Gilroy
– A new plan for garbage collection promises fewer hassles for
Gilroy residents and tougher times for scavengers.
Gilroy – A new plan for garbage collection promises fewer hassles for Gilroy residents and tougher times for scavengers.
City leaders have given the green light to South Valley Disposal & Recycling to pursue plans that will reduce the need to sort recyclables by simply mixing them in a single bin.
The convenience of “single-stream recycling” is fast making it the standard in the trash industry, said South Valley’s General Manager Phil Couchee.
Most residents currently have a bucket for trash, another for yard and food waste, and two blue bins – one for mixed paper, newspapers and fibers; the other for aluminum, glass, plastic and other containers.
“Right now there are two separate 18-gallon blue bins (for recycling),” Couchee explained. “Now that material will be transported to a facility where the material is separated out into individual commodities by a conveyor system, rather than having a resident separate it at curbside. Everyone will get a single 64-gallon recycling bucket.”
Residents will continue to have two other buckets for mixed household trash and for yard and food waste.
Couchee told councilmen this week that cities that have adopted the “single stream” program have seen big increases in household recycling.
“This certainly deters the scavengers,” Couchee added, “because now everything is mixed. (Otherwise), a scavenger could go up to a bin where everything is sorted and grab all the good stuff. Now they have to go through everything.”
The advent of new sorting technology has made the single stream program more common in recent years, said Couchee, pointing to San Jose as one of numerous Bay Area cities that have adopted the practice.
The county areas outside of Gilroy and Morgan Hill could also benefit from single-stream recycling, said Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage, who would like to see the county also switch to the program.
“The same garbage companies that service the city service the county,” Gage said. “I think it’s a good idea because a lot of people don’t bother to recycle and it gets tossed into a landfill. You don’t save the land or the money off the recycling.”
To implement the program in Gilroy, South Valley will have to purchase seven new garbage trucks outfitted to work with the new bins.
To finance the new trucks, the average homeowner can expect to see 67 cents tacked on to the current monthly garbage bill of $23.20, said Couchee.
Assuming councilmen give final approval to the plan in coming months, those costs would be spread across an entire year.
The first half of the increase will be reflected on bills starting July 2007; the second half will be added July 2008.
At an informal policy meeting this week, Gilroy’s seven council members were thrilled by Couchee’s sales pitch.
“I think it’s a great thing,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said after the meeting. “We’ve had lots of citizens that have talked and asked about it. Hopefully it will increase recycling and get us closer to the numbers we are mandated to adhere to.
“We have to recycle 50 percent each year. We’re at 58 percent now, but the more recycling the better. Instead of burying things underground, let’s recycle them.”
If council grants final approval, the single stream system will go into effect January 2008. Residents do not have to worry about purchasing new bins.
South Valley will remove the old blue bins and replace them with a single recycling bucket.
