The City's flawed recycling programsparks discension among council, staff

In recently released official figures, San Mateo's waste level reduction is at 34 percent.

The city of San Mateo rates below all cities in the county in terms of waste reduction except Atherton and Hillsborough, which are at 31 and 25 percent respectively.

"It's really hard to say why[San Mateo rates so low], but it's very disconcerting," Vern Bessey, environmental control specialist of the Public Works Commission said.

Bessey said it is very unlikely San Mateo will reach the 50 percent goal by the end of the year.

AB939 requires that jurisdictions, who do not the meet the goal and do not show a good faith effort to meet the goal by the end of the year, be fined $10,000 a day until the 50 percent goal is reached.

Bessey said the city has a fairly comprehensive recycling program which includes residential curbside pickup, backyard composting, a county-wide garage sale and seasonal pick-up and drop-off.

The Public Works Commission recommends that the city apply for a time extension with the state and then begin implementing rate-revisions for waste pick-up.

Currently, the more waste a household produces the cheaper the rates are. "If its cheaper to dispose more, this will not encourage recycling," Bessey said. "A person with one garbage can pays more than a person with three cans."

Bessey suggested streamlining the rate schedule so customers pay the same rate per unit, or increasing the rates so they are higher per volume.

In a Public Work's meeting last week, the commission stated they preferred a uniform rate for residents and an increasing rate for businesses.

If the city decides to phase in an increasing rate for residential pick up, residents would see an increase from $18.84 to $21.12 for the predominant pick-up service -- two 32 gallon cans.

"How is that going to make me recycle?" Councilmember John Lee asked.

Mayor Jan Epstein responded that these small increases would be important to a lot of people. "A lot of senior citizens can't afford this," she said.

Councilmember Paul Gumbinger said when they originally talked about this in 1989 the original plan was to keep on raising fines so people would reduce waste.

He also said that seniors were upset about it at the time, because they felt they could not reduce their waste.

Larry Patterson, director of the Public Works Commission and City Manager Arne Croce both said the numbers that the state comes up with are not truly indicative of the amount of recycling which takes place.

"It's a crapshoot about where you'll end up in the [waste] diversion scheme," Croce said. "It's not about how aggressive the recycling program is."

Some of the factors which weigh into the formula that the state comes up with are population, employment, growth and taxable sales.

Croce said the nature of the formula is faulty. "We have an aggressive recycling program," he said.

Councilmember John Lee would not accept this as an excuse. "Then we need to do a city survey and find out what's wrong with the formula," Lee said. "You say we are doing better and working hard, but the state is still going to charge $10,000 a day. That's a terrible way to manage a program."

Patterson said it is very difficult to measure a recycling program. He suggested waiting until the new rates come in at the end of the year to determine how to implement an improved program.

The council agreed this was the best plan.

"I'm embarrassed my city is at 34 percent, it's disgraceful," Councilmember Sue Lempert said. "I think this is a really big deal. We have to take it seriously."

Lempert said there must be an explanation and the city needs to determine what the issues are. "Our city is one-third seniors, is it a senior problem?" Lempert asked. "Are the businesses not doing it? Or do we need to provide residential incentive?"

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