Should More Berkeley Businesses Be Composting?

That broccoli stem or pizza crust left over at the end of a meal may look like garbage, but it’s actually a valuable resource. At least, that’s what waste management experts in the county of Alameda and the city of Berkeley want you to think.

According to Robin Plutchok, program manager at the county-wide initiative Stopwaste.org, about 44 percent of the commercial waste stream consists of food scraps, compostable paper towels and plates and other organic waste.

Currently trucks haul green waste from about 300 businesses in Berkeley, according to the city’s public works department, diverting over 6500 tons of green waste each year from the landfill. Plutchok said the city has a good scorecard. “They do have one of the most robust commercial food scrap collection programs in the county,” she said.

But with an estimated 140,000 total tons of waste being collected at the city transfer station each year, that number is a drop in the bucket.

Gary Foss, company manager of Recology East Bay, said he’s eager to change that equation. Recology already contracts with the city of Berkeley to compost all the city’s green waste, but Foss said Recology has the capacity to handle much more at its facilities in Vernalis, CA, and elsewhere.

Under current statute, however, Recology cannot solicit commercial accounts in the city of Berkeley. “Berkeley is unique,” said Foss. “It’s one of the very few municipal waste collection systems that still operate as a public entity.”

Instead, Foss and Recology have partnered with some departments of , a state institution, to collect and haul away its green waste in a deal that includes advertising spots for Recology’s message during games.

Mike Huff, assistant athletic director of facilities, said they began by collecting recyclable cans and bottles on football game days, which can draw a crowd of 60,000 spectators. By working with their own staff and Recology, said Huff, they were able to slash the amount of waste generated during a single game in half.

UC Berkeley's athletics program has expanded its waste diversion to include food scraps and paper towel composting. “The paper towels is the one that boggles my mind,” said Huff. “I never dreamed that we could reduce the waste stream through paper towels.”

Now Foss, who worked as assistant city manager of San Leandro and in local government for many years, wants to craft a public-private partnership with the city of Berkeley. “It’s not our intention to displace employees,” he said. Rather, he thinks Recology’s logistics expertise can help increase the number of Berkeley businesses who participate in green waste recycling. “We want to augment and supplement and expand.”

Foss said he’s made his interest known to the city, but so far, there are no plans to pursue his idea.

Complicating the picture is the city’s budget shortfall. The city manager’s proposed budget for fiscal years 2012 and 2013, which has yet to be adopted, includes a one-time diversion fee surcharge and an increase in refuse collection rates.

“The [refuse collection] rate doesn’t cover the cost,” said the city’s public information officer, Mary Kay Clunies-Ross. “It’s a constant source of questions. We want to provide a high level of service while keeping it affordable, especially in this economy.”

The fee the city charges for collecting green waste is 20 percent less than the fee for collecting garbage.

For Tempe Minaga, owner of cost is only one factor. While Minaga said participating in the food scraps recycling program has saved her money on her garbage bill, she’s had to invest resources in training restaurant staff to separate food waste from other garbage. “It’s a constant vigilance,” she said. Her restaurant serves between 150 and 200 customers every day and has its garbage collected three times a week, Minaga said.

Smaller businesses can realize dramatic results. Chris Laramie, chef and owner of the intimate restaurant , says his restaurant produces only one small bin of trash every week now that they participate in food scrap recycling.

Dorothée Mitrani-Bell, owner of Restaurant, said what surprised her the most was the cost of the compost-friendly trash bags her restaurant uses to line the green waste bins. The bags can cost a quarter each, and Mitrani-Bell says they use about a dozen every day.

The trick, perhaps, is to help people see their food scraps as a worthy resource. “People think of it as garbage as opposed to something that has value,” said Miya Kitahara, a staff member of StopWaste.org. “It can be turned into something else that has value, that can be used again: soil.”

There are other ways to gain further utility from food scraps. Methane, known for clogging up the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas, is produced when food scraps decompose. That gas can be harvested and burned as fuel.

A two-year old program of the East Bay Municipal Utility District does just that. Food scraps are fed into a “digester” and the resultant methane is captured for use in plant operations. This facility, said Foss, is also capable of handling a greater volume of food scraps than is currently available.

“We’re all partners in it,” said Foss. “We can’t do it without help from our customers, and they can’t do it by themselves.”

Foss is optimistic that things will get easier and easier.

“You’re going to see technology that’s expensive now become affordable,” said Foss about the future of waste management.  “People will be willing to pay the price of disposing of waste materials.

This article was updated on May 17, 2011.

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