Sunnyvale Food Scraps Collection Pilot CRRA Annual Conference August 10, 2016

City of Sunnyvale Overview: Population 148,000 SMaRT Station facility MRF/Curbside sorting 31% diversion rate from MSW Dual stream SF/MF recycling Commercial cardboard Commercial food scraps Commercial glass 65% diversion

Sunnyvale Food Scraps Collection Pilot Details (March 2015-Dec 2015): 5oo houesholds, 5 diverse neighborhoods All received a 50/50 split-cart Mon-Single family Tue-Townhouses Wed/Thur-Single family Fri-Mobile home park Reuse of old split carts New lids Residents familiar with split system Black = Garbage Yellow = Food Those with 35G & 65G garbage carts received 64G split cart. 95G customers received 96G split. 87% pilot participants received a 64G cart. Pre-pilot audit showed 50% of the 65G garbage carts were half full or less.  The Mon/Frid households were our big generators Tuesday townhouses had the least amount of garbage

NEW Set-Out Food + Garbage Yard Trimmings Containers + Paper

Pilot Details: Letter (1 month prior) Outreach to residents prior to implementation: Residents received: Letter (1 month prior) Postcard (1 week prior to cart delivery) Website info Countertop pail 2 boxes of compostable liners

Cart Label Acceptable items included food, meat, food soiled paper/pizza boxes:

Early Findings: 50/50 cart didn’t have enough garbage space for some residents. Carts overfilled in high generation areas (Monday and Friday) Overfills = 6% of all carts audited. Monday rabble rouser

Adjustments to Monday Route: Allowed extra garbage bag set-out for no charge Allowed switch to non-compostable bags Number of overfilled carts dropped by 43% by end of pilot (but increase by 30% from week 1) There was a slight increase in participation the first few weeks after allowing the extra bags, but it came back down The number of overfilled carts decreased the first few weeks afterwards, came up a bit, then decreased the remaining part of the pilot

Adjustments to Friday route Replaced 50/50 carts with a 70/30 cart Allowed switch to non-compostable bags Participation went up: from 62% to 81% Overfills actually went up slightly Total overall overfills up 35% from start Overfills Green line is mostly food, big jump after new cart was delivered, came back down after a few weeks

We used several outreach tools to spur behavior change: In weeks 5, 7, 10, and 16 we placed Oops or Good Job tags on carts with goal of: Reducing contamination Increasing participation Providing “norming” info Wanted people to know that the pilot had good participation as a way of showing that most of their neighbors were doing it (norming behavior).

Results of outreach tools Tools work but the number of times we tagged and visited the carts isn’t quite scalable.

Cart stickers for participating households Monday’s low participation neighborhood got stickers on carts to “norm” neighborhood behavior and spur more participation. In post-pilot survey the influence of the sticker was: Stickers only went on carts that had food in the yellow side of the cart

Data collection methods during pilot: Floor sorting (32 days out of 190 day pilot) Material sorted Material weighed Lid “flipping”(65 days) Volume of food scraps Volume of garbage Overfilled carts Perceived contamination Cart sorting 8 carts/route (40 carts total) Sorted/weighed Surveys Audit sheet for tipping

Floor sorting findings: Each bio-bag weighed on average 2.5 lbs Average food/household = 11.4 lbs (36% of total material weight) Average garbage/household = 19.5 lbs (63% of total material weight) Bagged material was very clean--only food scraps Food soiled paper loose, not in bags

Cart sorting findings – 40 samples 85% of all food scraps were in yellow side of cart 15% contamination rate, but all material was able to be processed for animal feed All households Total food generated per Household/week 13 pounds Food diverted via the yellow (food) side of cart 8 pounds % of total household food diverted 62% Richard will be telling you about how our organics are processed in the SOS system

Lid flipping findings: Participation=(meaning: had food or nothing in yellow/food side of cart)

Participation was high at 74%! Green bar shows the entire program overall. This number stayed high throughout. Even the larger garbage generating neighborhood had decent participation rates. Participation was lower in high density housing, higher in low density housing, lowest in townhouse community (lower pounds/household of food scraps) 2009 EPA report: average participation rate for residential food scraps collection programs 35- 40%*. *http://www.foodscrapsrecovery.com/epa_foodwastereport_ei_region5_v11_final.pdf

The yellow side of the cart had mostly food in it: 3739 carts visually audited during 38 week pilot. "Mostly Food" means at least 62% of yellow side contents appeared to be food. If you add in the folks who leave the food side empty (might not particpate but at least they aren’t contaminating), it’s closer to 75% Food plus, mostly food is equal to 73%

Other lid flipping tidbits: 17% of yellow sides were “mostly garbage” at the beginning. That dropped to 11% by the end. Outreach tools (tags, stickers) positively impacted participation each time they were deployed. Change to 70/30 cart increased participation by 9%. By allowing M/F routes to put out extra garbage- increased participation by 3% initially, but then it went back down.

Most of the contaminants were: Food packaging: EPS egg cartons Plastic takeout containers Frozen food boxes Jars Bottles EPS meat trays There was a reluctance to de-package food before disposal (yuck factor).

Survey results Highest-when people ran out of bags they bought more Most people thought pails were easy to use and kept it on counter

Response to oops/great job tags: Based on items found in the yellow side of the cart, city staff hung “Oops” or “Great Job” tags on the cart. I didn’t notice the tag If contaminants they got oops tag It did cause a behavior change to correct use and remove packaging. The positive tags seemed to spur a little more change. Complaint from someone about feeling reprimanded with oops tag 1 (Not at all Agree ) - 5 (Strongly Agree)

Survey Response to the 70/30 cart: 84% felt they could fit all their garbage into the garbage side of a 70/30 cart For the majority of survey takers we asked them to image if they could fit, the Friday folks did get the 70/30 so they had the experience.

Survey: “Your Experience” These results show how stronly they agree with the statements. While people had good intentions and wanted to do the right thing (in red), they weren’t as willing to change behaviors around wasting: -fewer waste less food and bought food with less packing 1 (Not at all Agree ) - 5 (Strongly Agree)

Issues Expressed in Comment Sections Compostable bag requirement and reduced garbage capacity generated the most complaints Issues Experienced with the bag: Cost of bags: 19 Bag Fragility (break/leak): 16 Hard to find bags: 12 Bag fell down in pail: 10

A few residents went to great lengths to show their disapproval of the program: Also had a hacked cart where someone broke the plastic separator between the two sides and bolted it so the garbage side was bigger.

But plenty of residents were thrilled about it!

Broad Findings and Next steps: Participation was high and remained fairly consistent. Residents moved 30% of the food from the garbage side of cart into the yellow side of the cart Contamination was around 17% Outreach tools bumped participation overall Complainers often said “no one’s doing this” and then were surprised to hear the 74% participation rate. Plan to go to Council in September with recommendation. Leaning towards split-cart vs. food + yard trimmings due to good results plus highest and best use of materials after collection 1. Aside from when we changed out the 50/50 cart to the 70/30 and there was a big bump in participation 2. Overall the low engagement areas stayed lower and the high ones high.

Karen Gissibl kgissibl@sunnyvale.ca.gov 408.730.7277 Questions? Contact info: Karen Gissibl kgissibl@sunnyvale.ca.gov 408.730.7277