TO: Board of Directors
FROM: Steven Lederer - Manager
Upper Valley Waste Management Agency
REPORT BY: Amanda Griffis - Environmental Resource Specialist
SUBJECT: California Integrated Waste Management Act
RECOMMENDATION
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CALIFORNIA INTEGRATED WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT
DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION: Staff to provide an update on the status of activities relevant to the Act.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
WASTE REDUCTION, RECYCLING, HAZARDOUS WASTE PROGRAMS UPDATE
Hazardous Waste Collections - The fall hazardous waste (HW) collection event is scheduled for November 4 1:00pm - 4:00pm (business) and November 5 8:00am - 1:00pm (residential). The event will be held at the Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga. Upper Valley Waste Management Agency’s (UVWMA) HW collections contractor, Clean Earth, will collect and dispose of HW materials collected. Business will schedule appointments and pay disposal costs for their materials, residents are not charged a fee and are not required to schedule appointments.
As was done at the 2021 Calistoga event, electronic waste will be collected by Upper Valley Disposal & Recycling (UVD&R) and document shredding will be provided by a third-party vendor during the hazardous waste event. The electronic waste collection and document shredding are one of the three times per year events provided by UVD&R per the franchise agreement. The electronic waste collection and document shredding will be for residents only, not businesses. The max per drop off for hazardous waste remains unchanged as it is due to state law, 15 gallons or 125 pounds per vehicle. The maximum drop off for document shredding will be five banker boxes. There will be three stops at the event - hazardous waste, electronic waste and document shredding.
Sharps and Medications Disposal - The DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back day is October 29, 2022 10:00am - 2:00pm. UVWMA staff are coordinating with law enforcement and other jurisdictions in Napa County for Countywide participation in the event. Yountville Sheriff Department, St Helena Police Department and Calistoga Police Department will host collection sites. Sharps will be collected in addition to unused or unwanted medications. Sharps must be dropped off in puncture resistant containers, individual 1gal puncture resistant containers will be provided to collection sites in case the public brings in loose sharps or sharps in a non-puncture resistant container. Napa County Sheriff Department in conjunction with up valley law enforcement will coordinate the medication collections portion of the event. UVWMA will assist with dropping off large 38gal sharps collection bins to up valley sites and pay disposal costs for sharps disposed of at the hazardous waste facility. A countywide flyer is included as Attachment A - Countywide DEA Collection Event 2022.
Presentations - In August UVWMA invited member jurisdictions to a presentation by UVWMA staff to update jurisdiction staff on AB 1826 and SB 1383 activities. A copy of the presentation is included as Attachment B - UVWMA Member Update.
Two presentations on PFAS in recycled organic products like compost and biosolids from the Washington Oregon Recyclist Council are included as Attachment C - PFAS Presentations.
CalRecycle - UVWMA staff completed UVWMA’s CalRecycle electronic annual report in October. Typically the report would cover only the previous calendar year. However due to the SB 1383 regulations, the report format and timeline was adjusted to include SB 1383 reporting. The report submitted in October covered January 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022.
UVWMA staff are working to complete the annual hazardous waste report, due to CalRecycle on November 1, on hazardous waste collected and events conducted in calendar year 2021.
In July, all UVWMA member jurisdictions received a notice of MORe Program Implementation Gaps from CalRecycle. MORe is an acronym for AB 1826 Mandatory Organics Recycling, which requires all commercial entities who produce two cubic yards or more of solid waste per week to recycle organic material. It also requires multifamily dwellings with five or more units ensure landscape trimmings and green waste is composted. The notice from CalRecycle stated the program deficiency is a high level of noncompliance with compost separation. UVWMA is aware that many, if not all, jurisdictions in California received the same notice of implementation gaps. UVMWA submitted the required plan to CalRecycle address the program gaps. A copy of one of the implementation gaps notices is included as Attachment D - MORe Implementation Gaps Napa County and the action plan provided to CalRecycle is included as Attachment E - MORe Action Plan Upper Valley Waste Management Agency. UVWMA and UVD&R will be working together to accomplish tasks outlined in the action plan throughout the remainder of calendar year 2022. Currently there are 564 commercial businesses and multi family properties who are required to recycle organics and 276 appear they are not currently recycling organics.
SB 1383 Implementation - UVWMA has met organic product procurement targets for calendar year 2022. A total of 1,823.8 cubic yards of compost was distributed to interested jurisdictions, residents, wineries and non-profits by UVD&R. UVWMA will pay for the cost of compost distributed. Staff will provide an update on the total cost at a future meeting. 2022 compost procurement will be funded by SB 1383 grant funding received from CalRecycle earlier this year.
There are 7,104 residential accounts up valley, of those 838 do not have compost carts and appear to be out of compliance with SB 1383. In November, UVD&R will send letters to these residential accounts notifying them of the need to comply with SB 1383 and asking they call UVD&R to request their compost cart.
UVWMA and UVD&R continue to work together to bring commercial accounts up valley into compliance with SB 1383. In October a notice of noncompliance will be sent in the mail to non-compliant accounts who generate two cubic yards or more of solid waste per week (in conjunction with MORe AB 1826 notice). UVWMA and UVD&R continue to reach out individually via phone, email and site visit to non-compliant accounts to provide education and assistance with meeting organics recycling requirements.
Throughout the summer, UVMWA and UVD&R worked with the Cities of St Helena and Calistoga and the Town of Yountville to ensure all jurisdiction owned buildings are compliant with compost recycling requirements. Assistance provided included site visits, internal bins and signs, trainings and updating free services from UVD&R at member jurisdiction owned buildings.
UVWMA continues to collaborate with Napa County, City of Napa and City of American Canyon on countywide food recovery efforts, with Napa County taking the lead. UVWMA recently met with Napa County and the City of Napa to discuss current challenges with SB 1383 required food recovery planning efforts and how to address the challenges. Napa County will be reaching to CalRecycle for a potential delay in due date to February 28, 2023 on the required implementation schedule to address deficiencies in food recovery capacity, which is currently due November 28. The next priority step is to vet and confirm the list of Tier One and Tier Two mandated food donors throughout Napa County, provided by contractor Abound Food Care in June. This step will allow staff to better assess the needed infrastructure for food recovery when all mandated donors are participating.
SB 1383 requires jurisdictions meet container contamination minimization requirements. One way to meet these requirements is by conducting route reviews of all hauler routes for prohibited container contaminants once per year. Within routes, containers may be randomly selected along the route for further inspection and enough containers must be inspected in to order to adequately determine overall compliance. This further inspection is typically called “lid flips”. Lid flips were conducted along residential routes in September, plans for commercial route reviews are currently under discussion. Routes for review were broken up by jurisdtion, there were four sets of routes to review up valley. The number of lid flips for each jurisdiction was determined by a calculation method in advance. The number of residential customers inspected up valley included: 30 in unincorporated County, 25 in Yountville, 30 in St Helena and 25 in Calistoga. Addresses were selected in advance and there were back up plans in case carts were not out at pre-selected addresses. Lid flips were done in the evening the day before service day. All three carts (trash, recycle, compost) were checked for various types of contaminates. If contaminates were found, an “oops” tag was left on the cart noting what was found and where those items should go. If more than 10% of contamination was found, a violation tag was left in addition to the oops tag, the cart was turned around to notify drivers to not empty the cart and the resident was asked to clean up the contaminates. Overall UVD&R staff were able to inspect 248 residential carts, only 32 were not emptied due to more than 10% contamination and 108 were properly sorted (no oops tag left). UVD&R experienced a challenge of households not having all three carts out, which lessened the number of compost and recycling carts inspected in comparison to trash. UVWMA and UV&R are currently discussing if further residential reviews are needed to meet the standards of the regulations. Included is Attachment F - Route Reviews, with photos of route reviews and a draft table breaking down the findings during the reviews.
Zero Waste Event Support - UVWMA staff have created and made available a Request for Zero Waste Event Support application. The purpose of the form is to request from UVWMA a one-time reimbursement of up to $250 for efforts relating to making events that are free and open to the public zero or low waste. Reimbursements for the following items will be considered: temporary recycling and/or compost service, temporary bins for waste sorting stations, clear bags for recycling or compostable bags for compost, compostable service ware and signs for bins. More detail is available on the application and it is included as Attachment G - UVWMA Request for Zero Waste Event Support.
UVWMA received the first application for zero waste event support in August, for Up Valley Family Center’s Back to School Night in Calistoga. Up Valley Family Center received a reimbursement for recycling and compost service and bins for waste sorting stations at their event. There were approximately 1,300 community members who attended the event. 205 pounds of organics, 30 pounds of recyclables and 41 pounds of trash were produced at the event, for a diversion rate of 85%.
Recycling Events - Free tire recycling events were held in the spring at Pacific Union College (PUC) and Clover Flat Landfill (CFL), 665 tires were collected for recycling at PUC and 910 tires were collected for recycling at CFL. Funding for the events is through a grant from CalRecycle, managed by Napa County Planning, Building and Environmental Services Department. Due to the success of the event at CFL, another tire recycling event is being coordinated for a date to be determined in November at CFL. Details on the event will be provided at a future meeting and will be posted on UVD&R’s website.
The Napa County Agricultural Commissioner’s ag chemical container recycling day will take place on October 20, 2022 8:00am - 2:00pm at the Calistoga Corp Yard located at 4410 Silverado Trail North, Calistoga. More details on the event can be found at www.countyofnapa.org/AgCom/.
FISCAL & STRATEGIC PLAN IMPACT
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Is there a Fiscal Impact? |
No |
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINATION: The proposed action is not a project as defined by 14 California Code of Regulations 15378 (State CEQA Guidelines) and therefore CEQA is not applicable.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
None