City of Los Angeles Innovates Municipal Waste Management (December, 2007)

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Six thousand six hundred tons of refuse (trash, recyclables and yard trimmings) are currently being collected curbside on a daily basis in the nation's second largest city. As its population increases, and resources become more limited, the City of Los Angeles is working hard towards becoming a cleaner, greener "zero-waste" city. This means that the City's solid waste material currently disposed at landfills will be beneficially used to produce fuel and green renewable energy.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council recently established several key goals in response to the growing challenges posed by global climate change including:

Operating an alternative technology facility by 2010
Converting the Bureau's fleet of Solid Resources Collection trucks to run on clean fuels by 2010
Achieving 70% diversion by 2015
Reducing green house gas emission to 35% below 1990 levels by 2030

The Solid Waste Integrated Resources Plan (SWIRP) currently being developed by the Bureau of Sanitation Solid Resources Group will become the City's 20-year master plan to achieve zero waste in Los Angeles. SWIRP is designed to be a six-year stakeholder-driven planning effort, organized by regions of the city that make up the city's six collection districts. SWIRP kicked off with a series of regional workshops in August 2007 that will be completed in April 2008.

City of Los Angeles Has Already Achieved 89% of its 2015 Goal

The Bureau of Sanitation's years of progress towards a greener, recycling-focused solid resources management program is already diverting 62% of waste from landfills (89% of the 2015 goal). A big part of this success has been the City's automated collection program including the Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program. The sheer scope of this program, the City's proactive approach to replacing containers, the sharing of a distribution facility, and the cutting edge approach to asset tracking, which will soon include Radio Frequency Identification Devices, are just a few reasons why the City of LA will continue to pave the way for municipalities across the country.

The pathway to zero waste is lined with obstacles. This is the story of the role of the humble trash cart in the City of Los Angeles' victory of reducing inefficiencies within the process of solid waste collection.

Dependable Solid Waste Containers Are Key to Protecting the Public Health

As the second largest city in the nation collecting over 33,000 tons per week from approximately 750,000 residential units, the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Sanitation is constantly seeking new, and more cost efficient, waste management practices to protect the public health and environment for this growing metropolis. One of these practices is the distribution of automated containers to residents so solid waste is managed and collected in a safe and uniform manner.

"The Bureau of Sanitation is dedicated to providing excellent service to the residents of the City of Los Angeles, and the automated containers are an integral part of such an operation," according to Bureau of Sanitation Director Enrique Zaldivar. "By making sure that the residents have dependable containers to handle their refuse, recycling and yard trimmings, we ensure their efficient and safe collection and processing".

The Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program was launched on July 15, 2002 by the City to:

Ensure the good condition of containers while maintaining high customer satisfaction and a professional appearance on the street
Systematically replace automated refuse, yard trimming and recycling containers that have reached the end of their functional life
Distribute new containers to residents, while retrieving and evaluating old containers for either re-deployment back to residents, should they still be useful, or grinding the old containers for re-use in newly manufactured containers.

City Ensures Carts Operate Safely for Residents and Sanitation Workers

"The City can take great pride in the Bureau of Sanitation's approach to going out and upgrading their fleet of containers in a proactive and systematic manner," shares Mike Schwalbach, Environmental Group Manager for Rehrig Pacific, a respected supplier to the waste handling industry. "It's rare for a city to maintain such a "pride of ownership" mindset regarding their roll-out carts. They put a lot of effort into ensuring their carts look aesthetically pleasing, function well, and operate safely for their residents and drivers."

The Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program also provided the City an opportunity to address compatibility issues between the collection equipment and a variety of containers that had developed over the years. As a result, the City decided to standardize the automated collection containers being replaced by awarding only one contract through the Request for Qualifications and Request for Bid processes. "The procurement process consisted of a Request for Qualifications followed by a Request for Bid. An integral part of the procurement process was the extensive ten-year simulated lift test. This process ensured that the City of Los Angeles provide City residents the best quality containers at the best possible price" says Enrique Zaldivar, Bureau of Sanitation Director. Since the launch of the Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program, Los Angeles-based Rehrig Pacific (fast approaching its 100th year in business) has supplied and distributed approximately 1.75 million automated containers citywide.

The Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program is being thoughtfully rolled-out into the City's six collection wastesheds.

Completion of each wasteshed can take as little as four months to over a year depending on the number of residential units.

The program was initially implemented in the East Valley in 2002, then progressed through the North Central, West Valley, and South Los Angeles and is currently on going in the Harbor district.
The West Los Angeles district will follow accordingly and expected to be completed by February 2009.

Big Challenges: Spending Wisely to Ensure Worker and Resident Safety

In the effort to improve worker safety and cost efficiency, the City's era of automated collection began in 1991 with the delivery of automated black containers, for refuse, and green containers, for yard trimmings. Based on resident "set-out" and container usage studies, the City distributed a standard allocation of one 65-gallon black and one 65-gallon green container to each residence. Beginning in 1997, the program was expanded to further encourage recycling by providing one 95-gallon blue container for recyclables.

Since the inception of the automated container program, the City has utilized several container vendors including Roto, Reuter, Toter, Otto Industries, Plastopan, Zarn, Schaefer and Rehrig Pacific. As the initial round of containers approached the end of their 10-year service life, the City experienced a dramatic increase in customer service calls, requesting repairs or replacements, and the number of broken containers steadily increased.

Since the Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program was an entirely new concept for the City, it presented an entirely new set of challenges to overcome. The program started by developing a thorough understanding of the management and staffing requirements to determine the practical implications on their daily roles and responsibilities.

Staffing levels were adjusted to accommodate the mechanics of the rollout, and the retrieval and processing of old containers.
The addition of staff was complemented by the acquisition of specially-designed equipment, including regular delivery vans and long bed trucks that were ordered to meet the specific demands of the rollout in various terrains such as hillsides, flat areas and narrow streets.
The City's antiquated database system required the development of a modern database infrastructure to accurately capture and track the distribution of the containers to the residents through the use of bar code scanners.
Optimization of the distribution routes was accomplished through the use of automated route planning software, which allowed for an efficient use of staff and equipment to conform with the program schedule.

Improved Cart Design Has Led to Increased Resident Satisfaction and Cost Savings

The immediate benefits the City realized from the Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program were reduced resident complaints and improved collection efficiency. Over the program's five years, the number of calls has gone down an extraordinary 31.8%, resulting in significant savings in time, transit and labor costs for City residents. This improvement is especially significant given that initial expectations of the Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program were to address a rise in complaints, while the result has actually been a dramatic reduction in the number of calls.

Improvements to the container design, such as reinforced areas to handle the rigors of collection, and integration with the City's automated equipment has resulted in a superior performing container that directly benefits the City through the reduction in time and labor associated with the daily tasks of receiving resident's calls, generating work orders and driving to residences to handle complaints. "Rehrig Pacific has been very proactive in its desire to continue to present the best container available to the City of Los Angeles," says Jonathan Zari, Project Manager for the Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program.

Beginning in 1997, bar code labels were affixed to each container and in 2001 these were improved to include more information including the manufacture date. Today, drivers and distributors from the North Hollywood staging area use handheld Personal Data Assistants to scan bar codes affixed to each container that assign individual addresses, serial numbers and usage information. This in-depth information allows managers to immediately and accurately identify containers in need of repair or replacement based on their service history and identify these by the residential address. The time and labor savings of this aspect alone has been significant.

Systematic Cart Replacement is Primary Factor in City's Improved Collection Efficiency

The City's North Hollywood staging area is critical to the proactive replacement of carts citywide. Rehrig Pacific operates this site and works alongside City staff to implement the Automated Container Systematic Replacement Program. The City's approach to finding a collaborative partner capable of both locating and managing an effective distribution facility, as well as, manufacturing the best quality containers, at the best price, is unique in the industry. Most municipalities consider roll-outs as a "one-shot" effort and not a continuous program with a supplier as part of a long-term partnership. The City's improved collection efficiency is primarily due to the fact that the containers on the street are in much better condition than they would be if they had not been systematically replaced.

The City of Los Angeles' commitment to protection of workers and residents, and its commitment to zero waste, serves as a model for the nation, and indeed the world, in changing the meaning of the word "garbage" for today's environmentally aware residents. In the not so distant past, recyclables used to be what we kept out of the garbage. Now, garbage is what we have leftover after we reuse, recycle, and compost!