Solid waste is one of the many contributors to emissions around the world. In the United States alone, landfills are responsible for over 30% of methane emissions, while globally, the solid waste industry is responsible for 3-5% of total manufactured emissions. To put this into perspective, that number is about the equivalent of the emissions from 20.3 million passenger vehicles driven in one year or the emissions from the energy use of nearly 11.9 million homes in one year.
The state of California is leading the charge to fight climate change. With the recent implementation of SB 1383 calling for 75% diversion in organic waste early in January 2022, many counties have or are currently revising their goals and strategies for solid waste management in their Climate Action Plans. The three most common trends for waste amongst the California counties’ Climate Action Plans are:
1. Creating and Expanding Waste Recovery & Reduction Programs
2. Implementing Community Waste Reduction Education Plans
3. Exploring New Technology
As these themes often work together, Alameda County and StopWaste have showcased a great example applying all three of these strategies, as in this ordinance success story. Their process entails having two in-house field inspectors audit commercial customers' use of provided recycling and organics services as well as their contribution to contamination in the waste stream. This data is all documented on a tablet and synced back to a customer relationship management (CRM) system. While additional counties have applied these themes to their Climate Action Plans as listed below:
1. Creating and Expanding Waste Recovery & Reduction Programs
With the new ambitious goals for solid waste reduction and recovery set by SB 1383, counties are looking to implement and further scale their current programs to meet or exceed new state requirements. For example, in San Francisco, they plan to continue implementing and scaling their food waste recovery program- Kitchen Zero SF. This pilot program seeks to reduce food waste by tracking excessive product purchases made by food generators only then to divert the excess, otherwise wasted food, to communities in need or with limited access to certain products, like produce. On the other hand, San Mateo County plans to increase the coverage of its edible food recovery program to aid in the pickup and redistribution of products on a broader scale. They also hope to partner with other public institutions, private businesses, and nonprofits, like thrift stores, to develop and implement programs that encourage waste reduction and recycling.
2. Implementing Community Waste Reduction Education Plans
With 9/10 people finding recycling more confusing than investing, doing their taxes, or assembling Ikea furniture, community waste education is vital. Many California counties have seen the value of education and have chosen to implement the strategy in numerous areas of their climate action plans. For example, the county of Contra Costa is seeking to increase its educational waste programs on conscious consumption and diversion of material from landfills by partnering with other regional agencies to promote better waste sorting amongst its community members. Kings County is taking similar actions by working with its local waste haulers to educate and provide outreach about composting, hoping that it will help divert solid waste from landfills.
3. Exploring New Technology
The Tech Industry is rapidly changing and offering ground-breaking and innovative ways to transform the conventions of society for the better. With these changes, it only makes sense that many counties would express interest in exploring and investing in new promising technology to help reduce the emissions caused by solid waste and bring more efficiency to their current operations for solid waste. For instance, Placer County is just one of many interested in sourcing new tech to improve their processes of collecting methane gas at landfill sites. Not only that, but they also are looking to convert all facility and hauling vehicles to low carbon fuel types such as electrical or natural compressed gas. Other counties in the California state are following suit as they share the same interest in financing advanced technology to specialize in converting solid waste into useable energy sources.
These trends drive the work that we do here at Prairie Robotics.
We believe education is the critical solution to high contamination rates and this solution can be achieved efficiently through technological means. At Prairie Robotics, we offer innovative AI technology that automatically identifies recycling contamination at the household level. Through the process of collecting household waste data, we can detect and understand individuals’ recycling behaviours and generate targeted educational material specific to each household with this data. By tailoring the education material to meet the unique needs of all residents, our process will aid in curbing contamination at its source.
