Phil Bobel, assistant director of public works for the City of Palo Alto, admits something that most people won’t. He sometimes does “lid tipping.”
That means he and his staff purposely go around lifting the lids of people’s compost bins to see if they put in food waste.
“About 40 percent (of Palo Alto customers) are currently composting,” Bobel said, basing his analysis on the lid-tipping venture.”Hopefully our analysis is a little light.”
“We did a little informal survey — (we) looked in the green container. We didn’t dig around. If food scraps were buried by yard waste, we wouldn’t see it.”
He says lots of people are grossed out by the idea of putting food waste in their compost bins, but he hopes to change their minds. He said, “Yes, a home compost bin will attract rodents if it has food waste in it. But the big green bin that is picked up weekly by the city and has a heavy lid on it should be safe from rodents.” If you’re squeamish, you could also put the food waste into a compostable bag before putting in the bin, he added.
There is no restriction on types of food that can go in the compost bin. The contents of the bins eventually end up at the recycling plant in North San Jose where all Palo Alto trash goes. Compost goes straight into a special oxygen-less vault where it’s broken down, the methane captured for energy, and then the residual compost is spread on crops throughout the Gilroy area.
The other big trash item he would like to see more Palo Altans putting into their compost bin is food-soiled paper. Paper towels, Kleenex (yes, even from that recent cold!), and cardboard pizza boxes can all go in Palo Alto’s compost bins.
Palo Alto has one of the more advanced recycling and composting programs on the Peninsula, compared to many neighboring cities like Menlo Park and Los Altos. Those cities have more limits on things like where you can put food-soiled paper, and you cannot put electronics in the bins in Menlo Park whereas you can in Palo Alto. It’s also tricky when you move from city to city to follow individual cities’ rules, even about where to place oversized, folded cardboard. In Menlo Park, it goes next to the cart. In Palo Alto, Bobel emphasizes, all cardboard needs to go in the cart.
Not breaking down cardboard boxes is one of the worst no-nos, he said. “They try to stick a whole cardboard box in the blue container. When they jam it in, it makes it harder to be emptied. It causes us more pain in dealing with the box. Cardboard boxes next to rather than in… every week we have to have the driver get out if non-recyclable packaging is left in it.”
If people were sorting perfectly, it (garbage collection) would cost less,” Bobel said. Trash and recycling “sort lines,” the conveyor belts where all the stuff ends up, can be more expensive because human monitors need to watch items going by to make sure there is nothing that isn’t supposed to be there.
“What’s confusing is we can deal with plastic bags (like dry-cleaning and thin wrap from new toys or appliances) if you ball them up in a thicker plastic bag and squeeze all the air out and tie it up and put it in the recycling bin. We can fish those out.”
Otherwise, if such plastic bags are put in loose, “We actually have to shut down this machine twice a day because the plastic tangles up.”
Just so you know, most of the plastic in recycling bins ends up going overseas. It gets compacted into “big hunks,” Bobel said, and probably gets burned as fuel.
As for how to organize your home trash bins for all this presorting, it’s all about adapting.
Bobel says if enough residents said they wanted double bins to sort different recycling or compost, the city would probably provide them. Since compost has grown and garbage has diminished, people may change their ways.
“I had a tall kitchen garbage can. When we started composting, it became my compost container. My (smaller green) compost container is garbage now.”
Recycling Facts
For more information go to the city’s website. For San Mateo County cities go to Recology’s website and for Los Altos, visit Mission Trail Waste System’s website.
Examples of what can go in Palo Alto’s blue recycling bin:
• Aerosol cans (empty, non-hazardous)
• Appliances, (e.g., toaster, blender)
• Cans ( food, beverage, pet food)
• Foil, foil trays, pans
• Furniture
• Hardware ( keys, nails, screws)
• Household items (pots, pans, trays, utensils)
• Paint cans (empty, dry, no excessive residue)
• Pipe
• Scrap metal (plumbing fixtures, small auto parts)
• Sporting goods
• Tools
• Toys
• Trays
• Umbrellas
• Books (e.g., hard/soft cover, telephone)
• Boxes (e.g., cereal, cracker, tissue, shoe, mailing)
• Carbonless paper
• Cardboard (flatten, unwaxed)
• Catalogs
• Egg cartons
• Envelopes (plastic window OK)
• Frozen food packaging
• Magazines
• Manila folders
• Newspaper
• Non-metalic wrapping, tissue paper
• Photographs (NO Polaroids/instant photos)
• Shredded paper (tie in a clear plastic bag)
• Bags (bread, dry clean, grocery, newspaper,
produce, merchandise, zip lock)
• Bubble wrap
• Case wrap (beverage container, snack flats)
• Liners (cereal box)
• Plastic packaging wrap (e.g., wrap from toilet
paper, napkins, paper towels, diapers)
FILM PLASTICS (Please place inside a clear plastic bag and knot the top of the bag)
• Bottles (e.g., beverage, laundry and household cleaners,
personal care products, prescription)
• Baskets
• Buckets
• Cartridges (e.g., toner, ink jet, printer)
• Coolers
• Computer housing
• Food containers (e.g., cottage cheese, margarine,
yogurt, take-out)
• Shelving
PLASTICS (all types, with or without a number) Note: Polystyrene like Styrofoam is NOT accepted
• Appliances (e.g., coffee maker, microwave oven)
• Camera
• Calculator
• Cell phone (inside clear tear-resistant bag)
• Computer (e.g., desk top, lap top)
• Computer mouse, cables
• Home entertainment (e.g., game system, DVR, VCR,
stereo, radio)
• Keyboard
• Printer
• Shaver – electric
• Vacuum cleaner
ELECTRONICS (anything with a computer chip) Note: Televisions and computer monitors NOT accepted