Recycling in Multifamily Dwellings

Case Studies

• City of Davis
• City of Malibu

City of Davis

Overview

Davis has a long history of successful recycling. Community recycling began in 1970 when a group of citizens began a newspaper drop-off recycling program. A local company, Davis Waste Removal (DWR), began curbside collection of newspapers in 1974.

Since the 1970s, Davis recycling efforts have grown to include curbside collection of the following material from single- and multifamily residences and businesses:

• Mixed paper.
• Glass.
• Aluminum cans, steel and tin cans (including empty aerosol cans).
• All resin #1 and #2 plastic containers.
• Corrugated cardboard.
• Yard debris.

The City of Davis and DWR have won numerous awards for their recycling programs. Citations include a 1992 City and State Environmental Achievement Recycling Award and a 1991 Merit Award from the California Department of Conservation’s Division of Recycling.

Davis first reached 50 percent waste diversion in 1996. The city is focusing on reducing disposal further through more recycling and waste prevention. In its reports, DWR does not separate tonnages of materials recycled, composted, and disposed from commercial and MFD properties. Data to calculate the city’s MFD recycling rate are not available.

Approximately half of the people in Davis live in apartments and condominium complexes. In 1989, the city recognized the need to include these residents in recycling programs. Davis passed an ordinance to ensure that MFD owners and managers provide their residents with recycling services and educational materials. The city’s apartment recycling program is one element of its "4R" program. The 4R program encourages city residents and businesses to reduce, reuse, recycle, and buy recycled-content products in order to reduce trash disposal.

Program Characteristics

The city contracts with Davis Waste Removal, Inc. to collect trash, recyclables, and yard debris within the city. DWR also operates a recycling drop-off and buyback center. The city bills MFD owners and/or management for sanitation services. Davis residents can also drop off recyclables at a drop-off center operated by Yolo County at the Yolo County Central Landfill. In addition, three State-certified, privately owned redemption centers are located in Davis. These centers redeem beverage containers with California Redemption Value.

DWR provides communal recycling service to residents of buildings and complexes with 10 or more units. Complexes use green 90-gallon wheeled carts for collection of recyclables. Most complexes use three carts-one for mixed paper, one for metal cans and glass, and one for plastics. DWR asks residents to flatten corrugated cardboard and place it next to the carts for collection. Collection schedules and frequency vary from complex to complex. Davis Waste Removal processes and markets collected recyclables at its own processing facility.

DWR collects yard debris weekly. Residents place brush, leaves, prunings, and weeds in loose piles near the curb. They must place grass clippings in paper or plastic bags. DWR delivers some collected yard debris to a local composting company and some to the county landfill for use as alternate daily cover.

In 1989 Davis passed an ordinance dealing with recycling at multifamily residences. The ordinance requires apartment complex owners and managers to set aside space for recycling. They must also submit a recycling collection site plan to the city public works department and inform new tenants about the city recycling program and the building’s collection sites. The ordinance requires “[t]o the extent possible, the [site] plans must comply with the goal of siting three (3) recycling carts within, or next to, each trash enclosure.”

Davis requires apartment complexes to distribute information about the city’s 4R program to residents of MFDs. The city provides complex owners and management with educational materials for distribution. In addition, the city targets those moving into the city for 4R program outreach. The city identifies new residents through new telephone service accounts and sends them its "Garbage Guide."

Costs, Economics, and Benefits

Davis bills MFD solid waste service accounts based on trash container volume and frequency of collection. MFD complexes can choose to use 90-gallon carts or dumpsters for trash collection. The fees include recycling and yard debris collection and range from $36.48 per month for weekly collection of one 90-gallon trash cart to $1,812.49 per month for collection of a 6-cubic-yard dumpster six times per week.

The City of Davis pays DWR a flat rate for collection of trash, recyclables, and yard debris. The city reimburses DWR for trash tip fees and allows the company to retain revenue from the sale of recyclables.

Davis maintains fees paid by solid waste customers in an enterprise fund. The city uses the fund for:

• Contract payments to DWR.
• Disposal tip fees.
• Contract oversight.
• Solid waste program planning.
• Reporting and administration.
• Billing.
• Special waste reduction programs (such as the Moveout Waste Reduction Program).
• Outreach efforts.

Challenges and Opportunities in Implementation

While Davis planned its MFD recycling program, many complex owners reported to the city that lack of space would be an obstacle to implementing the new program. The city worked closely with MFD management while developing the ordinances.

City staff visited every complex to help management site and plan recycling areas. The city included an exemption in its ordinance for complexes that could not site three recycling carts at each trash enclosure without eliminating or reducing

"[e]xisting trees or other significant landscaping features...and space currently designated for automobile or bicycle parking."

Because the city included MFD management in the planning process and assisted in program startup, all city MFD complexes implemented recycling programs.

Davis experiences high turnover in its MFDs at the end of August each year. The movers generate tons of material, much of it potentially reusable or recyclable. The city traditionally disposed this material.

In August 1999, Davis piloted its "Moveout Waste Reduction Program" to increase reuse and recycling of these materials. The program targeted 15 apartment complexes where tenants were vacating more than 600 units.

Program staff members asked movers to separate clothing, shoes, small household items, books, furniture, appliances, scrap metal, and corrugated cardboard from trash. Local charities and community organizations accepted reusable items. Employees collected broken furniture, scrap metal, wood, and cardboard for recycling. As a result of the program, participating complexes reduced trash disposal by eight tons over the previous year.

City of Malibu

Overview

Malibu is a new city east of Los Angeles. It is sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains east of Los Angeles. The city’s 13,000 residents live on a strip of land 27 miles long, ranging from one to eight miles wide. The city was incorporated in 1991.

The city has approximately 1,000 MFD units. Most complexes consist of narrow low-rise buildings located on hillsides. A few complexes are townhouse-style, where each unit has a garage and curb access. Approximately 60 percent of MFD units are individually owned condominiums.

Prior to the city establishing mandatory recycling ordinances in 1995, very few Malibu residents recycled. The city achieved an 18 percent waste diversion rate in 1995, even though the ordinances were only in effect for a few months. The diversion rate increased to 31 percent in 1996. (The city does not track tonnages of single-, multifamily, and commercial materials separately.) The city’s solid waste consultant estimates that nearly 100 percent of households participate in the recycling program.

Financial incentives also support MFD waste reduction. The two private haulers operating within the city charge variable rates for trash based on volume.

Program Characteristics

Private companies offer all solid waste collection services in Malibu. The city requires the companies to be permitted. The permits costs $250 per year. Two private companies, Los Virgenes Disposal and GI Rubbish, are permitted to provide MFD solid waste services in Malibu. The companies compete in an open market for MFD customers.

City ordinances require haulers to provide recycling and yard debris collection services to their MFD trash customers. They also require MFD residents to source-separate designated recyclables and yard debris from trash. The city believed that by requiring all residents to participate in the recycling and yard debris programs, haulers would achieve economies of scale that would make their purchases of recycling equipment worthwhile.

The ordinances specify the materials haulers must accept for recycling. Haulers must provide sufficient container capacity for all generated recyclables, and they must deliver recyclables to a processing facility. The ordinance requires waste audits upon request of the city as well as reports on the tonnage of materials collected.

The MFD recycling program requirements became effective June 26, 1995; the yard debris requirements, on September 30 of that year. The city reserves the right to revoke the permit of a company failing to comply with the requirements of the ordinances (but had not done so as of March 2000).

Materials designated as recyclable by Malibu’s ordinance include the following:

• Newspapers.
• Magazines.
• Cardboard.
• Telephone directories.
• High-grade paper, glossy paper, envelopes, junk mail.
• Glass food and beverage containers.
• Aluminum and tin cans.
• Foil and pie plates.
• Bi-metal cans.
• Resin #1 and #2 plastic bottles and #4 plastic shrink wrap and bags.
• Metal coat hangers.

Residents commingle all recyclables in a single container.

The type of solid waste services haulers provide to MFD residents varies with the type of building. Residents of townhouse-style apartments, where each unit has a garage and curb access, receive the same trash and recycling services offered to residents of single-family detached homes. They pay the hauler directly for the services. Haulers provide each household with a 64-gallon recycling cart, a 95-gallon yard debris cart, and a choice of trash carts. Residents of other MFDs use variously sized communal trash roll-offs, 3-cubic yard roll-offs for commingled recyclables, and 95-gallon yard debris carts.

Both the city and trash haulers participate in recycling education efforts. The city has a Web site at www.ci.malibu.ca.us/recycle.htm that includes a list of materials accepted for recycling, reuse options for items not accepted, and composting information. The public can read text of the city council resolutions establishing mandatory recycling and yard debris programs.

City staff members also perform recycling outreach at schools and community events. The city’s permitted hauling companies have promoted recycling through distribution of informational fliers, inserting leaflets in trash bills, and providing materials for homeowners’ associations and MFD complex management to distribute to individual households.

The Malibu Department of Public Works is responsible for overseeing solid waste planning, reporting, hauler oversight, and public education. The Department hires a consultant, Solid Waste Solutions, to perform these tasks.

Costs, Economics, and Benefits

Malibu does not regulate fees haulers may charge for provision of trash and recycling services to MFDs. The city limits the cost of yard debris collection to no more than $5 per month per cart. Residents in townhouse-style apartments can choose among six trash service levels.

The hauler, GI Rubbish, charges various fees for its services. They range from $18.10 per month for weekly collection of one 32-gallon trash container to $41.45 per month for two 95-gallon trash containers. These rates include collection of one 95-gallon yard debris container and one 64-gallon recycling container.

Los Virgenes charges similar rates and offers the same service level options. At other MFDs, complex management choose trash dumpster size and collection frequency. Fees the haulers charge for these services are proprietary and therefore not available, but they increase according to container volume and collection frequency.

The city generates revenue for solid waste programs through a city surcharge on trash. As of March 2000, the surcharge was set at 60 cents per month for each household receiving trash can service and 50 cents per cubic yard for other trash. The surcharge generates approximately $100,000 in revenues per year. The city deposits the funds in a restricted fund for solid waste programs. The funds support consulting fees and other waste diversion programs such as household hazardous waste collection and rubberized asphalt.

Challenges and Opportunities in Implementation

When Malibu’s mandatory recycling ordinance was first established, the city received complaints from some residents who did not want to participate. The city sent these residents copies of the new ordinances and letters explaining why the ordinances were necessary. In general, residents have embraced the new programs and nearly all participate in them.

Malibu experienced some scavenging of recyclables, an activity prohibited by the municipal code. The problem has decreased along with commodity prices. If individuals report scavenging of recyclables, the city sends police officers to the site. Although the city has the authority to arrest and/or fine scavengers, the police have never prosecuted anyone for doing so.

Table of Contents | Innovations Home | Library Home

Last updated: December 28, 2007