These are a couple of the roadblocks Pasadena faces as it strives to achieve its zero-waste goals, a report by the City’s Department of Public Works said. In the report due to be delivered to the City Council’s Municipal Services Committee on Tuesday, July 23, Public Works Director Ara Maloyan said the amount of waste that each Pasadena resident throws away every day had increased by 50 percent last year over 2012, the first year the City started monitoring its per capita disposal rate.
Maloyan’s Zero Waste Update for July 2019 showed each resident was throwing an average of 5.6 pounds of waste per day in 2012. By 2018, this had gone up to 8.4 pounds per day, according to the report. The City gleans these figures from the amount of waste that the City’s waste contractors have been collecting throughout the City and delivering to the City’s landfill on a per capita basis.
To put that number in perspective, Maloyan’s report pointed out that during that six-year timeframe the internet has actually reduced many types of paper waste, as significantly fewer direct mail pieces, catalogs, magazines and newspapers, directories and phone books are printed and discarded each year.
Maloyan’s report will include his recommendation for the City Council to accept the bid submitted by American Reclamation Inc. to handle the City’s residential and commercial recycling contract. American Reclamation was one of four bidders that submitted proposals after a request for bids was published in April.
After the City adopted its Zero Waste Strategic Plan in 2014, the Public Works Department committed to provide an update of the plan every three years, with the last update in 2017. Maloyan’s report shows that since 2017, the Department has seen many changes within the recycling industry due to strong economic growth, advancements in technology, changes in packaging materials, state mandates and changes in international policy. These changes are now impacting Pasadena’s solid waste collection and recycling effort.
Maloyan also said the amount of high-value content in the recycling stream – examples of these are newspaper, magazines, catalogs, and junk mail – has been drastically reduced with the increased use of new technology, such as computers, smartphones and tablets, resulting in less attractive recyclable content and thereby increasing processing costs for municipalities.
The report also noted changes in China’s import policies on recyclable materials, especially its recent strict contamination limits and import bans, have been complicating waste collection in California, since the state has traditionally exported most its recycle material – particularly paper and plastic – to that country. These changes have led to stockpiling of materials at the state’s solid waste and recycling facilities and resulted in declining markets for recyclables.