The city of La Cañada Flintridge and the Chamber of Commerce have teamed up with LCF’s three trash haulers to give residents a chance to learn more about organics recycling and their waste providers through three town hall meetings that took place in October.
With the introduction of state Senate Bill 1383 and LCF’s start to organics recycling, residents have expressed questions and concerns.
The town hall meetings were “the vision of the City Council,” Management Analyst Joshua Jeffrey told the Outlook Valley Sun. “The Solid Waste Subcommittee saw a need for additional outreach and felt that the Chamber of Commerce would be a good partner with their extensive history of community projects.”
Each waste hauler created a presentation with a Q&A.
Though the meetings were mainly focused on organics recycling, “Residents were encouraged to ask any questions they might have on solid waste,” said Jeffrey, adding that the town halls are important for the community for a few reasons.
“Town halls provide an opportunity for people to physically connect,” he added. “Instead of being simply a truck on their street, residents can meet the people behind these important services and establish relationships with their haulers.”
The meetings also reinforce the concept of organics recycling, said Jeffrey, noting “Town halls are a conversation,” he said. “Residents have been able to ask questions which they have struggled with for a while — like how to recycle a k-cup or even why organic recycling is required.”
Director of Government Affairs Sharon Shapiro-Fox gave a presentation on what organics recycling looks like at Athens and what other services the hauler provides. Shapiro-Fox said that Athens is a family-owned and operated company since 1957 and prides itself on being a landfill avoidance company.
“We process our own material, we own our own facilities,” she said. “We manage landfills for the county, but we do not own any landfills ourselves. And we do so because we feel so strongly that it’s important to try to be the best landfill avoidance company as possible.”
The hauler also has its own Materials Recovery Facility, or MRF, which is a machine that helps recover recyclables from mixed waste.
It is the first recycling facility in the world, according to the company, to use the Max-AI waste-sorting robot. Using cameras, computers and artificial intelligence, Max-AI helps to ensure that the bales of recycled commodities are as clean as possible.
Shapiro-Fox talked about the evolution of recycling and more recently, the introduction to organics recycling and how the company composts the material.
“The nice thing is that we take your organics and take it to our composting facility in Victorville, and we basically make that into a very nutrient dense soil amendment, or mulch, depending on the screening process,” she said. A commercial composting facility can process items that residents cannot compost in their backyards, such as meats, bones or fats, she explained.
She went down the line of items that residents can put in their green bin/organics recycling bin, which includes food scraps, cheese, dairy, eggshells and even moldy bread. She then addressed a common question from residents: how to dispose of pizza boxes.
If someone wants to be a “super recycler,” she said, they can tear the pizza box in half and put the part with grease in the green bin and the part with no grease in the blue bin, but traditionally residents can just put the whole pizza box in the green bin since it is food soiled.
Shapiro-Fox explained how there is a SB 1383 component that requires them to monitor all bins for contamination. Employees will visit residences and flip the lid of each bin to do a visual inspection for contamination at least twice a year.
“When we find an area with either a lot of contamination or customer with frequent contamination, it tells our team, ‘This is where we need to focus our efforts for outreach and education,’” she said.
She gave residents tips on how to compile organic waste in their household like having a pail to store all their food scraps or a Ziplock in their fridge.
Athens also offers bear barrels available for residents to purchase, she said.
Residents questioned whether the black bin would remain, and where certain types of trash or material goes. Though the company is trying to encourage residents to recycle, the black bin is still necessary for items that can’t be recycled like Styrofoam or a chip bag.
“Our goal is to obviously offset the size of your black barrel,” she said. “So, the more that you participate in recycling and organics collection, hopefully you can get down to the smallest size possible for your trash. But there are certain things that we just can’t recycle or put in the organics.”
Athens also recognizes that there are different needs for different communities, she said, “We do try to take into consideration the community directly that we’re working with and understand what may or may not work for that specific community.”
The conversation about textiles, which includes shoes, clothing and towels or rags, also came up. Shapiro-Fox said that they encourage residents to donate as much as possible or find a way to reuse the material. If necessary, she added, textiles go into the black bin.
CalRecycle is also requiring cities to monitor contamination for organics recycling and recycling starting in January, using a three-strike system for residents and commercial businesses.
“Their goal is obviously to gain compliance and not have an enforcement triggered,” said Shapiro-Fox, adding that CalRecycle will start with cities who are struggling and don’t have proper ordinances, which doesn’t include LCF.
Lastly, she shared a guide on their website that residents can use to look up what items go in which bin, called the What Goes Where Guide. That can be found at athensservices.com/recycling-guide/.
“The Chamber is pleased to partner with the city to get the word out on this state-mandated process of organic materials recycling/composting efforts,” said Pat Anderson, Chamber of Commerce president/CEO. “Educating our citizens and being available to answer questions and concerns is a benefit to everyone.”
For residents who were not able to attend the town hall meetings and want general information on solid waste, they can visit cityoflcf.org/public-works/waste-disposal-recycling/.
Each trash hauler also provided designated websites to residents that pertain to LCF:
NASA Services: nasaservices.com/municipalities/la-canada-flintridge/
Republic Services: republicservices.com/municipality/la-canada-flintridge-ca
Athens Services: athensservices.com/residential-services/la-canada-flintridge/
First published in the November 2 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
