City council recently approved a program for a City trash system to be franchised into 11 to 12 districts. Haulers would serve apartment houses of 4 and more units and all commercial. It will be operational in a few years.

Local business people were not happy about such but didn’t want to say anything so as not to offend customers or the council office. LA Times picked up many disgruntled Chamber of Commerce member quotes throughout the City.

Update was caught off guard and made the statement that the government could never be as creative or accomplish as much as private enterprise. Council office responded. Update read all the links the council office sent but what has been most enlightening has been a conversation with the man behind it all-—Greg Good.

Greg Good, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s director of infrastructure and former director Don’t Waste LA project with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, is the man attributed to organizing or creating this system.

Good spoke with a southern accent and clearly was excited about the system. He has been quoted as calling it the “gold” standard for trash hauling. He spoke with enthusiasm and knowledge. Apparently, other cities have taken over the trash hauling by necessity.

Trash separation is not new
In the olden days, trash was separated. Bottles and cans were put in the two-holer and wood scraps and what paper one didn’t save was burned in the kitchen stove or fireplace, for cooking and/or warmth. Edible scraps were given to the chickens. That was trash separation in the olden days.

Today, in the city there is no two-holer and one cannot burn his remaining trash. Also today’s trash amounts to a lot more, enough to fill big holes in the ground the size of stadiums referred to as landfills. Update realizing such got in touch with the man who is responsible for designing this system to get some answers. How did it work mechanically?

Necessity
Good said the landfills are closing. “Puente Hills just closed,” he said “and the City of Los Angeles is running out of places to dump garbage.” Then comes the environmental consideration. Good points to estimates that landfills account for 18% of US methane emissions, a global warming gas found to be 23 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide.

These trash trucks are also polluting the air, according to Good. Sometimes one will see paper flying from a trash truck or ooze liquids. There are no standards for these haulers, Good said. One hauler will have contracts throughout the city and drive the whole area, back and forth in one day.

Good mentioned the roads. “One trash truck trip by a city hauler is equivalent to 9400 trips by an SUV,” he said. “Our streets, our alleys cannot handle this continuous wear. We want to eliminate this traversing throughout the City.”

Landfills filled and closing, trash trucks polluting the air, City roads getting ruined. So what is a City to do?

Solution
Other cities have been faced with such and have similar systems, according to Good. This system as mapped out will be the “gold standard” for all cities. We have established some standards but left others up to the entrepreneurial ingenuity of the individual, he said.

How it will work
“We have established or will establish approximately 11 areas, franchises,” he continued at bullet speed. “Right now there are 140 licensed haulers. But only about 12 to 13 haul garbage. The other licensees haul demolition products, tree trimmings, etc. So only 12 to 13 of all permitted actually haul trash. Each of chosen franchisees will be given a contract, a franchise, for an exclusive area for 10 years.

“We figure the fact that a business man can amortize costs of equipment and other expenses over a 10-year period might incentivize him to bring down prices and certainly provide proper equipment. One hauler who left the City is thinking about coming back. It became too cut-throat in pricing for him to survive and haul as he felt was proper.”

Standards
The City will establish standards and the hauler will be fined if he
does not abide by the rules established in his contract with the City. These are some of the standards Good mentioned.

•  They must have a clean-air operating vehicle.
•  They must provide proper routes—not go from one end of the City to another. They must show and prove that their  routing system is the best system.
• They must provide recycling.
•  They must provide customer service. They are going to have a contract with the customer. They must evaluate his trash and work together with customer to evaluate the best system. Will customer only have paper; will he have paper and bottles and cans; will he have grass clippings; will he have food waste? What trash the customer has determines type of container. Containers will be color coded as the residential system is now and will be similar in function. Some will still have rollaways. Right now according to Good the food and clippings will use the same color container. What size containers will he need for a weekly pickup? These are some of the questions that the franchisee must ask and determine what is suitable for the customer.
• They must educate their customers such as the City educated the residential customers years ago with the blue, green, and black barrels.
• They must provide a cost and rate plan.
• An interesting fact that Good spoke about was that “we found in doing the research that the mom and pop apartment owners were supporting the hauling business. These small operators cannot negotiate like the multi-unit apartment complexes so they carry the burden.”

Good was asked why these haulers didn’t have dual pickup systems, such as half the truck for bottles, cans, paper and the other half for grass clippings. He said one town was experimenting with such. “This is what the hauler can figure out for himself. What works best. Since he has 10 years to amortize, he will be more susceptible to innovating.”

Update does not see how the roads will benefit from system if a customer conceivably could have three pickups at one site from three trucks in one week whereas now he has one truck each week. Trucks not traversing the City would certainly make a difference.

Each hauler’s recycling system will certainly ease the landfill problem and definitely help with the emissions. Eleven separate, or will they be separate, recycling systems should be interesting.

Good couldn’t continue to talk so Update emailed him two questions. One was regarding the franchise fee and the other was regarding unions.

Why $100,000 franchise fee?
Good emailed:

There is not a $100,000 franchise fee requirement. Proposers will be required to include franchise fee proposals as part of their overall proposals. The minimum they’ll be asked to include as an initial proposal is 10% of gross annual receipts on the franchise contract. The ultimate fee will be determined as part of the final negotiations. Franchise fees are standard in waste and recycling franchises up and down the state – and 10% is consistent with norms in other cities.

The franchise fees, first and foremost, will pay for administration and execution of the system – ensuring that though we’ll have the gold standard system in the nation, it will be cost-neutral.

Why does the system have to be unionized?
Good:

It doesn’t.

If you have questions …
If you have questions, feel free to submit them and they will be emailed to Greg Good. Hopefully, as the system evolves, Good will provide an update. He is definitely excited about this system.