October Newsletter: It’s Time that Orlando Gets Aggressive on Waste Diversion
It’s Going to Be Hard To Achieve Zero Waste Unless We Do Something Now
Incentivize trash reduction with Pay-as-you-Throw
The Orlando area welcomes around 1,000 new residents per week, making it the second fastest growing metro in the country. With population growth comes a need for more resources, greater demand, and, inevitably, more waste. For a City like Orlando, it seems like a far-cry to achieve zero-waste (90% diversion from the landfill), even if the goal isn’t until 2040.
The City of Orlando is unique for a municipality, managing their own waste without contracting any of it out to private haulers. They have their own Solid Waste Collection Division with their own trucks, making their own operational decisions. Under Chapter 28 of the municipal code, the City’s Solid Waste Department has exclusive rights to collect all “solid waste,” and there isn’t a separate definition for “food waste” or “organic waste.” This adds a lot of gray area to what we do as community composters, but that’s an issue for another blog post.
A big reason the Zero Waste Goal by 2040 is going to be difficult to achieve is due to the lack of infrastructure in place to manage the region’s different waste streams (i.e. construction & demolition debris, and special waste, like batteries, textiles, furniture, mattresses, and, of course, food waste and yard debris). Frankly, it’s an issue that the City’s planners should be addressing more so than the solid waste department.
Currently, the majority of the City’s garbage goes to the Orange County Landfill, and recyclable material gets hauled to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Cocoa Beach, or all the way to a Tampa area MRF. Luckily for the region, Orange County has plans to construct a MRF in the next 5 years at the Orange County Landfill, saving a whole lot of transportation costs and emissions.
O-Town Compost seeks to become part of this waste diversion infrastructure, and has already created some small-scale solutions for the City’s residents and businesses to significantly reduce their waste by collecting and processing food scraps. As environmentalists, we want to live in a city that’s bold with their waste reduction approach. One day we’d like to see Orlando have a curbside composting program paired with a Pay-as-you-Throw (PAYT) trash metering system that incentivizes people to keep their trash at a minimum while diverting all their materials to the recycling/compost bins. With O-Town Compost as the contracted composter and hauler (*wink).
On the other hand, the commercial and industrial side of waste makes up about 60% of what ends up in landfills, and presents a big opportunity to divert high volumes of food waste. For example, one grocery store produces food waste equivalent to 100-200 households each day. Other cities around the country have shown that implementing a commercial organics ban on food waste generators over 1 ton per week is a scalable solution that has real positive effects. Of course, none of this is possible without the infrastructure in place. And the right infrastructure in place likely can only come from a public-private collaboration.
Join our Compost Advocacy Group below, and stay up-to-date on the fight for a zero-waste Orlando.
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Composting Advocacy Opportunities
To achieve the goal of a Zero Waste Central Florida, it’s going to take political advocacy and action at the community grassroots level. Going forward, we want to bring together our subscribers, who are willing to write, call, and canvass for political change in support of food waste recycling.
Our subscribers are already doing a lot, diverting their household’s food scraps from the landfill, and deserve all the praise. Although, to live in a zero waste society, we need to unify our voice.
Click on the link below, and send us an email letting us know you’re interested in joining the Composting Advocacy Group, and we’ll be in touch shortly with more information about our efforts. Members of The Compost Advocacy Group will be subject to discounts, and promo codes.
I'm interested in being more active in further composting in Central Florida. CLICK HERE.
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