HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 11-19-2013-13 (4) INFORMATION ITEM
Memorandum
To: Michael Talbert, Interim County Manager
From: Gayle Wilson, Solid Waste Management Director
Subject: Pay As You Throw
Date: November 4, 2013
At the Board of Commissioners' (BOCC) request, staff has been asked to provide information about Pay-
As-You-Throw(PAYT) generally and with regard to previous staff/Manager meetings with a company
called Waste Zero
Background
Over the past thirteen years Orange County and the three Towns have all discussed implementing PAYT
in one form or another as primarily a means of economically incentivizing reduction of solid waste
disposal in the residential single family sector. PAYT can also be considered from the perspective of
providing funding or supplementing funding for the waste services. In 2008 the Solid Waste Plan Work
Group evaluated and considered the option of incorporating PAYT at solid waste convenience centers to
use as both a financing mechanism and a tool to incentivize waste reduction.The Solid Waste Advisory
Board (SWAB) also provided the elected boards with input following its many discussions on the subject.
Carrboro and Chapel Hill have also discussed this matter on more than one occasion. As the County and
the Towns have successfully and continuously reduced their waste disposal volumes without use of this
tool, none has yet adopted PAYT although it has been thoroughly considered and discussed collectively
and individually.
PAYT, a utility based fee-for-waste concept or'trash metering' as one company refers to it, is in general
a strategy whereby individual households or businesses pay for their solid waste collection/disposal by
the unit disposed, be that by the bag,the pound, a varying container size or frequency of collection of
the waste container. The strategy can be extended to include bulky items, yard waste and other forms
of waste using tags, bags or stickers (usually but not necessarily prepaid)to represent certain pre-
determined amounts. It has been generally proven successful to varying degrees in incentivizing
households to reduce the amount of residential waste disposed.
PAYT differs from the conventional residential waste collection financing approach used broadly in the
United States and in North Carolina, including municipalities in Orange County, of charging residents a
flat fee either annually or monthly for waste disposal (typically funded from the general fund),
irrespective of how much waste they generate. PAYT thus, it is argued, provides an immediate
economic signal and incentive to save money by reducing the amount of trash.
Many communities across the country that have adopted PAYT have chosen some variation on a
volume-based strategy either based on number and size of bags or tags used or the size and/or
frequency of collection of the garbage cart.
1
2
http://www.epa.gov/solidwaste/conserve/tools/payt/index.htm Typically, communities that already
have a municipal utility billing system in place have sometimes found it convenient to add variations in
waste cart size and collection frequency to the existing billing structure.Then the monthly water,
electric or trash bill can be slightly altered to accommodate a varying charge for a varying size of trash
cart. Private trash services can also readily alter their trash bills in a similar manner to accommodate a
variety of billing scenarios for each customer.Weight-based approaches to residential waste collection
have been proven impractical and it is costly and technically challenging to weigh accurately in motion.
Commercial or non-residential waste collected typically in dumpsters or compactors is generally already
subject to varying collection costs. Haulers charge customers differently depending on the volume, type
of containers, frequency of collection and nature of the waste.Thus it is not a subject for discussion
here, except to the extent that non-residential waste may be collected similarly too residential in bags
or roll carts rather than dumpsters and the local governments or collectors may then apply a variable
bag or can rate depending on volume.
In North Carolina, seventeen counties apply some type of PAYT at convenience center and seven
municipalities and one of them, Craven County, use some variant on PAYT for residential curbside waste
collection.The type of payment system varies widely from punch cards to special bags to tags to cash,
checks and credit cards. Items accepted and billed for also vary widely from bagged household waste
only to a very wide variety including yard waste, bulky items, construction waste and rubble.
Many private haulers may offer varying rates typically dependent on extra services such as more
frequent collection, back door service as opposed to curbside, whether you use your own container or
use a hauler provided container, etc. In general the vast majority of customers receive weekly curbside
service using a roll cart with ninety to ninety-five gallon capacity and that suffices for most needs, thus
that sector's waste collection practices are not explored in this discussion.
Discussion
In general a PAYT approach to financing waste disposal and incentivizing waste reduction has, as does
any strategy, advantages and disadvantages.
Some of the advantages include:
Equity in disposal costs: If your household works to reduce waste or is a small household with little
waste inherently, you pay only your household's costs of disposal and collection relatively proportional
to the amount you generate, not averaged among all households of all sizes and waste generating rates.
Control of disposal costs: Your household needs purchase only the amount of service it needs, be that a
certain number of bags or tags or a particular size of cart or frequency of collection.
Financing mechanism is more transparent: Rather than 'hide' waste collection and disposal costs in the
general fund or some other broad funding category, prices of for waste collection and disposal can be
completely or at least partially tied to the cost of service. Although, if fee is set to be used primarily as a
disincentive to waste disposal, the fee can be disconnected from actual costs.
2
3
Incentivizes more use of recycling and other waste reduction programs: Many municipalities have
invested heavily in recycling programs that are mostly underutilized and the financial incentive to
reduce waste by employing PAYT has been shown to generally increase recycling as one response to the
desire to reduce waste (others responses being, for example, backyard composting and 'smart shopping'
e.g. buying in bulk, buying only what's needed, bringing your own bag)
Some of the disadvantages can include:
Varying response rates cause funding uncertainty: If PAYT revenues from bag or tag sales are used to
cover the majority of system operating costs, then the desired decline in waste disposed means reduced
revenue which causes financial stress on the system as a large proportion of waste management system
costs are fixed and only the disposal portion truly varies.
Minimal financial incentive to reduce if PAYT is based solely on disposal:The majority of costs of
residential waste management are in the collection and only a minor part in disposal. As an example a
thirty gallon bag of waste typically holds 25 pounds and disposal costs here (tipping fees) are now
$42.50 per ton or$0.53 per bag and adding a cost of a bag could put it at$0.75 which is not a great
incentive. Other pricing mechanisms including some or all collection costs may be applied.
Politically challenging to implement:The experience in many communities that have implemented
PAYT is that it is typically a multi-year process to plan, implement and refine.This may be especially true
where there are immediately adjacent municipalities that may not adopt the strategy simultaneously or
other nearby large institutions with many dumpsters, unstaffed recycling sites and other places that the
now'expensive'trash might be surreptitiously disposed.Those concerns have all arisen in Orange
County during previous discussions of PAYT. If all municipalities and the County were to implement
PAYT together,that would obviate some, but not all, of these concerns. Staff believes it is likely that
implementation of PAYT at Orange County convenience center sites would be very unpopular with
county residents.
Charging properly and equitably for bulky items:Various towns charge varying amounts of cash or
`stickers'/tags' in PAYT for curbside collection thus resolving that issue generally, except for matters of
illegal disposal that are minimal in this community except among students at move-out time and even
that has been largely resolved with only a few remaining trouble spots.This is a particular challenge at
convenience centers where site attendants have to constantly judge if a particular item is subject to a
certain fee level e.g. is a large sectional sofa charged the same 'furniture rate' a folding chair? Is a
'pickup truck load' in a small, compact pickup equal to that in a large, dual wheeled, long-bed? Given
that 30%of waste coming to Orange County convenience sites is bulky waste or home remodeling
waste; this is a significant issue especially as there is no alternative as there is when a community has a
landfill or transfer station.
Illegal disposal: There is always a concern in any community about illegal disposal via dumping, burning
or disposing in someone else's trash dumpster. It occurs in Orange County even with 'free'waste
disposal at convenience sites or the curbside. It does increase with PAYT, at least initially. Most
communities report they experience this only temporarily, nonetheless it is a concern.
3
4
Compatibility with automated collection systems: For some PAYT methodologies it is necessary to
actually verify that the special prepaid bag or tag is present during the act of collection. It becomes a
special challenge when the collection is automated where the collector does not actually touch the
waste container, or when the bags are in a roll cart and can't be seen. This may reduce the efficiencies
gained through use of automated operations or roll carts.
Waste Zero
Over the past 3-4 years, a company called Waste Zero has approached various County and Town solid
waste and management staff as well as County elected officials offering to establish a 'turn-key', no cost
'trash metering system—a PAYT using bags to further incentivize residential trash reduction.The firm
has established or enhanced, according to its web site, PAYT systems in many communities, primarily
smaller ones in the northeast. As with many PAYT programs there has been measurable success in
reducing waste following implementation of PAYT.
A review of the program performance data shown on the Waste Zero web site and discussions with their
staff have indicated their use of a benchmark of 500 pounds of municipal solid waste (MSW) disposed
per person annually as a goal for a lowered disposal rate.They cited use of that threshold as a state goal
for Massachusetts where many of their programs are implemented. The company makes its money
primarily from sharing savings with municipalities from the avoided costs of collection and disposal as
well as sales of their unique garbage bags that are supplied as part of the program so they have an
obvious interest in reducing each community's waste to at least that level. While the Waste Zero
program is presented as "no cost", it could reduce the tip fee savings the local government obtains from
reduced waste disposal. Finally, from previous staff evaluations of PAYT,your solid waste staff is fully
capable of implementing a PAYT system should the Board of Commissioners choose to pursue it.
Analysis of residential waste disposal from the Towns of Chapel Hill and Hillsborough as well as an
estimate of the amount per household disposed at Orange County Solid Waste Convenience Centers
shows that this goal of 500 pounds of MSW has already been met. Over the past three years, the
average waste disposed per household was 1205 pounds according to the Towns' annual solid waste
report data. Average household size is 2.4 persons, so per person disposal is 502 pounds.
The per household measurement is less precise at the solid waste convenience centers because it is
more difficult to know the exact number of unique users. However staff estimates that between 14,000
and 16,500 households (from primarily unincorporated areas but also including incorporated area
residents) bring residential waste to the five centers each year. Given that,the three year average per
household using the centers for waste disposal is estimated at between 800 and 1,000 pounds of MSW
per year and another 350 to 400 pounds of bulky items and home remodeling waste for disposal at the
convenience centers. Again, given the US Census based statistics of 2.4 persons per household in Orange
County in 2010, the average per person disposal rate for MSW alone is well below 500 and adding a pro-
rated share of the bulky and remodeling wastes generally still keeps waste per person around the 500
pounds mark. Note that Orange County is unusual in accepting construction and demolition materials at
convenience centers and that may skew waste per household higher than if measurement were
4
5
restricted to just MSW and bulky items like furniture as is typically the case with measuring residential
waste. It is almost impossible to segregate the remodeling wastes from the bulky item tonnage.
It does appear by most standards the both the urban and rural households are already at a very low
waste disposal rate and this is borne out by having North Carolina's highest rate of waste reduction per
capita at 59%for 2011-12 (statistics for FY 12-13 are not yet available). We note that rate includes all
wastes, not just residential in the calculation compared to the base year of FY 1991-92. It is therefore
not certain what type of waste reduction response this community would have to implementation of
PAYT.
It is staffs' opinion that providing roll carts, expanding to recycle additional materials, improving
convenience centers, continuing a strong education and outreach program and providing a high level of
convenient and integrated recycling services will be much more successful at reducing waste. Once
these steps are fully implemented it may be time to consider such measures as PAYT. Our current
program operates at such a high level, expectations of significant improvements (such as Waste Zero's
referenced 44% reduction)through use of PAYT at this time seems unrealistic.
Recommendation
While it is clear from the many other communities that have implemented PAYT that it can be an
effective means of incentivizing waste reduction it is not as obvious what impact PAYT might have in a
community that is already reaching a very low residential disposal rate. At this point County Solid Waste
Staff would not recommend considering PAYT for the convenience centers as the most effective
strategy.
The more pertinent questions for our community may be:
1. Is PAYT this the most important and effective waste reduction strategy to implement at this
time?
2. What other actions or strategies may be available that may impact further the amount of waste
disposed?
Currently Orange County and the three Towns are in the midst of considering significant financing and
organizational issues pertaining to recycling and solid waste management. (We note that although a
significant portion of the City of Mebane lies within Orange County, Mebane is not included in this
discussion because its waste and recycling are handled by the City of Mebane that is incorporated in
Alamance County and all residents receive waste and recycling services via the City and City taxes).
Following the soon expected resolution of these funding and organizational issues there will be a
substantial number of recycling related activities that will likely require staff attention such as
implementation of roll carts in both urban and rural programs, rebidding of the urban curbside
collection contract and subsequent rerouting, negotiation of a new Interlocal Agreement for Solid
Waste/Recycling, development and implementation of a new Solid Waste Tax District in the
unincorporated area. It is difficult to imagine available time in which to seriously consider
implementation of PAYT. In addition we are currently completing design and are ready to begin
5
6
permitting of the new Eubanks Road SWCC. All of these activities will hopefully have measurable
success at reducing waste disposal and at the same time will occupy your solid waste staff over the next
several months.
Staff believes that the County's primary focus should be to resolve the funding and organizational issues
facing recycling and waste reduction,then proceed to implement the programs referred to above.
Securing a reliable and adequate funding source for these waste reduction programs followed by
implementation of the noted programs and services should equal or surpass any achievements that
could be gained by implementation of PAYT at convenience centers, without the degree of public
opposition that PAYT is likely to generate. PAYT can be addressed in the future at any time, but at
various forums over recent years other waste reduction strategies have been more frequently
mentioned as next steps such as evaluation and expansion of commercial recycling and evaluation and
expansion of organics waste collection (including food waste). Staff recommends that further discussion
of PAYT at convenience centers be deferred indefinitely.
6