Food waste collection can be a major hurdle for communities hoping to recycle curbside. But might the real problem be not the what, but the how? Is it time to think outside the trash can?
Let’s ponder this a minute.
Waste 360 recently spotlighted grassroots recycling as a viable alternative to mainstream systems. The article pointed out the actions of municipalities that, years ago, may have been too eager to turn successful, local recycling efforts over to “big waste haulers.”
The entrepreneurial efforts and business models of food waste collection outfits like CompostNow, NOPE, and Compost Cab seem to be working in their respective service regions. Instead of disrupting existing “Trash Day” collection systems and practices to include source-segregated food waste, these types of operations bypass the big trash truck with a service built on local-centric collection models that are meeting with success in multiple jurisdictions.
Commercial composters, both large and small, have already demonstrated profitability in providing direct services to high- and low-volume waste generators, too. This success certainly proves that bypassing conventional collection systems is viable.
Looking at the world’s most successful bottle/container bills, we see return and recovery systems totally divorced from trash collection with capture rates approaching 100 percent. While bottlers and other manufacturers of containerized products have been known to fight these types of programs, deposit and return systems do work. And they appear to work best when deposit amounts encourage those returns.
So, as the U.S. scrambles to rebuild and reshape its recycling infrastructure in the wake of the China debacle, could the long-abandoned local route to resource recovery of recyclables – residential food waste included – actually offer the better solution?
Maybe, the decades-old struggle to integrate recycling within a system designed for mass disposal indicates the entire approach is flawed. Closely associating food waste, plastics, etcetera with trash as a first step to recovery means recyclables must be rescued from the waste stream before recovery can take place. Is this logical? Is it efficient?
Adding methane capture systems to landfills in an attempt to neutralize the damaging impacts of anaerobically-degrading organics just adds complications and expense for managing a material that shouldn’t be landfilled. Similarly, for plastics and other recyclables, the better solution may lie in diversion at the source, not the transfer station.
Minus putrescibles/recyclables, curbside collection of the real trash might be reduced to once a month (or less). This disposal stream would be much, much smaller than current volumes … and clean. With lower fill rates, existing landfills should last longer and cost less to manage, too.
When recyclables are funneled through and filtered by trash systems, does it make diversion more difficult than it needs to be? Have we been going about recycling all wrong?
What are your ideas for getting recycling right?