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In 2011 Austin, TX set a zero waste goal – 90% landfill clearance by 2040 – and several programs and guidelines have been put in place to help meet that goal. The plan has evolved over time and is more than recycling common roadside materials and composting. Now it is just as much about reusing and reducing what is consumed or generated at all.
For the residents, part of the mix is the weekly collection of farm and food waste from the roadside [for single family; now being piloted for multifamily]; Collections of clothing and household items on the curb; and repair clinics, where they learn to repair items from bicycles to home appliances.
Get local businesses technical assistance to support their diversion practices, but also to be instructed to avoid upstream waste and to preserve recyclable materials that flow back to them. They take advantage of opportunities to exchange best practices. And they sign up for programs like a competition where they offer investors and entrepreneurs to use their surplus materials.
But Austin Resource Recovery, formerly known as the city’s Solid Waste Services division, has looked beyond its city limits and worked with a wide variety of stakeholders across the country. The reason for this is that greater reach pays off for one’s own community while also helping to address regional and global problems.
The city has been in its so-called Comprehensive Waste Prevention Plan (formerly known as the Master Plan) for just over 10 years sets out steps to achieve the 2040 target. It is intended to guide decisions relating to the construction of infrastructure, systems and operating procedures.
“We’re using this map to set our course and make it easier for the city, tariff payers, and businesses to see where we’re going and understand why we’re doing what we’re doing,” said Ken Snipes, Austin director Resource recovery.
The city’s plan and industry have evolved over the past decade. Now the department is evaluating what it has done so far and looking for adjustments.
“We will work to find out what we need to do differently or improve over the next 10 years in order to achieve the 2040 target. And we’re not just looking for zero waste that focuses on managing end-of-life materials, we’re looking beyond that to achieve a circular economy that takes into account the design of things and the supply side, ”says Gena McKinley, Head of Strategic Initiatives for Austin Resource recovery.
When moving forward, the department is in an interesting situation: it does not manage materials for 85% of the city. The lion’s share is in corporate, commercial, multi-family, construction and event operations, all of which are managed by the private market.
The department tries to convince this 85% that the entire community can achieve zero waste.
It created a universal recycling regulation that sets minimum diversion requirements for Commercial and apartment buildings and requires these companies to report their diversion methods and numbers annually. The data is used to confirm compliance and to support the comprehensive plan in its further development.
A The Construction and Demolition Recycling Ordinance stipulates that permitted projects with an area of over 5,000 square meters recycle at least 50% of their rubble and also report their results.
“With these guidelines we can influence the materials that we do not collect ourselves so that we can achieve results in all sectors. We set a standard and a minimum expectation for companies because it requires everyone’s commitment to achieve our goals. ” says McKinley.
“But we don’t just develop guidelines and wash our hands clean. We provide technical support to ensure they have the tools and resources they need to successfully comply with regulations. ”
An outreach team meets one-on-one with companies to find out how to set up best practices that will work in their operations and answer their questions like managing their contracts or space constraints.
“Austin is growing and getting denser, so we can talk to them about container size or ways to change the frequency of collection. We can suggest that neighboring stores in retail strips talk to each other about sharing services or other resources. ” McKinley says.
While the business outreach team helps them comply with the diversion guidelines, a circular economy team helps them look beyond collecting and processing. Rather, employees consult with companies on how to integrate zero waste practices into their entire operations, from manufacturing to the entire supply chain.
Bi-monthly circular meetups provide a forum for local businesses to share their challenges and practices and other best practices.
Austin Resource Recovery is also working to attract outside companies with circular economy ambitions by facilitating networking opportunities and connecting them with Austin’s Economic Development Department, where they can learn about training and other services to get them started.
Partnerships were part of the strategy to achieve zero waste and circular economy. Austin met with neighboring cities to share problems and solutions. It recently hosted a plastics summit that attracted stakeholders from across Texas to talk about how they could work together to cut these types of materials. And it joined the U.S. Plastics Pact that emerged from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to continue plastics talks with more companies and governments.
“We also talk to manufacturers to get them to think about how they can design products to make them more compostable, recyclable, or to make waste out of them,” says Snipes.
“We do this because most of the materials that we end up using come from outside the city. We have a personal interest in making sure that what they make is easy for us to recycle or reuse here in Austin.
But we know this is a global problem, and if we want to solve it, we can’t just think about what’s happening within our borders. We have to look at the issue holistically, ”says Snipes.
On the residential front, the focus is on collections and processing infrastructure.
Austin began outsourcing the recycling after it was routed to a single stream, closed its material recovery facility (MRF), and now sent it to two private MRFs, resulting in increased diversion according to its contract with a local composter.
Other programs to further redirect impact include a drop-off center for hard-to-recycle materials such as styrofoam, plastic bags, electronics and hazardous household waste. The paint dispensed will be offered to the public free of charge in a separate area after mixing, filtering and packaging. Plastic film and some other materials are packaged and shipped to a seller for reuse and recycling.
Local residents, dubbed Zero Waste Block Leaders, help their neighbors know what to do as their options grow.
“The biggest challenge in supporting the city’s zero-waste goal is that recycling is confusing,” said Dena Houston, one of the first block leaders in Austin.
Now citizens can use an app on the Austin Resource Recovery website to learn how to properly dispose of certain items. Sometimes Houston goes to the website for answers for them. If she can’t find what she’s looking for, the city has a contact person for the block leader who can ask for more information.
She writes a column for her neighborhood newsletter about cycling and other topics related to the diversion, which has now been taken up by 10 communities and reached 20,000 residents. She gives her contact information and people routinely reach out to her with questions.
“They want to know things like, ‘What do I do with fluorescent lightbulbs?’ “Are my vacuum bags compostable?” She says.
She recalls 1989 when Austin started its first recycling program to collect basic items like plastic, paper, and glass.
“We used to fill huge trash cans every week. We were aware of the concept of reuse and recycling, but didn’t know how to do it. “
Now, between all of their decisions and their education, many of their neighbors have made the move from 96- to 24-gallon trash cans. Houston saw the biggest change when garden waste and food waste collection went online.
But beyond that, she says, “Austin Resource Recovery has moved from the very basics of recycling to a very creative, multi-faceted program that addresses all aspects of recycling, reuse and reuse.”
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