San Diego’s initiative to encourage organic waste recycling is facing significant challenges, as residents are increasingly misusing green bins intended for organic waste.
This misuse has reached a point where the city has resorted to hiring teams to manually sort through truckloads of organic waste to extract non-organic items.
Kelly Terry, a spokeswoman for the city’s Environmental Services Department, stated that the goal of this two-week pilot program is to test whether manual sorting can provide a cost-effective solution for improving compost quality.
Recent findings reveal a shocking array of inappropriate items being thrown into green bins, including car parts, gas tanks, and bottles.
These contaminants not only hinder the composting process but also pose a risk of damaging the landfill’s sorting equipment, leading to operational delays.
Despite these alarming issues, the city has not yet quantified the extent of the contamination.
The city’s green bin program was rolled out in 2023, initially reaching 200,000 San Diegans, but adoption has not been without its hurdles.
A year into the program, Voice of San Diego reported that the city opted not to penalize residents for incorrectly using green bins, a situation that appears to have persisted.
While the city is currently in the process of developing enforcement measures for improper green bin usage, Terry did not provide any specific details on what these plans would entail.
For the time being, the city is left to manage waste contamination independently.
In a surprising twist, the city’s waste mitigation efforts have involved a team of formerly unhoused men who are engaged in the manual sorting process as part of a collaboration with the East County Transitional Living Center.
This organization focuses on helping individuals reenter the workforce by equipping them with job skills through various work programs.
Julie Hayden, CEO of the center, explained that the men involved in the program commit to a year of training, which typically leads to permanent housing and employment.
However, the city was unable to disclose the costs of this two-week trial program.
Hayden mentioned that the funds would contribute to the men’s program, likely proving more economical than hiring additional city staff for sorting tasks.
Earl Davis, one of the participants involved in the waste sorting, remarked on the bizarre items discovered in the green bin waste, including a toilet seat and even a live turtle.
“It looks like people are just using their green bin like a trash can,” Davis noted.
Waste collection trucks arrived at the landfill’s Greenery, unloading their loads for sorting.
The team worked diligently, using pickers to extract non-organic items such as bottles and pizza boxes before a bulldozer rearranged the remaining organic waste.
Visiting the sorting area, one could see a stark contrast between the piles that had been cleaned and those that had not.
Heaps of plastic garbage bags, Styrofoam, clothing, and bottles were intermingled with palm fronds and fruit peels in the unsorted sections.
Adjacent to these chaotic heaps awaited the next step in the composting process: the grinder.
Unfortunately, earlier that morning, the grinder malfunctioned due to a piece of metal that had been improperly disposed of in the green bin, which compromised its mechanism.
Lalo Hernandez, a city equipment technician, explained that he has had to remove various pieces of machinery from the waste.
“When this machine is going, it sounds like you’re standing next to a train.
So for that ‘clunk’ (of the trashed metal) to outdo the sound of this machine, that’s pretty bad,” Hernandez stated.
Following the grinding process, the waste is then pushed into larger rows for microbial activity to begin breaking it down, generating internal temperatures that can soar to around 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
This heat is crucial for eliminating harmful pests and diseases within the compost.
A combination of insects, fungi, and bacteria is responsible for further breaking down the organic material.
Eventually, the compost undergoes additional sifting and grinding, resulting in a high-quality, nutrient-rich product that the city sells or offers free to residents.
There is also a mid-quality compost that still contains some debris and may be used for erosion control, while any remaining contaminated material is sent to the landfill.
Jen Winfrey, assistant director of the city’s Environmental Services Department, emphasized that most residents are responsible when using their green bins.
“The city had a pretty mature green collection program.
People who had those bins are very used to it and keep it pretty clean.
It’s just this massive rollout and it takes time,” Winfrey stated.
The Miramar Greenery has operated since 1986, focusing initially on yard waste and food waste from restaurants, where controls and training were provided to ensure proper disposal.
However, a new California law mandates cities to minimize food waste, which has necessitated the expansion of green bin services to additional homes and apartments since 2022.
Sands noted that the increase in contamination was anticipated given the rapid expansion of the program, which makes it challenging to ensure proper waste disposal from individual households.
“We aren’t surprised that contamination went up.
That was to be expected.
It’s harder just because we don’t have control over every house,” Sands explained.
image source from：voiceofsandiego
