California City Studying Single-Stream Program

Palo Alto City Council's surprise vote this week to reconsider plans to offer citywide single-stream recycling by July 2005 came despite the program's overwhelming popularity in neighborhood trials.

Residents have widely praised the simple system, in which people toss all their recyclables into one large, wheeled cart rather than separating paper, glass, plastic and cans into four crates.

And the 8-1 vote late Monday shocked some city staffers, who -- since the council approved single-stream recycling in May -- have arranged for new containers, re-negotiated a deal with Palo Alto Sanitation, and surveyed customers about which size bin they'd prefer.

City council members say popularity isn't the most important factor -- they want to make sure single-stream pays off, and that it makes sense in the context of the waste transfer and recycling center Palo Alto is considering building in the baylands. The council is scheduled to take up the issue at Monday night's meeting.

''For the first time, we've finally assembled all the pieces of the puzzle,'' said Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto. ''When we heard it first in the spring, we complained at the time we were getting it piecemeal.''

Palo Alto's strong tradition of recycling may weaken the argument for switching to single-stream. When other Bay Area communities started single-stream programs, Palo Alto Sanitation (PASCO) statistics show, residents recycled about 20 percent more than before, mainly because it's easier. But tonnage increased by 7 percent or less in the two years since Palo Alto began its 2,500-home test.

''Palo Alto is already very advanced in its recycling, so we didn't expect to see the 20 percent,'' said Monica Devincenzi, PASCO's community and municipal relations manager.

One reason some council members said they wanted to revisit the May decision is cost. Adopting a single-stream recycling plan could cost Palo Alto an additional $647,000 per year, Public Works Director Glenn Roberts said. But he cautioned that other plans also carry increased price tags.

Keeping the current program would require new crates, an item that is slowly going out of production as more communities move to single stream, he said. A middle-ground approach -- dual-stream recycling, used locally in Sunnyvale -- would also require new split containers.

A March 2004 survey from the American Forest & Paper Association found that some costs increased with single-stream systems, while others dropped. Notably, the cost of recycling paper tends to rise, because it's mixed with other materials that degrade its quality and make processing it more complicated. The overall collection costs dropped, while sorting costs rose.

City leaders are also actively debating the economic impact of building the proposed recycling center. Public estimates range from an annual savings of about $1 million to extra costs of $1.6 million.

San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose already offer single-stream recycling, and the practice is becoming more common across the nation, though most communities still require residents to sort.

Single-stream recycling helps collectors, who can just toss the contents of one container into the truck. But the biggest advantage is customer convenience. In the five-neighborhood Palo Alto trial, 93 percent of residents preferred single-stream to sorting. ''It just made it easier,'' said Kirsten Koyama, who lives on Hawthorne Avenue. ''I love it -- I would hate to go back to crates.''

Palo Alto's city staff said the single-stream approach could entice residents in apartments and condominiums as well as businesses to recycle more. Typically, those populations have recycled less because there is often a longer distance to carry the items, said Wendy Hediger, the city's recycling coordinator.

Single-stream ''definitely makes it easier for us to include all the papers together,'' said Steve Long, who works in a Bryant Street office where the pilot program is used. ''At home, I separate things, and it's more painstaking.'' San Jose, Calif. Mercury News