GREEN Reactor: Essay Bee

Is it something like a Spelling Bee, but for composition? Over the 4+ years since I was appointed, I invariably draw the quizzical response “Essay Bee???” when I mention a meeting of the SAB – better known as Key West’s Sustainability Advisory Board.  Then, just the word ”Sustainability” will often induce eye glaze-over. Or sudden realization of being late for an appointment.  Or a jump to the next article in the newspaper….

Still here?  Okay, let’s see if I can pull off a discussion of Key West’s SAB that will engage you, even if you’re not especially enamored of wonkish infrastructure talk.  The SAB is involved with far too many City issues to cover it all in one column, but I’ll kick off some SAB talk today with two words: Smelly trash!

The SAB is behind the new practice that some in this town think is folly: once-a-week trash & garbage pick-up.  Yes, if you’re one of the irate “don’t they know how bad it will smell” people commenting in the Voice about how stupid this is, I’m one of those where you can direct your ire. But I hope you will look at this background first.

Ever since the SAB was formed over four years ago, waste management (both the practice AND the company) has been on our agenda.  Key West’s horrendous recycling rate and lack of concern for disposal of organic waste (clippings, fronds, branches, weeds, etc) wastes resources, adds to overloaded landfills and costs us big hauling money (it’s our City’s biggest single contract).   But nothing about it was changing, the contract was routinely being renewed for 5 years at a time.

It’s really hard to get the City to change its practices – or to even study themselves HOW practices could be changed.  So the SAB pressed the City to bring in an expert to study our waste hauling and make recommendations for how we can improve that mess. Eventually we hired Kessler Consulting to do just that, and with the SAB’s urging, Kessler’s recommendations have been adopted as City policy.

The key recommendation – one that was hardest for some commissioners to accept — was to put the hauling contract out to bid rather than continue with the current cozy relationship.  The bid would have to be under a new more comprehensive RFP (“request for proposals”) that would break the logjam we’ve been operating under. The existing Waste Management Corp contract runs out in a couple of years and to prepare for that day, development of a well-crafted RFP (monitored by the SAB) is in the works.

However we’re under a State mandate that we improve our recycling rate from a measly 7% or so up to a 2020 goal of 75% — so we have to start moving in that direction right away. Remember, in a few years we’re expected to be recycling over HALF of all our waste!  That means that we REQUIRE larger containers to hold all of that. With SAB endorsement, the City worked to find the best cost possible to quickly introduce large rolling recycling bins.  And now as we speak every home in the city is having one delivered.  By the end of this month at least that part of the plan will be in place.

Up to now we have hauled all of our palm fronds and other organic waste off island in the same Waste Management trucks with the rest of our garbage — over 150 miles up onto the mainland.  There was no process in place to even START to separate this out and make better use of it. Burning or burying this organic material in a landfill is a gross waste of a useful resource (not to mention the environmental impacts).  The SAB endorsed the move to separate out that material, and to ultimately find a practical local (or nearby) way to compost it, to save the major transportation cost and impacts.  Local composting will come later (it’s HARD to acquire the land needed) but the separation had to start NOW.

So we end up with three different “streams”:

1. Our recycling in a big blue rolling container
2. Our organic “yard” waste in containers of your choosing
3. The rest of our household waste in our old green container, which will soon be far larger than we need since all the recyclables (which should already be about HALF) have been separated, And those leaves and big branches that filled it up are now being handled separately, too.

With all this trash containment, the main impetus for “twice a week” pickup goes away.  Sure it was “easier” to just chuck it all in one bin and stick it out by the street twice a week.  But running those trucks through all of the neighborhoods twice a week is expensive, polluting and noisy.  It makes perfect sense to send them through just once a week now, and the SAB endorses this new practice (which starts at the end of this month).

A quick rundown of some of the counter-arguments:

• Obviously the trash will get stinky.
  This may be “obvious” to arm-chair quarterbacks who get off on complaining in the Voice, but the fact is that once-a-week is already in place all over America (places just as hot we are, many much hotter) and it hasn’t proven to be a significant issue.  Perhaps a few people never bother to try to contain their more-likely-to-stink garbage, but most of us take the small effort to seal up the funky stuff.  Unwrapped stuff for three or four days in the can with the lid down shouldn’t be an issue.  If you know it’s going to be five or six days until your next pick-up, wrap it a little tighter. On average, this will only be a tiny fraction of what’s being contained city-wide at any particular time.
• The can will overflow in a week.
  Oh really?  96 gallons of trash in a week with no recycling or branches in there?  Are you one of the ones who refuse to be bothered with recycling (so it’s all in one can)?  Get with the program, dude, and you won’t have an overflow problem.  (If you genuinely have a really big family who has lots and lots of trash for some unusual reason, the City will work with you on getting another can.)
• The REAL problem is that businesses don’t have to recycle
  Businesses have their own waste management contracts to deal with. Residential is run by the City, so that’s where it can act directly (as it is doing now).  But business recycling is being pursued by the SAB, too — so please don’t use this as an excuse to shirk your own responsibility.

Ran out of space again…  I’ll have more to say about the SAB in the future.  But don’t just take my word for any of this, please drop by our SAB meetings on the second Thursday (5:30pm) of each month at Old City Hall.  Be sure to check the City website for meeting confirmation and agendas.  See you there!