You would think that overcharging SF residents by $95 million would lead to Recology losing its monopoly on local trash collection. It has not, and now it appears Recology will keep that monopoly after a competitor dropped their bid.

Recology has been the trash collector in San Francisco for more than 100 years, albeit under different names or organizations like Scavenger’s Protective Association, Golden Gate Disposal, Sunset Scavenger Company, and Norcal Waste Systems. A 1987 merger (and a 2009 rebrand) created the local trash-collection monopoly we now call Recology. But you figured Recology’s monopoly would not survive being ensnared in the Mohammed Nuru scandal, in which it was found that Recology overcharged SF residents by $95 million.

And so Recology’s long-held monopoly contract was put up for a competitive bid. The Arizona-based company Allied Waste Services put in a bid was named the “top scorer,” and was brought to the SF Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee for consideration on February 28. Recology, naturally, brought up all manner of concerns like union representation and the number of trucks being their competitor might use.

But one of Recology’s concerns appeared to be legit. The Examiner reports that Allied Waste Services dropped their bid, amidst allegations that they intended to raise rates higher than what their bid indicated. And Allied Waste's statement to the Examiner indicates that may have been the case.

“With the city’s advisement that no changes to the rates can be accepted, yes, we confirm that we are withdrawing our proposal,” Allied Waste’s parent company Republic Services’s regional general manager Kathryn Tekulve said in a statement to the Examiner.

The SF City Administrator 's Office was not pleased with this result. "We are deeply disappointed by this outcome,” that office told the Examiner. “Significant staff resources were spent getting to this stage in the process with Allied so that we could present a contract to the Board of Supervisors for approval."

This may indeed be frustrating. But reading between the lines, one sure wonders if Allied Waste truly intended to stick with the rates they’d submitted. And of course, Recology is popping the champagne bottles.

“We applaud City leadership for taking the time to give this contract careful consideration,” a company representative said in a statement to the Examiner. “Recology’s proposal is better for the environment and will keep unionized jobs in the City, both of which align with San Francisco’s values.”

Recology is certainly tarnished by the Mohammed Nuru scandal. But they are not as despised as, say, PG&E. And now it may be in the can that they'll keep their monopoly on local trash collection.

Related: Recology's SF Companies Charged With Fraud In Nuru Scandal, Agree to Pay $36M In Penalties to Feds [SFist]

Image: Recology via Facebook

As American cities go, San Francisco is very good at recycling, we just aren't as good as we think we are — and most people still haven't gotten the memo that pizza boxes belong in the compost bin. The trade war with China, Recology's shady dealings, and the prevalence of non-recyclable plastic all contribute to a green delusion that we're keeping most of our waste out of landfills.

You may have seen the dire story two months back about how China had stopped buying America's plastic from recycling centers, causing a lot of it to end up in landfills despite consumers' best intentions. Now SF Weekly looks at the issue specifically through a local lens, via Recology, and where our green- and blue-bin stuff actually ends up.

You'll be heartened to hear that one of the biggest issues that causes recyclable material to go into dumps — "contamination" caused through mixed recycling like grease and coffee stains on paper, and sticky food residue on plastic — is less of an issue for SF than other places. A Recology rep tells SF Weekly that our city is "internationally known" for producing bales of recyclable paper, plastic, and aluminum with less than 0.5% contamination — a level that most cities consider impossible to achieve. This means our recyclables are more competitive to be sold to mills in Indonesia and elsewhere, now that China won't take them any more.

When it comes to glass, much of our city's recycled bottles and jars head to a facility in San Leandro that cleans it all, and then out to Modesto where it gets melted down and turned into new glass containers — a full-circle process that the Weekly says can take as little as six weeks.

Also in the good news column: We're getting better at composting. The city now composts more material than it recycles — 800 tons per day vs. 700 tons — and a new transfer station that opened in December will allow for as much as 1,000 tons of compost material per day.

Plastic is still the biggest culprit for our recycling woes, though, and the San Francisco Department of the Environment has adopted a new slogan of "Reduce/Reuse," given that so much our plastic can't be recycled at all. As department spokesman Peter Galotta tells the Weekly, the message they want to get out to consumers is that they should be refusing to purchase items in plastic containers in order to reduce this amount of plastic going to landfills.

The other bad news: A much ballyhooed figure of several years ago, touting that San Francisco was diverting 80% of its trash away from landfills, turns out to have been false, as you may have heard. Recology fudged their numbers to include completely non-recyclable construction waste, and in reality, we're now diverting about 60% of our waste — a figure that SF Weekly says has been flat for about a decade.

As the Examiner reported in late 2017, SF has been way behind schedule in reaching its 2020 "Zero Waste" goal, originally announced by the city in 2002.

But between banning plastic straws, Recology accepting bundled plastic bags, and venues like the Fillmore serving water in cans instead of plastic, maybe we're inching ahead.

Previously: ATTN SF: You Can Now Recycle Bubble Wrap, Plastic Bags, And More In Your Blue Bins

After reaching one-million tons of diverted compost back in November, Mayor Lee finally got around celebrating the momentous occasion with the city's recycling program yesterday. As ABC7 reports, Mayor Mustache commemorated all those tons of discarded banana peels, egg shells and leftover Thai food by heading down to Alemany Farm to pick up his very own bucket of the stuff.

If you are also in need of some compost for your at-home garden projects, Recology will be giving away 5-gallon buckets of the stuff during the Great Compost Giveaway this Saturday, March 31st at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market, Alemany Farm, McLaren Park, and the Ocean Beach Parking Lot. The event is Bring Your Own Bucket and free while supplies last.

[CBSLocal]
[ABC7]

We've become more and more hippie-ish in our near eight years living in San Francisco. We've mostly dwelled in compost-practicing households here, where it was a convenient process and just as easy to do as tossing waste in the trash. We now live in a large apartment building with around 30 units with no current compost option, although a few of us tenants are interested in setting one up.

We throw away a lot of coffee grounds, cashew pistachio shells, discarded stems from greens, garlic casings, etc., which not only feels like a shameful waste, but causes our eco-friendly trash bags to rot very quickly. This inevitably causes us to poke our fingers through the bottom when throwing them down the trash shoot. Disgusting!

Our building manager said the main issue is that the compost would have to be stored in the basement, and our landlord is understandably concerned about it attracting rodents, which are already a battle. Sunset Scavenger advised us that the home bin and roadside bin can both be lined with paper bags, and food should be tightly wrapped in paper milk cartons and newspaper, which will keep the smells from attracting rodents. They also said our building might qualify for more than one pick-up per week.

Do any of you out there inhabit a large apartment building that has composting? Is the above advice rodent-proof?

Also, check out what Jepson Prairie Organics does with the Bay Area's compost.

Image credit: justHugo, via Creative Commons