MARINA — Although the dumpster fire that was 2020 is finally over, actual trash is still piling up, worrying local officials.
More garbage is contaminating recycling bins and residential garbage bins are filling up more quickly. If those trends continue, garbage rates will have to increase.
“It’s a big problem and a big, bad step backward,” said Ted Terrasas, sustainability coordinator for the city of Monterey.
Residential garbage is piling up faster as people spend their days at home generating more waste than they used to, often in the form of packaging from online orders and takeout containers. Additionally, the nation saw a surge in decluttering last spring with many people cooped up due to shelter-in-place restrictions and needing to make room to work from home.
While Marie Kondo may have been proud, much of that clutter ended up somewhere else where it didn’t spark joy: the recycling facility at Monterey Regional Waste Management District.
Contamination in the District’s single-stream recycling increased from 22% in 2019 to 30% in 2020, according to a waste characterization study performed by SCS Engineers last summer.
“That was upsetting,” said Zoë Shoats, director of communications at the District. “We’d like our contamination rate much lower — ideally right around the 10% rate.”
The increased strain on waste management could lead to rising garbage rates for residents, said Shoats.
“If we have more time that we’re operating the facility and more time that we’re sorting through the recyclables and contamination — all of that comes at a cost to our district and ultimately, through the garbage bill that everyone pays,” she said.
Since COVID-19 was such an anomaly, the district has decided to absorb the cost of the increased contamination for 2020 and not pass it onto their ratepayers, said Shoats, but if the contamination continues, rates could increase.
The prime offenders
Shoats said four main types of contaminants were particularly prevalent — and problematic — at the District this year: organic waste (typically food), textiles, film plastics and batteries.
As the spring-cleaning craze hit Monterey, the District bore the brunt of aggressive pantry cleanouts, said Shoats. Among the normal recyclable goods, workers found metal cans and glass jars that were still full of food.
“You can imagine what would happen at our facility if we get a whole jar of pickles in the truck,” said Shoats. “The pickle jar lands in the truck and gets compacted—and then there’s pickle juice and pickles that can contaminate the other recyclables such as paper and cardboard,” she said, which renders those items unrecyclable.
Closet tidying also sent higher numbers of contaminating textile items like clothing into recycling bins.
Gently used clothing should be donated to a thrift store or be sent to a company that specializes in recycling fabrics (companies like Madewell and Blue Jeans Go Green host denim recycling programs). Otherwise, says Shoats, those old blue jeans need to go in the garbage, not the recycling.
Film plastics — basically any lightweight malleable plastics like plastic wrap, grocery bags and those little airbags that pad your online orders— are not recyclable in California. And as for batteries? Even though they may be “dead” and unable to power your remote control, they still present a fire hazard to the facility and its workers said Shoats.
Residents should contact their local haulers for how to properly dispose of batteries in their area.
Single-use personal protective equipment like masks and gloves should always go in the garbage and never in the recycling.
According to Terrasas, recycling contamination isn’t just a problem in individual residential bins. Since the pandemic, he said he’s seen more illegal dumping of large items like furniture and mattresses at the community recycling drop-off near the Monterey Fire Station.
Although that drop-off location has been serving the community for decades, it’s in danger of being shut down because of recurring problems with contamination and over-filling.
“We’re really asking people to take very close care of that box because that’s not something we want to have happen,” he said.
Both Shoats and Terrasas agreed widespread lapses in recycling etiquette probably came from everyone thinking the same thing: that the pandemic would be over by now.
It’s easy to think, “Oh, you know, I’m just going to do this once”– referring to using plastic grocery bags or placing lots of online orders — “because this isn’t going to go on for very long,” said Terrasas. But since the end is nowhere in sight, he suggested we stop thinking of these new habits as temporary, and recommit to living as sustainably as we can during the pandemic.
“Now that we’re living with it long-term, there are ways that we can adapt our lifestyle back to some of those habits that we used previously or adapt those habits to live a life that is closer to zero waste,” said Shoats.
There are several ways residents can move closer to zero waste while adhering to local shelter-in-place guidelines.
Most grocery stores are now allowing shoppers to bring their own reusable bags again. For those that don’t, Shoats suggests skipping the plastic bags altogether and loading groceries directly from the cart into your car, making sure to thoroughly wipe them down.
For the inevitable online order, making mindful purchases can go a long way, said Terrasas. He suggested grouping orders to be shipped all at once and prioritizing services that use minimal or fully recyclable packing materials.
Terrasas said part of the recycling contamination problem comes from the fact that as people are spending more time at home, they’re generating more trash than their bins can carry, so extra garbage ends up in the recycling bins.
“People are trying to put a square peg in a round hole,” said Terrasas. “They’re going based on their old container sizes and realizing, ‘Oh, I don’t have enough garbage space,’” so they might throw more things in the recycling than they normally would.
“If it’s garbage, put in the garbage,” said Terrasas. “If it’s recyclable and clean, put it in a blue bin,” Terrasas suggests ordering a bigger garbage can or more recycling if necessary.
And then, of course, keeping contaminating garbage out of the recycling. Sometimes knowing what’s recyclable is half the battle.
“Recycling in general in our country is incredibly confusing,” said Shoats.
Tom Parola, who owns Monterey City Disposal Services, a waste hauling service that serves both the city and the county of Monterey agrees.
“Things that we could recycle at one point in time we can’t recycle anymore,” he said. “And it’s hard when you deal with a customer base and say ‘Hey, by the way, I know I told you last week, you could put this in there, but this week you cannot.’”
To make it easier, Shoats said to focus on what should go in the recycling (glass, paper, cardboard, metal cans and plastic bottles and containers) and leaving everything else out.
“If you’re in doubt, throw it out,” she said.
The Waste Management District has several resources on its website to help residents stay up-to-date on how and what to recycle (mrwmd.org and whatgoeswhere.info).
