helped launch an opposition campaign.
“How would you council members feel if you had to make an illicit run to a dumpster at midnight or secretly dump your trash in one of your neighbor’s bins?” she said to the council. “All residents should have access to weekly garbage pickup.”
Variations on the food-scraps plan program have been tested out in Mountain View since last year in two Old Mountain View neighborhoods. In that pilot run, a subset of residents switched to a biweekly schedule were able to dramatically drop the amount of garbage they were producing, but they were generally dissatisfied with the change.
Suzanne Martinez, an Old Mountain View resident in the pilot program, said she estimates that about one-third of the garbage cans in her neighborhood seemed to be regularly overflowing with trash. The pickup day after Thanksgiving was by far the worst, when pretty much every home’s trash can was filled past the brim, she said. Other residents complained that the garbage spilling into the street was creating a feast for rats and other vermin.
The City Council first reviewed the garbage program back in April, and members opted to continue studying the switch to a biweekly schedule. In the months since, opposition continued to swell. More than 600 people signed a petition calling on the council to reject the less-frequent garbage collection schedule.
As the proposal came back to the council on Tuesday, any lingering support among city officials appeared to evaporate. Originally, supporters on the council had hoped exceptions could be made for households with special needs, such as families with diaper-dirtying infants. But Lori Topley, Mountain View’s solid waste program manager, reported that due to the logistics of garbage hauling, only about 3 percent of households could be granted more frequent garbage pickup, even if they agreed to pay more for it.
Given that news, Councilman Chris Clark, who previously favored exploring the every-other-week schedule, said he now believed the public could be prodded to compost food scraps while keeping a weekly garbage pickup.
“It may not get us the highest diversion rates,” he said. “But I think implementing this (food scraps) program, getting it started and looking at it again in a few years makes the most sense.”
Councilman Lenny Siegel blasted the plan as an example of bad policy-making attempting to force “social engineering” on citizens.
“I consider it an insult that I need to be motivated by every-other-week pickup to separate my food scraps,” he said. “To compare it: I hope that fewer people will drive single-occupancy vehicles, but I want to provide them with alternatives, not punish them for driving.”
The council instead threw its support behind a more costly plan to add food-scraps composting to the weekly garbage service. It passed on a unanimous vote.
Compared to the biweekly plan, keeping weekly service will cost $295,000 more and generate about 750 tons of additional garbage per year, according to staff estimates.
Among the public speakers, a few environmentalists plugging for the biweekly system urged the city to at least make it a priority to heavily promote and educate Mountain View households in how the new composting system will work.
Residents will be able to dispose of food-scrap waste, including food-soiled paper, packaging and boxes, in their yard-trimming carts. The new system will be rolled out for single-family homes in July, along with a 6 percent increase in garbage fees.
I can’t believe we were even considering the option of garbage every other week. I’m glad we are adding food-scraps composting. How about recycling pickup every week, like every other town I’ve lived in in the Bay Area?
I have been part of the pilot program. Unlike the majority of our community, despite my fears of overflowing trash, I gave it a go. It was rough at first as I have to retrain what went in which receptacle. Please know that in all the many months we have participated, we have NEVER overflowed our trash. I will admit I do not have any diapers to dispose of, but the overall decrease in garbage has been amazing. RARELY is our garbage can full even after 2 weeks. We all need to give more in every way and demand less as our resources in every way will continue to be less FOR ALL. I am very sad that the city council did NOT whole-heartedly pass bi-weekly trash pick up.
I would be happy to compost food scraps. At my previous address the city encouraged us to put food scraps in the yard waste bin, which was very easy to do. I wonder if that is what is being considered in Mountain View?
Why are multi family dwellings not incorporated into the program? Mountain View houses a large percentage of its residents in multi family buildings who want to participate in the composting part of the program.
I’m very happy to compost my food waste, but as hot as it can get here in the summer, to have stinking garbage in our yards for TWO WEEKS straight would be completely unacceptable. Thanks to the City Council for thinking this through.
“Why are multi family dwellings not incorporated into the program?”
Ummm….maybe because there is no program….maybe? Did you read the part in the headline where they voted it down?
Clarification – they voted to start a new food scrap collection with yard waste (like the programs now in Los Altos, Palo Alto and lots of city on the Peninsula have started in the past several years. Since the food scraps will be put into yard waste cans (tree trimmings, grass cuttings) now collected at single family residences, it doesn’t apply yet to large multifamily residences like apartment buildings (smaller multi family and town homes are included). They may come up with a plan for food scrap collection later for apartment buildings that have shared waste containers.
What they voted down was a proposal to cut back garbage collection to every other week.
So, the City Council finally has shown a tiny bit of common sense regarding the adverse effects of overcrowding garbage cans. It’s to bad that they’re still totally ideologically blind to the ongoing overcrowding of apartments and traffic in our neighborhoods and streets! The cynic in me thinks that their attempts to force us into unsanitary bi-weekly collection are far from over. Ideologues never give in — they just keep trying.
I too am part of the original biweekly garbage pick up pilot project. I have never had an overflowing garbage can – one brown bag of trash every two weeks, and have never seen garbage overflowing on my street. Now thanks to a vocal minority we will all be paying more for trash pick up, and will probably be diverting less trash from the dump because the only incentive will be ‘feeling good’. I do hope City Council revisits issue this sooner than later.
We were to be paying more for less service so I’m OK with not going fwd with the plan..
The pilot families signed up because they knew it would be no impact for THEM, they volunteered. If the new program was voluntary fine, but mandatory? No, the majority have spoken. The minority opinion was in support of it and a clear majority voice of opposition was heard.
Re the assertion that a “vocal minority” prevailed, according to the city survey of those in the pilot project, 55% were not satisfied with having their weekly garbage collection reduced to every other week…that seems like a majority. Also, more than 30% of those in the every other week garbage collection group reported in the survey that their garbage cans were regularly overfilled.
Our family does not wheel black garbage toters to the curb each week, a nice way to reduce the pickups needed by the city. We encourage other residents to do the same, should their garbage be not full. In our case it works great since we compost and do not have smelly garbage in our bin, that is no organic matter. Just a nice way to take care of one’s needs and satisfy’s city’s desire for less pickups. We feel good about it and find it easy to do.
Wish they could get rid of the current program earlier than July. 7 more months of flies and rats I suppose.
I’m surprised that MV has taken this long to approve a composting program, similar to what neighboring cities are already doing. Perhaps costs and infrastructure have delayed the rollout, but my family will definitely participate in the new service.
Does anyone know if the city of MV will continue with every other week recycling pick-up or if it will be picked up every week with this new program. And why will this program have to wait until July to start?
We rarely fill our trash more than 1/4 full each week and would be happy to have every other week trash pick-up.
Recycling will remain on the same schedule of every other week. Having weekly pickup of recycling was discussed back in April but there wasn’t much interest since residents can currently get a second recycling cart, or the larger size one without charge if they need more space for recycle materials.
The delay until July will give the city time to distribute educational materials and organics carts for town house residents who don’t now have yard waste carts the way single family dwellings do. They will also be setting up new routes for drivers to collect yard waste on a weekly basis since it is now collected every other week except for ten weeks in fall when leaves are coming down from our trees. There will also be an additional charge for the new food scrap program of $1.75 for the average 32 gallon garbage cart, less for the 20 gallon cart. If you believe you will be able to reduce your garbage by using the food scrap bin once the program begins, you will be able to downsize your garbage cart size as well to reduce your monthly cost