Sep 7, 2008 11:50 am US/Pacific
San Jose To Consider New Commercial Waste Program
SAN JOSE (BCN) ―
The San Jose City Council will consider a recommendation Tuesday to change the city's commercial waste system to an exclusive franchise program similar in design to the residential system.
Currently there is an open, free-market system by which business owners and operators shop for garbage and recycling services.
Among other complaints, some businesses have said they cannot get adequate recycling services at reasonable rates, and the services and rates are inconsistent.
The Transportation and Environmental Committee will recommend to the council at Tuesday's meeting a move toward providing to businesses the same suite of services available to residents.
"We would like to achieve rate equity around those services and to achieve zero waste," said Christine Wolter, program manager.
The city's "Green Vision" and zero-waste commitment of a 75 percent landfill diversion rate by 2013 has led to the city making such changes as providing through a pilot program compostable plates, cups and utensils at public events such as the recent Tapestry Arts Festival, and last month's downtown Jazz Festival.
In a spring outreach to the business community in which about 500 businesses in the city responded, the survey found that more than a third of the businesses were willing to pay 5 to 10 percent more to have services such as sorting of garbage and recycling.
"The feedback was that most companies don't want to shop around for garbage services," Wolter said.
Businesses cited lack of technical assistance, difficulty in sorting materials, cost, and space as reasons for barriers against recycling.
The survey also found that 68 percent of respondents were in favor of the city establishing a mandate of minimum levels of recycling.
Redesigning the commercial solid waste system would include narrowing the field of haulers down to about two or three exclusive franchises, from about 20 current haulers, similar to the way the residential waste program is set up.
The redesign would not affect construction and demolition waste processing where the recycling rate is considerably higher than in commercial areas such as retail, restaurant, or others in the business sector which was found to have a poor recycling rate.
The council would decide in December if the system redesign should move forward, and it would take until 2012 to get the new system in place, Wolter said.
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