San Jose, California, to study recycling bin contamination

The California city of San Jose and one of its haulers, California Waste Solutions, are considering increasing penalties for owners of residential recycling bins that clearly contain noncompliant items.

A Sept. 21, 2015, article in the San Jose Mercury News includes an interview with one “noncollection notice” recipient as well as city and company officials involved in collecting San Jose’s recyclables.

The article cites California Waste Solutions as saying some 40 percent of residential recycling program participants in the section of San Jose it serves include items such as food scraps and noncontainer plastic that are not intended for recycling collection. “Common examples of contamination include dirty Chinese-food takeout boxes, aluminum pans with leftover food or cans half-full with beans or tuna. More egregious items dumped in the recyclable bins are diapers, batteries, dead animals, needles, even human waste,” states the Mercury News.

While the current response when such items are spotted is the noncollection notice, the city of San Jose is reportedly considering financial penalties for repeat offenders.

Among the issues brought to light in the article is that California Waste Solutions is urging the city to take harsher measures against residents who fill their recycling bins with items that should be in the trash.

The article also says the contamination problem is more prevalent in the two-thirds of San Jose where California Waste Solutions collects recyclables compared with the one-third of the city where that responsibility is handled by GreenTeam.

A manager from California Waste Solutions expressed optimism that contamination rates in its districts may soon be helped by the introduction of separate bins for food scraps.

In addition to issuing more fines, the Mercury-News article says the city of San Jose has commissioned a “detailed study [to] explore the potential for customer rate increases and penalties for repeat offenders.”