February 03, 2010, 8:30PM
After five years of delays, Portland is ready to try out collecting food waste from residents at curbside for recycling into compost, addressing the biggest glob left in the city's garbage.
Including dinner scrapings, meat, egg shells, coffee grounds and other food scraps in the curbside yard debris cart isn't a revolutionary concept. Seattle and San Francisco are doing it; so is Dubuque, Iowa.
The finished compost benefits farms and wineries. Recycling food waste and wastepaper, which makes up just over a fifth of the region's garbage, prevents it from stewing in a landfill, where it produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
But the city is planning to punt garbage collection from weekly to once every two weeks to help cover the extra cost of picking up the food-and-yard-waste cart weekly. Based on other cities' experiences, food waste collection and non-weekly garbage service -- at the same cost or more -- will shock a lot of customers.
"We're coming right into their kitchen saying, 'Please change your habits,'" said Bruce Walker, Portland's solid waste and recycling manager.
That's why the city will test food-waste pickup with 2,000 Portland homes starting in April.
Oregon's hopes to expand recycling of kitchen scraps already has raised a stink.
The Portland area's best local prospect for a big, economical place to compost tons of food waste along with yard debris -- Nature's Needs in Washington County -- is opposed by the city of North Plains, which worries about increased stench.
For Portland to go beyond a pilot program to full-fledged curbside recycling of food waste, it needs a compost processor to open closer than the Seattle area, where the city's limited commercial food scrap collections go now.
An industrial-scale processor would also allow Portland suburbs to expand commercial collection and eventually branch into residential.
"I'm hopeful," Walker said, "but we still need some puzzle pieces to snap in place."
Details of the pilot program –including where it will take place – are still being ironed out in advance of Portland Mayor Sam Adams' state-of-the-city speech Friday, Walker said. The test likely will be spread over several neighborhoods and haulers before expanding to Portland's 145,000 single-family and duplex homes.
During the test, haulers will pick up garbage every other week, recycling carts either every week or every other week and the food-and- yard-waste cart weekly.
Food Scrap Recycling
Portland is still figuring out what food scraps residents could put in a curbside cart for yard and food waste. Here’s what the city of Renton, Wash., allows:
* Fruit and vegetable scraps and leftovers
* Bread, pasta and grains
* Eggshells and nutshells
* Coffee filters and grounds
* Tea bags and tea leaves
* Meat, fish, poultry and beans
* Greasy pizza delivery boxes
* Food-soiled paper towels and napkins
* Shredded paper (layered, no plastic)
* Paper grocery bags containing food scraps
* Paper egg cartons
* Paper berry cartons
* Uncoated (not shiny) paper plates and cups
* Uncoated paper food wrap
* Uncoated paper food bags
Source: city of Renton
The city has long hoped to move to residential food waste recycling, as well as expand collections from restaurants, grocery stores, cafeterias and other businesses. But it held off because Cedar Grove, the Seattle composter, couldn't find a spot for a compost plant in the Portland area or nearby.
In the last year, the outlook has changed dramatically, with waste companies pursuing at least three large sites for composting food waste. Recology, the outfit that handles San Francisco's garbage, recycling and food waste, purchased Nature's Needs and another yard waste compost site in Aumsville, southeast of Salem, as well as transfer sites.
The company is trying to get permission to process food waste at both spots, and also acquired a minority interest in Western Oregon Waste, which has a composting facility in McMinnville.
Allied Waste, a national garbage company, has applied to Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality and Benton County for permission to accept the full suite of food waste at its yard waste composting facility north of Corvallis.
It's already accepting "green" food waste -- excluding meat and dairy -- from Corvallis's curbside food waste program, the first one in the state.
The Allied Waste site, at its Process and Recovery Center, is the most remote and appears to be facing little opposition. But it's also the farthest away from Portland, which would make it more costly for haulers to truck the combined food and yard waste there.
Today, Portland's yard waste is composted at multiple local sites. Once it contains food waste, it would have to go only to specially approved compost plants.
Recology's North Plains and Aumsville sites face concerns from neighbors. The 12-year-old Nature's Needs composting facility has a long history of odor complaints under previous owners, North Plains City Manager Don Otterman said, and a long history of broken promises about controlling the smell.
"We've had people complain that they can't open their windows in the summer," Otterman said. "It's like the region needs this, so let's sacrifice North Plains."
Recology says it called in two consultants to make improvements on the 66-acre site that will cut odors. The changes include building more berms around the site, aerating compost to prevent rot and buying backup heavy equipment so the waste still gets processed if machinery breaks down.
"But if you're sitting in Washington County with a site that's been a problem, we're just the new guy in town telling you everything's going to be wonderful," said Art Cimento, Recology's chief development officer. "We understand we need to demonstrate we can properly manage the odors."
Washington County, which controls the Nature's Needs franchise, is evaluating the company's request.
In the United States, 65 cities are picking up residential food waste, including meats and cheese, with almost half in Washington, according to a 2009 survey by BioCycle magazine.
Renton, Wash., bumped garbage collection to once every two weeks when it started its food waste program in January 2009. Linda Knight, the city's solid waste coordinator, said the switch was puzzling for many customers: "It's rethinking how you define garbage."
The city passed out plastic kitchen buckets at the start. Some residents, often with experience backyard composting, layer loose food waste with yard waste in their bin, she said.
Others use paper bags or biodegradable plastic bags. Some put waste in the freezer until collection day.
"In the '80s, we moved to curbside recycling, and that was an adjustment," she said. " But if you talk to people today about recycling, it's just what we do in the Northwest."
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