Folks this year in January a new law went into effect, under the old law we had 3 “Toter garbage cans” one for garbage (brown) one for recycling (Green) and one for green waste (light green). The garbage can was serviced every week, with the other cans rotating every other week. The Toter cans were pretty sturdy, made in Mexico and held up pretty well under the test of time. Here in the central valley of California, it is also north of 100 degrees for months on end.
The new law sees the replacement of the Toter’s with what I call cheap Chinese crap plastic cans. Seriously I doubt these things will hold up very well and I may be replacing them annually with new ones. I have a feeling someone in Sacramento (lawmaker) has a family member who owns the company that makes these and used the new law as a vehicle to get $$$. My other issue with these new cans is the color scheme completely changed. The trash cart is now black, which I guess makes sense. The recycle cart is now blue, and the organics (replaces yard waste) is green.
The system works basically the same, but I do have a question, this was billed as a green, better for the environment system, but is it? The new organics cart now is for yard waste and table scraps; think bones, salad etc. So basically, anything you previously put in the garbage disposal. This cart will also be serviced weekly, so now every other week 3 trucks will have to be on the road. Keep in mind these garbage trucks are a massive apparatus and do not run-on electricity. I do not see how having a truck on the road every 2 weeks is somehow saving the environment.
An additional observation of mine, according to the nosy neighbor app, folks have gotten vermin, and maggots in their organics can because of intermixing the food scraps and yard waste, who would have thunk it right? The cans also do not look like they will hold up to our 100-degree summers.
Perhaps my biggest beef was in a mailer sent out to the entire populous. It specifically said your trash and organics cart will be inspected periodically to make sure you are in compliance. Yep, we will now have city personnel inspecting your garbage and issuing a citation if you are not in compliance! Just like in Berkeley. This law effects both the residential and commercial businesses. As such the businesses near me got small organic carts that never have anything in them. My point being people like myself are not able to compost or recycle as much as a business is. The food scrap recycling? If that even works, and I have my doubts, wouldn’t it be better to have restaurants all be required to get on board? I would say the Brickhouse Restaurant near me likely would fill up a dumpster sized cart of just organic waste likely every other day. Call me a skeptic of this.
Also, you may remember my blog stating the most recycling just goes into the dump anyway, this article I’m linking once again proves we were Really Right.
By the way, that’s a CBS article not some far right website on the internet. Seems like a lot of energy is being put into recycling when it doesn’t seem to work.
The Troll