Every time my parents come up to visit the grandchildren, they are constantly baffled by the resistance that Davis has had to green waste containerization – that the public is content to dump waste in the streets and bike paths rather than put it into containers.
This week the city once again delayed action on a proposal that would call for some form of containerization. City staff laid out five options and recommended Option 1, which would call for carts only, no loose street pickup. They argued this was most cost effective because it would require that DWR only have one set of crews and equipment.
As the Vanguard noted this week, council agrees that going to a form of containerization is the way to go, and they seem to favoring an option that allows for either seasonal street pickup or on-call pickup of tree material.
The reasons for containerization have frankly been obvious for years – bike safety, improvements in storm water quality, Â less street debris, and the ability to add compostable materials to yard waste.
They did express concerns about the transition to green waste containerization.
However, that is the city council. The comments from the public remain in opposition. On the Vanguard, citizens expressed the concern that they do not have room in their yard to store another large container.
I took this photo last year when the issue came up. This is my parents’ house where you can see the extra trash bin neatly fits.
Others have actually threatened to cut down their trees.
Reading Bob Dunning this morning, “Despite our City Council’s determination to have us put our so-called ‘yard waste’ into large plastic containers instead of piling it in the street, a number of folks aren’t convinced this is the right way to go.”
He adds, “Leaves and grass clippings will certainly fit comfortably into a can and pack down much like garbage, but branches and other sorts of yard waste simply won’t fit very well.”
This is simply a mindboggling argument. There are communities that have had green waste containerization for decades. My parents have had it for more than 25 years. Do people believe that Davis is somehow unique with regard to the problem of trees? Like there are not trees in any other community with containerization?
Before the last drought, my parents’ yard was full of trees. Somehow they managed.
But the citizens of Davis have always resisted the idea that they should put their waste in a container. Instead, they allow their waste to be dumped in bicycle lanes and be subject to wind storms like the ones last fall that blew leaves all over the street out of their neat piles.
When the issue came up in 2007, bicycle advocates complained about the dangers of dumping waste in the bike lanes, so the city compromised by double-striping the bike paths with the hope that the trimmings would be confined outside of the paths on arterial roadways.
The bicycle safety issue is considerable. Waste forces bicyclists to veer into the street which creates a risk for the bicyclist and a hazard for cars, especially for those bicyclists who veer without fully looking around them.
However, safety is not the only issue. The waste causes problems for storm drains and water runoff.
An April 2007 staff report noted, “The Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) staff, in review of the City’s Storm Water Management Plan submitted March 2003, had found the current green waste management program to be inadequate. RWQCB staff contends that loose green waste in the street degrades storm water quality and emphasizes that green waste containerization or its equivalent is needed.”
 “The current collection method of collecting green waste loose in the street poses safety concerns for bicycle riders,” staff reported in 2007. “The conflict between piles of green waste and bicyclists has been recognized over the years and appears in the City of Davis Bicycle Plan as an issue needing improvement.”
The city offers additional rationale for the move, arguing that by switching to containerization, “the city may be able to reduce operating costs by reducing the frequency of street sweeping service.”
The city of Davis, of course, has weekly street sweeping following yard material collection. However, staff notes, the city of San Jose only performs their street sweeping monthly.
All of that being said, it seems that a reasonable compromise could be for the city to pursue Option 2 or Option 3.
Option 2 allows, “During leaf-drop season, customers may place yard materials only (no food scraps or other organics) loose-in-the-street for pick-up by DWR during a two month period from October 15 through December 15, annually. This allows customers to easily dispose of fallen leaves and other yard debris during the time of year when it is most needed.”
This is what the city of Sacramento does. They prohibit waste in the street, “except during leaf season.” During that time they allow for “leaves, grass trimmings, prunings, sod, and Christmas trees.”
They note, “Citywide collection of yard waste piles will occur only in November, December and January. Please fill your yard waste container first before placing extra material out in a pile in front of your residence.”
The city staff report notes that this is a more costly alternative “as DWR would need to keep two sets of equipment in repair for running two different collection systems. Switching from cart collection to loose-in-the-street and back also causes customer confusion. Other cities that have opted for this method have had to increase staffing to monitor yard material pile placement and cite customers that leave piles out in the street during the wrong time of the year.”
The other downside of this is that we would create seasonal hazards for bicyclists, and the unsightliness of leaf piles blowing in the wind would not eliminated.
The other alternative would be Option 3 which would be, “Customers can request one free special pick-up of yard materials per year. Additional pick-ups would be charged a fee. Pick-ups would have to be scheduled in advance.”
Again, this appears to be a costly alternative with two separate collections systems, equipment and crews.
The strange thing about all of this discussion is that we are not reinventing the wheel here. This should not be this complicated.
And yet here we have this platinum bicycle community that strives to get diamond status and we dump hazards into bike lanes. It is time for the city council to put a stop to this madness and come up with a solution – any option will do.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Nice compromise David, I didn’t see that coming from you. Now doesn’t that feel good.
I just fear we get paralyzed trying to come up with a perfect solution, when we can come up with a better solution for most people.
Yes, Valley communities have more trees, larger trees, and different kinds of trees than coastal communities. Cities with higher temperatures have a great deal more biomass to dispose of. And a lot of that biomass is woody and does not readily fit into yard waste containers.
Seattle has people put excess waste into biodegradable bags.
Wasn’t comparing seattle climate to ours just saying that biodegradable bags is another solution.
I would imagine that that solution would be a whole lot more expensive than my current $4.00 a pile charge for an on-call pickup. As a wild-ass guess, I would expect the cost of a half dozen biodegradable leaf bags would be somewhere north of $15.00. Does anyone have a sense of what biodegradable bags of that size actually cost?
The DWR guy said at the meeting it would likely cost more in other areas and that El Macero was cheaper for on call pick because of its proximity to where DWR keeps its equipment.
Toad, is the City not in proximity to where DWR keeps its equipment?
I don’t see any cost differential between serving Davis and serving El Macero. If anything, since El Macero is on the edge of the City the costs should be higher because the travel miles are longer than the travel miles to a City neighborhood.
I’m just reminding you what he said. If you want to dispute the numbers they come up with show up at the meeting even if it means missing the Eagles concert at Arco.
I’d prefer option 3. But if 2.5 is adopted I’d rather have leaves contained in a bag, then loose blowing around the street.
It makes one wonder how all the other “valley communities” make containerization work.
Woodland does Option 2.
Don, I pulled my DWR bills from the past 12 months, and my on-demand green pile pick-ups took place on:
••» April 8, 2013 (spring pruning of various shrubs including two large Pittosporums)
••» April 15, 2013 (Pence Garden Tour preparation)
••» April 29, 2013 (Pence Garden Tour final preparation)
••» May 13, 2013 (2 piles of heavy oleander pruning after the Pence Garden Tour)
••» May 20, 2013 (more oleander pruning)
••» June 17, 2013 (Xylosma tree limb pruning)
••» August 12, 2013
••» November 18, 2013 (extensive rosemary bed pruning)
The above information shows that Option 2 with its restriction to a “season” would be problematic for anyone who has a garden like ours that grows like gardens grow in California. I consider the incremental “on-call” pile pick-up charges to be my personal fiscal responsibility for the discretionary decision my wife and I have made to have the garden we have.
It is important to note that we consider the incremental water charges that such a garden necessitates to be our personal fiscal responsibility for the discretionary decision we made to have the garden we have.
Well said, and great point, Matt. Favorite part:
– taking responsibility for your discretionary decisions –
Especially when those discretionary decisions actually increase the market value of the home.
The water debate brought out a lot of modified Boston Tea Party sentiment that I found peculiar. Instead of “No Taxation without Representation” the Davis mantra by some was “No increased home value without free maintenance.”
But they still have trees. And they figured out how to solve this problem. And Davis is paralyzed by it.
Davis is not paralyzed by it. Most people in Davis are probably happy with the current method. Bike activists and the NRC are not happy with it. My guess is that the public will largely see this, once again, as a solution in search of a problem.
Don, I don’t disagree with your final sentence; however, that still doesn’t answer the nagging question of “Why has every city in California except three (of which Davis is one of the three) converted to containerized green waste? It seems like we are swimming against the tide.
Let me correct you on one item here. This is not a situation of “bike activists” vs. the general population. Some of the people who are not happy with crap piled in the bike lanes are those who regularly use a bicycle for transportation. And that includes a large number of our most vulnerable road users: Our children riding to school every day. Few of them are activists, and few have any voice here. Most of them are negatively effected by this practice.
I fully understand that there are many non-cyclists who don’t see the dangers posed by these piles of waste. But that doesn’t make the danger any less real. And it doesn’t take an “activist” to see or be harmed by the danger that our current practice presents.
If we’d like to do a pilot program of pushing the piles into the traffic lanes for a few months, I’d be supportive of that effort.
Don: You read the staff report’s note that storm water permits will likely require it?
Yes, that’s also what they said in their 2007 report. So evidently in 7 years not much has changed in that regard. My guess would be that contamination of storm drain would come from lawn clippings containing pesticides and fertilizer byproducts. Not leaves or bramches.
http://davismerchants.org/vanguard/CityStaffReport2007yardwaste.pdf
The current staff report references the 2006 permit, not sure when the next permit comes up.
So basically nothing has changed in that regard. People should not put lawn clippings in the street. They should either mow them back into the lawn and let them decompose there, pile them up elsewhere in the yard to break down into the soil, or put them out in the yard waste containers.
At this point it may not be what people in Davis are happy with. Herb implied at the council meeting that Davis Storm Water permit would not be renewed if we continued with a loose-in-the-street collection method.
And the adopted 2013 Integrated Waste Management plans say a food scrap collection will be mandatory in order for the city to reach it’s state mandated waste reduction goals.
If year round green waste containerized pick-up is not implemented then the city will have to implement a separate food waste collection program. It makes no fiscal sense not to combine these programs.
I’ll be curious to see the cost differences between the options. I’d prefer we didn’t have seasonal loose-in-the-street pick-up, and just went with option 3, but if Option 2.5 (seasonal loose-in-the-street with 4 free scheduled pickups gets) us moving in the containerized direction, that option would have my support. (As long as year round food scrap collection is available with this option).
I’m really just at the point where we need something anything. The enemy of the good has become the perfect
If you combine the enemy of the good with, “i’m scared of anything different than I’ve been doing” we don’t advance much, do we?
Thanks for the article, David. We’ve had many of these lately, of course – you hit on most of the relevant topics.
When I first was house-shopping in Davis 17 years ago, one of the first questions I asked my real-estate agent as we drove around was, “Why does everybody throw their trash in the street?” As we walked past piles of ugly, stinking, fermenting grass clippings, it was explained to me that this is how Davis has “always picked up yard waste. It was the first and one of the *only* things that left a negative impression on me after those initial visits.
(Does anybody know when our current method of street-pickup began in Davis? And what did we do BEFORE that blessed day?)
I’ve lived in CA all my life, in a few different locations. This was the first time I’d ever seen yard waste piled in the street for pickup. Some places where I’ve lived, there was NO green-waste pickup by the city. (Wow. How does THAT work??) If a home-owner had a large yard-work project, he would chip it on-site (my typical option when I was younger), haul it away himself, or pay somebody to do it (my typical option now that I’m creaky). The homeowner didn’t expect everybody in the city (especially those with small, or very low-maintenance yards) to pay for his occasional need of hauling services. Nor did he dump it into the street to make it a hazard for road users. In the last place I lived before moving to Davis, we had recently switched from *no* pickup of any kind, to green containers. And they were FANTASTIC! The cans were durable, and designed to dehydrate the greenery while sitting in the can during the days before pickup (I’ve noticed a lack of details or discussions about what our cans would be like – I fear they’ll just be green trash cans which my experience shows to be a mistake). And yes, I still had a few days a year when my yard waste would not all fit in the can. And just like today in Davis when my big trees need trimming, or my roof needs fixing, or my automobile needs repairing and I can’t do it myself… I generally hire somebody else to do it for me. Welcome to home-ownership. Make no mistake – I found green containers to be far more convenient than piling the stuff in the street as I do today.
Yes, there are hundreds of CA cities that have figured this out (and they don’t have nearly as many Phd-holders as we do!) And yes some of them have *gasp* the same amount (or more!) biomass to dispose of than we do! I’m confident that the citizens and city leaders of Davis can figure out how to manage this scary, necessary change. Note please that I’m not saying we should do it because everybody else is doing it – I’m saying we surely *can* figure out how to do it since everybody else has figured it out. WHY we need to do it, is I hope, too obvious to waste time repeating. (But I’m happy to explain if begged! Certainly Mr. Dunning could use a bit of learning on the subject.)
Who originated the proposal for containerization? Who is pushing for it? In response to what perceived need? Is this a staff response to a state mandate? Did it originate with one or more of our commissions?
As well, I’d like to know when the current street pickup originated. And if it started just as we have it now – with three trucks driving around weekly to each residence.
Only thing that I can (barely) add is that I first heard about a containerization proposal soon after we moved here. Probably 15 years ago. I was thrilled! Then quickly dismayed at the ignorance and resistance time and time again.
Always good to know that when we disagree with you, it’s because we’re either ignorant or fearful. That’s the kind of rhetoric that doesn’t make for a productive conversation.
Yet you seem to be OK with using sarcasm to move the conversation forward?
Your leaps of logic (and sarcastic comments) are noted. I am using the word ignorance here as “lack of knowledge or experience.” Not as “dumb” as you seem to have inferred. Ignorance is something we all have. Generally we are ignorant on more subjects than those on which we are knowledgeable. If there are people in town who have never experienced the use of a yard waste container, those people are ignorant in that regard. The same way that non-cyclists are ignorant of the dangers posed by piles of yard waste in the street. It dismays me when decisions are based on inexperience (the word that maybe I should have used) and ignorance.
And since you (seemingly putting words in my mouth) brought up “fearful” – I am quite interested: Just what is it that you fear in regard to containerization? I can only think of two worries: Reduced convenience and increased cost. But I easily admit my ignorance (see what I did there?) on this subject – I truly am not sure what the fear is. Are there other possibilities that I am not considering? What happens if containerization turns out to be both more convenient and cheaper?
I try hard to be productive in my comments. I agree that I sometimes fail and give into my dark desire to be annoying … but I do honestly try.
Cheers.
Don wrote:
> Who originated the proposal for containerization?
Everyone I know would like to get rid of the piles in the street all over town (that people tend to “top off” with the soon to be illegal trash bags of dog poop).
I’m wondering why Don even cares since he does not live in Davis and won’t have to make any change as to what he does with his yard waste…
I own property here and dispose of vegetative waste from that property, just as you do. I’m not sure why you always seek to personalize these issues with regard to where I live or don’t live. It seems to be an ongoing obsession of yours, regardless of the topic.
I’ve also been a landscape contractor and done seasonal maintenance, so I have sympathy for those who make their livings that way, as well as my many customers who do their own yard work and generate yard debris. I hope to help them learn to reduce their output of organic matter going off site, but I don’t believe they’ll eliminate it.
and yet, 95% of people were happy with the current system, and 2/3 don’t want to change it. So evidently “everyone you know” comes from a narrow range of the Davis population.
More to the point, that doesn’t answer the question as to who initiated this and why. My guess is this is staff-driven.
Don Shor said …
“More to the point, that doesn’t answer the question as to who initiated this and why. My guess is this is staff-driven.”
Don, I had no idea who initiated the discussions, so as I am wont to do, I conducted some research. Here is what I discovered.
1) the Bicycle Advisory Commission has been concerned about this issue, and waving flags about it for years, but the Gang of Three Councils did not “hear” the BAC’s entreaties.
2) The Sierra Club has been concerned with urban water runoff issues for quite a while, and in the 2012 Candidates Forum they hosted, one of the questions asked of the candidates had to do with A) urban water runoff, B) the impending stricter State of California regulations regarding Stormwater Discharge Permits, and C) the momentum that was building in the community supporting the creation of the City’s first Integrated Waste Management Plan (IWMP). All three of the candidates who were elected to Council articulated positions of support for the Sierra Clubs’ concerns about all three of those components, and when the new Council sat in office that meant four immediate votes in support of proceeding with the IWMP. as well as a newly invigorated bicycle community that saw that it had receptive ears.
3) Interestingly enough, Staff, in the person of Jacques DeBra, vigorously opposed the idea of the IWMP, and worked diligently to place obstacles in its way. It was a textbook “let the perfect be the enemy of the good” gameplan that regularly put Jacques at odds with several Commissions, members of the Council, and even (reputedly) other members of Staff.
So, there really wasn’t any specific point of initiation, but rather the confluence of a number of factors and the collaboration of several disparate groups in moving the IWMP forward.
> “and yet, 95% of people were happy with the current system”
Unless we know what was asked and how it was asked, we have no idea what this means, do we? In general, people tend to defend the status quo at all costs. No surprise here at all.
More importantly, is “happiness” what we base our policies on? I’d be a lot happier if cyclists didn’t have to stop at stop signs. I’d probably be happier if somebody else paid by water bill and cleaned up after my dog. I’d be happier if I could legally talk on my cell phone without having to fumble for my “handsfree” headset. But it turns out that we put policies in place for reasons other than my happiness. Indeed sometimes we make policies based on health and safety at the expense of some convenience… and happiness.