The City of Albuquerque, NM’s Solid Waste Management Department: Growing

By Leaps and Bounds

While updating an antiquated recycling program, Albuquerque’s Solid Waste Management Department has concentrated on increasing awareness and changing attitudes through public information as well as implementing state-of-the-art facilities.

Established by the City of Albuquerque, NM in 1948, the Solid Waste Management Department was created to provide solid waste and recycling services to the city’s residential and commercial population, numbering more than 555,000 people. Growing from just a few employees to 440 today, the Department also owns and operates 266 fleet vehicles, the Cerro Colorado Landfill, three convenience centers for customers to dispose of their excess refuse, a graffiti removal program, a weed and litter program, and handles all of their vehicle maintenance in house. Says Jill Holbert, the Solid Waste Department’s Acting Director, “The ultimate goal of the department is to help Keep Albuquerque Beautiful, creating quality of life for its citizens.”

Re-Evaluating Processes

According to Holbert the state of the economy has remained the biggest challenge over the past several years as well as has an impact on the organization’s revenue. The department had to reorganize to adjust to the hard hit economy while taking a closer look at its routes. However, the Department has made sure that they have stayed ahead of whatever challenges have come their way. For example, they are currently re-routing commercial collections to assign the correct number of trucks and drivers to become more efficient. The department has also had to deal with changing fuel costs. “Since 2005, in an effort to not allow fuel cost affect our business, a fuel surcharge is billed to every customer each month. It has helped defer the cost of fuel,” says Holbert.

Transitioning an Antiquated Recycling Program to State-of-the-Art

The department’s old recycling program was restrictive and confusing. It was ultimately determined that the infrastructure for the city’s recycling program needed to be modernized, so in 2011 Albuquerque entered into a public/private partnership with Friedman Recycling to expand it. This resulted in the implementation of a cart-based, fully-automated recycling program. “The Department’s processing facility was so outdated that an estimated $20 million would be needed to modernize its plant. To avoid any rate increase for our customers, the Department, under the direction of Mayor Richard J. Berry, decided to enter into a public/private partnership,” explains Holbert. “This partnership allowed the creation of a new state-of-the-art processing facility at no extra cost to the Department’s customers.” With the introduction of this new facility, the recycling program’s material list grew by leaps and bounds. It took the Department two years to implement the program and the major challenges faced was delivering approximately 178,000 recycling carts with no interruption of service to residential customers, so before distributing 96-gallon carts to every customer, a pilot program was launched to determine best operating, education and routing practices.“The pilot period helped us determine how many households would completely fill a truck. Our educational material had to be adjusted in order to accommodate a few issues that arouse during this pilot time frame.” Says Holbert. Since the transition, the public has embraced the new recycling program. In fact this past December 2013, the Department collected nearly 3,000 tons of recycling, making it a record breaking month for the Department. Participants may also place small e-waste into their recycling carts and all material collected in the new recycling carts is sorted at the Friedman facility.

In addition to the newly transitioned recycling program, the Department currently maintains 15 drop-off sites throughout the city for recycling material daily. These sites are intended to be used by small businesses that might not afford collection of their recycling material.Each Spring and Fall the Department collects green waste from customers at curbside. “The green waste that is collected is then mulched and composted and all material can be purchased by the public. This is a very popular program we often run out of sellable material,” says Holbert.

Keep Albuquerque Beautiful

An affiliate of the national network, Keep America Beautiful, since 1982, Keep Albuquerque Beautiful (KAB) is dedicated to community education on all solid waste management issues and alternatives through litter control, beautification and graffiti eradication activities. These activities are geared toward increasing awareness and changing attitudes through public information.
KAB is respected for their success in litter prevention and recognized by the Wirthlin Public Opinion Survey as the most credible source for environmental information. As a result, KAB’s grassroots leaders are increasingly being asked to take an active role in long-term solid waste disposal planning. “In KAB’s tradition of public education, we provide objective, nonpartisan information to the public on all solid waste disposal alternativesthroughprinted material, the KAB website and advertising promotions.”

Training and Safety

The Solid Waste Management’s Department’s Safety and Training Division has a mission to help reduce or eliminate vehicle accidents, personal injuries and illnesses, property damages and economic losses arising from preventable causes. In addition to holding monthly “tailgate meetings”, the Department’s staff of three Safety Coordinators also train each new employee according to their job description. Trainings may involve actual drive time instruction and classroom style lectures.

Looking Ahead

In the near future, the Department does plan to implement a Pay-as-You-Throw program in their 2015 or 2016 based on approval from the City Council. A plan to build a new state-of-the-art transfer station in 2018 is also in the works. Says Holbert, “The Solid Waste Management Department looks forward to improving its services in the future, helping to create quality of life for the City of Albuquerque.”

For more information, call (505) 761-8334 or visit www.cabq.gov/solidwaste.