1. What is Happening to the Waste in Los Angeles County?
Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Holland and I am a Civil Engineer at the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works, Environmental Programs Division.
Today, I will be discussing the current state and future of solid waste management in Los Angeles County.
Patrick Holland
County of Los Angeles
Department of Public Works
Environmental Programs Division
August 8, 2016

2. Presentation Overview
LA County’s Sustainable Waste Management Plan
Organics Management
County Unincorporated (incl. Collection)
County Operations (County Facilities)
Regional/Countywide (incl. Infrastructure)
Conversion Technologies
Challenges and Next Steps

3. The County’s Role in Waste Management
Advise the Board of Supervisors on Solid Waste Issues
Permit Solid Waste Facilities
Coordinate Trash Collection For Unincorporated Areas
Conduct Long-Term planning
Implement Waste Reduction Programs
The County of Los Angeles plays a significant role in waste management, and Public Works advises the Board of Supervisors on solid waste issues.
The County has more than 10 million residents living in 88 Cities with more than 1 million people in the County unincorporated communities spread across 114 communities.
Our Department provides technical assistance to the Department of Regional Planning when they issue land use permits for solid waste facilities including both disposal and non-disposal facilities located in the unincorporated County areas. We also help develop conditions to mitigate the environmental impacts these facilities may have.
Public Works oversees the trash collection for the unincorporated areas in Los Angeles County, which is over 1 million residents, by administering over 20 contracts with multiple waste haulers.
The County plays a regional leadership role in terms of long-term planning for solid waste issues. We are in the process of updating the the Countywide Siting Element, a long-term planning document that estimates disposal capacity for the entire County for a 15-year period.
We also have several Countywide waste reduction and recycling programs, including our award winning household hazardous waste program, smart gardening program, and conversion technology program. In addition, the County has programs that serve the County unincorporated areas such as construction & demolition, illegal dumping, and tire recycling.

4. Drivers for Waste Diversion
Policy:
AB 939 – 50% Waste Diversion
AB 32 – GHG Reduction
AB 341 – 75% Recycling Goal
AB 1826 – Commercial Organics
Draft Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy
Our role in waste management in collection, planning, and implementing programs is largely guided by legislation.
AB 939 (1989) required each jurisdiction in the state to divert 50% of waste generated from being disposed by the year 2000.
AB 32 (2006) establishes a goal to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the statewide emissions levels in 1990 by 2020.
AB 341 (2012) established mandatory commercial recycling as well as established a statewide 75% recycling goal.
AB 1826 (2014) requires businesses (including County facilities) that generate certain thresholds of organic waste per week to arrange for organic recycling services including food scraps starting April 1, 2016.
Within the SLCP plan, CARB mentioned “For landfills, ARB will work with CalRecycle to develop a regulation by 2018 to progress towards existing State targets for landfill diversion by 2020, and to effectively eliminate organic disposal in landfills by 2025.” Within workshops, they have mentioned that this may actually mean a target of 90% reduction of organic waste by 2025.

5. Despite our success in complying with and surpassing the 50% mandate, landfill space is dwindling in the region with no new landfills planned for the future. Due to this reality, in addition to several legislative and regulatory drivers requiring significant reductions in landfill disposal of organic material, on October 21st, 2014 the Board of Supervisors adopted the Roadmap to a Sustainable Waste Management Future, a comprehensive plan for a waste free future.
The Roadmap also established ambitious but achievable milestones towards a Waste Free Future, with disposal reduction targets for 2025, 2035 and 2045:
The Roadmap is divided into 3 focus areas: County Unincorporated Communities, Regional/Countywide, and County Operations.
There are 4 main strategies for each focus area: Programs and Services, Measuring Results, Facilities and Infrastructure, and Outreach and Education.
There were over a hundred initiatives identified in the Roadmap to help achieve the County’s goals with several key priorities including those shown above: EPR, Organics Mgmt, C&D, Regional Debris Management, Outreach and Education, and County Department Recycling.
The County Unincorporated area currently has a diversion rate of approximately 74%.

6. New Waste Management Paradigm
Under AB 939, CA established a waste management hierarchy. This was a good start, but we felt we could do better. Traditionally, most waste was landfilled with little being reduced, reused, or recycled.
Today, with greater emphases on sustainability, we are shifting to a new waste management paradigm. The goal is that landfilling will be a last resort, after exhausting all methods of waste diversion. Source reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting are an essential part of the new waste management paradigm.
Conversion technologies are essential to divert materials that cannot otherwise be source reduced, reused, recycled, or composted, and would end up in a landfill which I will be covering in more detail later in the presentation.

7. Waste Composition
Los Angeles County disposed 8.9 million tons of trash in 2014
Total Organic Waste = ~3.5M tons
Food waste = ~1.6M tons
Green waste = ~0.6M tons
In 2015, LA County disposed approximately 8.9 million tons of solid waste.
The total organic waste disposed was approximately 3.5 million tons. Out of this organic waste, 1.6 million tons was food waste and 0.6 million tons was green waste.
Per the 2014 statewide waste characterization CalRecycle conducted, Organics are approximately 43% of what material is disposed with food waste making up the majority as shown in the table above.
Combined food and green waste is 25%, which is equivalent to 2.2 million tons per year or 7,050 tons per day

8. How to Divert Food Waste
Since Food Waste is the largest component of organic waste currently disposed, the County is implementing many programs and policies for organic waste diversion, guided by the EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy.
Public Works is working to educate residents and businesses about adjusting their purchasing practices to prevent food waste. Buying closer to what you need saves money as well as reduces what you throw away. Studies have shown billions of dollars worth of edible food are disposed each year.
Our Department is also working with the County Department of Public Health to develop a food donation program to feed hungry people. There are misconceptions about businesses being able to donate prepared food. In fact the Good Samaritan Law shields companies from liability when they donate edible foods in good faith.
Public Works is researching companies that collect food waste and turn it into animal feed.
In order to derive the most beneficial use from food waste, the County promotes the use of anaerobic digestion (such as co-digestion in a wastewater treatment plan) before directly composting food waste. After the AD process, the resulting digestate can be composted to produce fertilizer for land application.

9. Organics Management Plans
County Unincorporated Communities (CUC)
Identification and outreach to large generators
Manage collection
County Operations
On-site small scale solutions
Updating waste hauling
contracts
Countywide
Infrastructure planning and
facilitating development
Public Works developed organics management plans for the 3 Focus Areas of the Roadmap.
In County Unincorporated Communities, Public Works is identifying and conducting outreach to large organics generators and manage the collection of organic waste.
For County Operations, Public Works is helping identify County departments who are large generators of organics and needing to comply with AB 1826, develop on-site small scale solutions for managing organic waste as well as assisting the County’s Internal Services Department in updating waste hauling contracts for County facilities.
For Countywide organics management, Public Works is conducting infrastructure planning to ensure adequate organics processing capacity will be available in the region. Public Works is also facilitating the development of new infrastructure.

10. CUC Organics Management
Identifying Large Commercial Generators
Service level information and CalRecycle tools
Identified 200 accounts within tier 1 of 10,000
Identified 115 County Facilities
Outreach to Businesses
Flyers, letter, Surveys, and Site visits
Monitoring and Enforcement
Annual inspections
Public Works prepared an organics recycling program as required by AB The role of jurisdictions in AB 1826 is to identify, conduct outreach to, and monitor large generating businesses. Jurisdictions are also responsible to report to CalRecycle on their organics programs beginning in August 2017 for calendar year 2016.
Public Works has identified which businesses are likely required to comply with AB 1826, using service level information we receive from the hauler along with CalRecycle tools to place business within the first tiers. In order to do so, Public Works:
Sent surveys to large commercial generators to gather information.
Conducted site visits to determine whether these businesses and facilities must comply with the various phases of the law.
Through the Smart Business Program, Public Works is sending out flyers and letters notifying businesses of AB 341 and AB 1826 requirements and how to comply.
Outreach Materials are available on the CalRecycle website to assist other jurisdictions with AB 1826 compliance
Public Works surveyed the haulers that currently provide service to the unincorporated areas whether they can provide organics and food waste recycling services. A table summarizing this information has been made available on our website.
In order to monitor these businesses and enforce AB 1826,
Inspectors and consultants will annually visit these businesses and visually inspect the organic waste disposal procedures to verify their compliance.
Currently, there are no penalties for businesses not to comply, but there are penalties for Jurisdictions who do not comply.
The County is still analyzing the most effective way to enforce the law which may be through an ordinance or through requirements in waste hauling contracts.

11. 4/24/2018 8:24 PM
This is an example of a flyer we sent to businesses notifying them of AB 341 and AB 1826.
The flyer informs businesses that Public Works will be conducting free on-site visits to help businesses and food service establishments in the County Unincorporated areas comply with the State’s mandatory recycling requirements.
The flyer states that businesses in the County unincorporated areas may contact their authorized commercial waste hauler to receive free recycling services and arrange for organic waste recycling services.
If they are interested in going beyond the law, we offer additional site visits and assessments that may inlcude waste audits and recommendations how to reduce and recycling additional waste and ultimately become more sustainable.
Environmental Programs Division

12. Organics Collection Programs
2 Garbage Disposal Districts (GDDs)
68 voluntary businesses
Organics Extrusion Press
Commercial Franchise
4 proposals received
Pilot collection program
began in 2016
Options Analysis
Source separated vs. wet/dry
Public Works is developing organics collection programs in County Unincorporated areas.
Garbage Disposal Districts (GDDs)
Partnership with Republic Services and County of Los Angeles Sanitation Districts
Collection in Belvedere and Firestone GDDs began October 2015
68 businesses participating in GDD programs
Includes site visits and education and outreach to the businesses by Republic Services.
Approximately 5 tons of source separated organics per week currently collected
Material taken to the Puente Hills MRF where it is taken to a facility for further processing into a slurry and then sent to their wastewater treatment plant where it is co-digested with biosolids and biogas is produced to make electricity for the plants operations.
A two week pilot program earlier this year conducted a study of processing the waste through the Anaergia test press, which is an organics extrusion press.
The results of this study showed very high separation of digestable organics from the waste stream.
County Commercial Franchise
4 proposals submitted from commercial franchise haulers
Pilot collection program started in 2016
Includes site visits and training
Exterior and interior containers provided
Service level varies by hauler
Follow up visits to reduce contamination
Future collection
OPTIONS ANALYSIS : Source separated organics VS wet/dry routing
Collection before facilities in place
Comprehensive analysis, including pros and cons, of various collection practices
Potential options include contract modifications, exclusive commercial hauling, commercial recycling ordinance, self-haul standards, and wet/dry collection
Major education will continuously be necessary

13. County Ops Organics Management
County of Los Angeles:
Over 30 Departments and 100,000 employees
Several hundred facilities
Update County Facility waste
hauling contracts
Pitchess Detention Center
Anaerobic Digestion Facility
The County of Los Angeles has over 30 Departments with 100,000 employees.
There are several hundred County facilities where organic waste is generated.
Therefore, managing organic waste from County Operations is an important part of AB 1826 compliance.
Public Works determined which County Departments will be affected by the first compliance threshold by calculating the amount of organics generated based on the number of employees or based on level of waste collection service facilities are currently receiving. Public Works notified the facilities that will need to comply and provided contact information for waste haulers providing organics recycling services in Los Angeles County.
Public Works is working with ISD to rebid the County Facility waste hauling contracts to include organics waste management and additional reporting in order to comply with the requirements of AB 1826.
Public Works is providing technical assistance to the Sheriff’s Department to develop an anaerobic digestion facility at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. Pitchess is a large detention facility that generates a lot of organic waste, but also has on-site farming operations including composting and also has an on-site cogen plant.
The potential project would digest food and green waste from the detention center in addition to organic waste from nearby County facilities. The facility would produce biogas that could be used for the on-site cogen plant, could be injected into the pipeline, or used to generate fuel for County vehicles.
Working with a consultant, Public Works and LASD are determining the details for issuing a Request for Qualifications and Proposals for the design, permitting, construction, commissioning, and operation of the AD project.

14. Organics Recycling Pilot - DPW
Public Works has a pilot program for recycling pre-consumer cafeteria food waste in worm composting bins at the HQ campus. The cafeteria employees feed the worm bins weekly and our smart gardening consultant services the bins where the compost is used in a demonstration garden at Public Works HQ.
This is a great example where we are able to educate our Departments employees as well as other visitors to our facility.
Such a program could be implemented at other County facilities.
Public Works is also researching small-scale digesters to be installed at the HQ campus to digest food waste produced on-site.
Public Works has begun participating in the EPA’s Food Recovery Challenge. We have set specific goals to help us reduce the amount of food waste generated at Public Works HQ.

15. Countywide Organics Management
AB 876: Calculate total Countywide organics generation
Identify existing organics processing facilities
Determine planned and
needed organics processing
capacity
Facilitate the development of
organics processing facilities
In order to comply with AB 876, the County is calculating the total countywide organics generation.
We conducted surveys of different types of facilities in order to identify the existing organics processing capacity in and around the County.
We also used CalRecycle’s SWIS website and our surveys to determine how much future organics processing capacity is planned in the region.
After determining the total countywide organics generation and the existing and planned organics processing capacity in the region, we calculated the necessary remaining organics processing capacity.
New infrastructure will need to be developed in order to process the organic waste that will be diverted from landfills. Many organics processing facilities fall under the category of conversion technologies, which I will discuss in much more detail shortly.
Public Works So Cal Conversion project is facilitating the development of these alternative technology facilities in Los Angeles County and the region by providing technical assistance, educating stakeholders, working to remove regulatory barriers by supporting legislation that will allow organic material to be processed in different ways, and helping developing a streamlined permitting process for these facilities.

16. Existing Infrastructure
Materials Recovery Facilities
Sanitation Districts
Out-of-County Facilities
There are many MRFs and TS across LA County. We anticipate that some of these facilities will add additional equipment in order to separate organics from the waste stream in order for them to be digested or composted.
Co-digestion will get things started – the estimated existing excess capacity at publicly owned treatment works can handle 50% of food waste.
The upside is that these facilities are already built. Existing digesters can be retrofitted if necessary to improve performance. (Example is Anaergia’s Omnivore which increases solids loadings and biogas production through recuperative thickening, high solids mixing, and digestion of external feedstock)
The downsides are that they can process food only, there is no existing pre-processing infrastructure, and the resulting digestate from anaerobic digestion must be managed.
Large composting operations are very difficult to permit in the LA Basin, particularly with the air district.
There is a severe lack of infrastructure in County.
Digesters and composting out of county:
Burrtec AD and composting – Riverside County
Ventura/Oxnard Composting
Recology Composting – Kern County
Athens Composting in Victorville
Waste Management in OC

17. Planned Infrastructure
CR&R - Perris
Sanitation Districts - Various
Other Planned facilities
Vermicomposting – Sylmar
Waste Management – Lancaster
Harvest Power – Commerce
Anaergia – Anaheim
Pitchess Detention Center – Castaic

18. What are Conversion Technologies?
Processes capable of converting post-recycled residual solid waste into useful products and chemicals, green fuels, and renewable energy
May be thermal, chemical, or biological, but are not incinerators
One of the strategies I discussed for solid waste management was the development of conversion technology facilities in Los Angeles County.
Conversion technologies are non-combustion processes capable of converting post-recycled residual solid waste into useful products and chemicals, green fuels like ethanol and biodiesel, and renewable energy.
They may be thermal, chemical, or biological, but are not incinerators, which use waste materials as fuel for combustion in order to generate energy.

19. Successful Conversion Technology Projects
There are numerous successful CT projects throughout the world.
Enerkem biofuels in Alberta is a biorefinery produces methanol from waste.
It can convert 140,000 metric tons of municipal solid waste into 38 million liters of biofuels and chemicals annually.
Interstate Waste Technologies has a gasification facility in Japan that processes 110,000 tons per year of waste.
Interstate Waste Technologies, Japan
Enerkem Biofuels, Alberta

20. Environmental Benefits
Reduce dependence on landfilling and waste exportation
Locally produce renewable energy and green fuels
Increase recycling
Reduce emissions
Conversion technologies provide numerous environmental benefits.
Reduce dependence on landfilling and waste exportation.
Locally produce renewable energy and green fuels, including ethanol, biodiesel, biogas & electricity, which in turn reduces dependence on foreign oil.
Increase recycling through the advanced sorting techniques conversion technologies employ.
Reduce emissions, including GHG emissions, by reducing disposal, transportation, and fossil fuel usage.

21. Additional Benefits Projects are green job creators
Public-private partnerships
reduce risk and save taxpayers’
money
Conversion technologies can be cost competitive with other alternatives, such as waste-by-rail
Localize ways to achieve zero waste without depending on international recycling market
CTs have many additional benefits.
Projects are green job creators (approximately jobs per 10 MW of electricity produced).
Public-private partnerships reduce risk and save taxpayers’ money.
CTs can be cost competitive with other alternatives, such as waste-by-rail.
CTs localize ways to achieve zero waste without depending heavily on the volatility of the international recycling market

22. Comparative Analysis
Comparative Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Analysis white paper quantifies the benefits of alternative waste conversion technologies compared to traditional landfilling
Results from the white paper support the use of conversion technologies as part of an integrated waste management approach
The County of Los Angeles commissioned the Comparative Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Analysis white paper, which quantifies the benefits of alternative waste conversion technologies compared to traditional landfilling.
The comparative analysis compares the net GHG emissions of two scenarios.
In both scenarios, the cumulative GHG emissions were analyzed for handling 1,000 tpd of post-recycled residuals (after recycling efforts) from a mixed waste MRF over 25 years.
The first scenario, the Baseline Scenario, is the transport and disposal of the residuals to a modern sanitary landfill, which produces energy through the landfill gas to energy (LFG-to-energy) system.
For the Baseline Scenario, GHG emissions were modeled for an additional 100 year period after the landfill ceased to accept waste to account for GHG emissions generated by the decomposition of the waste disposed at the landfill.
The second scenario, the Alternative Scenario, proposes to process the same residuals at an Integrated MRF with conversion technologies.
The Integrated MRF was modeled after a combination of technologies employed elsewhere in the world, including mechanical pre-processing to recover additional recyclable material and to separate residuals into a wet fraction for anaerobic digestion and composting, and a dry fraction for thermal gasification.
In the Alternative Scenario, much less waste is sent to the landfill and additional recyclables, energy, and compost are produced.
The results from the white paper support the use of conversion technologies as part of an integrated waste management approach.

23. Comparative Analysis
The baseline scenario produces approximately net million MTCO2e over 125 years
The alternative scenario produces approximately net million MTCO2e over 125 years
The result, in net GHG emissions, for the Baseline Scenario was approximately 1.64 million MTCO2E over a 125 year period, which is comparable to 340,000 passenger vehicles driven
for one year.
The Alternative Scenario resulted in net avoided GHG emissions of (0.67) million MTCO2E over a 25 year period, which is comparable to 140,000 fewer passenger vehicles driven for one year.
The two scenarios evaluated emissions from transportation, operation, and avoided emissions. The most significant difference between the two scenarios is that the avoided emissions are much
greater for the Alternative Scenario. This is due to the energy generated from anaerobic digestion and gasification, which would replace fossil fuels, as well as the additional integrated MRF recycling in the Alternative Scenario. Avoided emissions in the Baseline Scenario are due to LFG-to-energy replacing the use of fossil fuels.

24. Public Works hosted the Southern California Conversion Technology Conference on July 29, 2016.
The conference included discussions on topics including:
Successful implementation of CTs throughout the world
Potential to reduce GHG emissions with integrated use of CTs
Incorporation of CTs into sustainability initiatives
A Legislative and regulatory discussion
The conference also included a keynote from Ethan Elkind from Cal Berkley who recently released a very comprehensive study on CTs and a panel discussion including Assembly Member Mike Gatto.
Over [XX] people attended.
Due to the success of this conference and the strong interest in CTs, Public Works hopes to host another conference soon.

25. Challenges
Determining the most efficient and reasonable way of collecting and processing organic waste
Outreach and education to impacted stakeholders
Monitoring and ensuring compliance of businesses
Developing, financing, and permitting for organics processing infrastructure
Lack of markets for compost and organics residuals
Determining the most efficient way of collecting and processing organic waste will require an extensive analysis and may include revisions to waste hauling contracts as well as behavioral changes from people.
Conducting outreach and education to stakeholders impacted by AB 1826 may prove to be difficult and ineffective. Even if affected businesses attempt to comply with AB 1826, contamination may still be a persistent and challenging barrier to effective implementing organics diversion policy.
Monitoring and ensuring that businesses comply with AB 1826 will require increased costs and staff time.
Developing, financing, and permitting suitable sites for organics processing infrastructure may require extensive feasibility analyses, a secure feedstock supply, and a lengthy environmental review period.
A lack of markets for compost and organics residuals can discourage the siting of organics processing facilities.

26. Looking Ahead Step up the Education – Next tier of Businesses
Analysis of organics management mechanisms and collection options
Assisting with permitting and grants for new organics management facilities
Pursuing and supporting new legislation
Determining best option for on-site organics management at County facilities
Despite these challenges, the County is looking ahead to the next steps organics management.
After determining methods to help businesses in the County Unincorporated Communities comply with the 2016 threshold, it is important to begin developing strategies to bring the next tier of businesses into compliance with the 2017 threshold. Public Works will continue in its efforts to bring County Operations into compliance with AB 1826 by revising County facility waste hauling contracts to include AB 1826 compliance measures.
The County anticipates completing its analysis of organics management options and sharing this analysis with other jurisdictions in the Regional/Countywide area.
Public Works will continue to facilitate the development of organics management projects by providing technical assistance and assisting with permitting and grants.
The County is pursuing and supporting additional legislation to allow organic materials to be processed in additional ways throughout the Regional/Countywide area.
Public Works is also working with a consultant to determine the best options for on-site organics management at Public Works headquarters and at other County facilities.

27. Questions? For more information, visit www.CleanLA.com
Patrick Holland, PE, MBA
(626)
For more information, visit