The Board of Supervisors today approved customer fees for the state-mandated three-cart collection program under Senate Bill 1383, which will begin in January. The new service will add a weekly organics bin to regular trash and recycling service.
Public Works Director David Garcia highlighted the challenges of implementing SB1383 in rural counties, noting the added financial burden due to the unfunded mandate. “SB1383 is specifically challenging for rural counties for many reasons, but it's also an unfunded mandate. Adding these programs to our existing services does affect folks’ rates,” Garcia said during his presentation.
Starting in January, all WM (Waste Management) customers will receive three carts – one for regular trash, one for recyclables (i.e. aluminum cans, paper) and one for organics including food, green waste and certain food-soiled containers. Weekly collection will be provided for trash and organics carts, while recycling will continue to be collected biweekly. Residents who don’t have curbside service will sort and self-haul their waste to an approved facility or compost at home.
“We don’t want to disproportionally affect customers who are low or fixed income, so we incorporated that into our rates,” added Garcia.
Costs will increase between $6.56 to $13.30 a month for those who don't currently subscribe to green waste and up to $6.36 for those who already do, depending on the size of their trash can. Total monthly costs will range from $18.39 for seniors/ low-income residents to $50.12 for those opting for the largest 96-gallon carts.
District 1 Supervisor Heidi Hall emphasized the benefits of the program despite its challenges. “Although this program is really difficult and costly for rural areas, one of the great things is that people will be getting a green waste cart when they didn’t previously have that service,” she said, highlighting its role in fire mitigation efforts.
WM plans to begin distributing organics carts to customers in December. “We will have a temporary phone number listed on our website specifically for the new cart rollout that rings to our local team here,” said WM Director of Sales Eric Lynch at the meeting.
Free counter-top compost buckets are available at Nevada County’s Solid Waste office, located at 950 Maidu Ave in Nevada City. “We make it as easy as we can for people to get their compost from the house to their green waste bins,” said District 4 Supervisor Sue Hoek.
The new collection system is the County’s response to SB1383, which requires communities to divert organic waste away from landfills and instead use other methods to recycle the waste. The transition coincides with the completion of the McCourtney Road Transfer Station renovation project, which includes a new organics and green waste receiving area, a new public receiving area, a new access road and entrance scale to reduce wait times, and more.
Learn more about the transition to three-cart organics collection at nevadacountyca.gov/organics.
