Community Solid Waste and Recycling Strategic Plan

Objective:

The City’s goal is to increase diversion to 90% by weight of all materials collected from City-operated facilities and programs by fiscal year 2024/2025. Materials includes organic material collected from parks and golf courses. Facilities include, for example, all administrative buildings, parks, trailheads, libraries, senior and community centers, public safety facilities, golf courses, Scottsdale Stadium and WestWorld. Programs include City-sponsored and permitted special events.

Strategies:

• Increase recycling at City of Scottsdale facilities by providing additional containers and supporting the efforts of the custodial contractor.
• Increase recycling at special events held in Scottsdale.
• Reduce the use of paper by focusing on paperless media.
• Educate internal staff on the diversion programs available throughout the city.

Objective:

The City’s residential diversion rate goal is to increase diversion of single-family residential curbside single-stream recycling (e.g., metal, glass, plastic, paper) by the end of:

• FY 2019/20 to 36%
• FY 2024/25 to 48%
• FY 2029/30 to 60%

Diversion rate is by weight of all materials collected from single-family homes in weekly refuse and recycling collections.

Strategies:

• Expand customer education programs and including the use of social media and exiting city communications with residents.
• Re-brand the City Solid Waste Department.
• Work with local school districts and non-profit environmental advocacy organizations.
• Create incentives to encourage greater levels of recycling for residential customers including “Pay as you throw”.
• Mandatory recycling of specified materials through the creation of new City ordinances.

Objective:

The City’s multi-family diversion rate goal is to increase diversion in multi-family buildings by the end of:

• FY 2019/20 to 10%
• FY 2024/25 to 20%
• FY 2029/30 to 30%

Diversion rate is by weight of all materials collected from multi-family buildings. The City has the ability to directly monitor progress toward this goal for accounts the Solid Waste Department services; ideally the goal should include accounts serviced by private haulers as well.

Strategies:

• Expand customer education programs.
• Increase availability of recycling services throughout the community including removing physical barriers to recycling and requiring space in new construction.
• Incentives for landlords or building managers to make recycling services available.
• Establish reporting requirements that would allow calculation of city-wide multifamily diversion rates.
• Enact ordinances to require waste haulers providing refuse service to multi-family complexes to also provide recycling service and update reporting requirements.
• Provide public recycling drop-off locations.

Objective:

The City’s commercial diversion rate goal is to increase diversion in commercial accounts by the end of:

• FY 2019/20 to 10%
• FY 2024/25 to 20%
• FY 2029/30 to 30%

Diversion rate is by weight of all materials collected from commercial accounts. The City has the ability to directly monitor progress toward this goal for accounts the Solid Waste Department services; ideally the goal should include accounts serviced by private haulers as well.

Strategies:

• Increase availability of recycling services throughout the community including removing physical barriers to recycling and requiring space in new construction.
• Create incentives for businesses to provide recycling services.
• Enact ordinances requiring commercial waste haulers to provide recycling service and update reporting requirements.
• Work with the tourism community to encourage diversion strategies at tourist destinations.
• Mandate universal access to recycling.

Objective:

Expand and grow customer education programs that highlight initiatives for waste reduction, reuse and recycling of resources with the goal of changing behavior.

Strategies:

• Expand customer education programs.
• Publish a community resource directory.
• Promote reuse of specific items that contribute significant volumes to waste streams including alternatives to disposable containers, bring your own container programs, textiles recycling, donation or repair instead of disposal.
• Maintain and expand the city’s Household Hazardous Waste Program.
• Implement mandates to ban the use of specific items in an effort to keep them out of the waste stream.
• Ban single-use packaging and bags.

Objective:

Reductions in the amount of construction and demolition waste landfilled on capital projects constructed by the City of Scottsdale.

Strategies:

• Continue to implement the City of Scottsdale policy of using the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program on new construction projects.
• Require contractors on LEED building projects to achieve the specific credits related to reduction of construction and demolition waste and use of recycled construction materials on city projects.
• Continue to reuse old asphalt from city streets in the City’s dust abatement program.
• Strengthen diversion requirements in the city’s Green Building Program for private construction.
• Create a Green Deconstruction and Demolition Permit.
• Promote programs and services to reuse excess or salvaged construction materials.
• Encourage adaptive reuse of existing buildings.
• Enact mandates to require certain levels of construction and demolition waste diversion or use of recycled building materials, and develop a tracking and enforcement capability.

Objective:

Explore and implement new opportunities to divert material from the waste stream to alternative uses, and to achieve cost savings and generate revenue by marketing materials.

Strategies:

• Explore markets for composted organic material.
• Work through a regional partnership to develop regional processing facilities for recoverable comedies from the waste stream.
• Seek non-landfill solutions for hard to manage waste streams with potential for resource recovery.
• Encourage the formation of a regional materials exchange.
• Seek alternatives to landfill disposal through public-private partnerships.

Objective:

The City’s goal to reduce organic waste disposed of in the landfill is to increase the portion of materials collected from the brush and bulk program that are delivered to the SRCLC green waste collection area by the end of:

• FY 2019/20 to 40%
• FY 2024/25 to 60%
• FY 2029/30 to 75%

Strategies:

• Promote backyard composting.
• Evaluate the establishment of a city composting and anaerobic digestion facility.
• Develop markets for organic materials.
• Create and expand customer education programs to promote composting by residents or businesses.
• Provide instruction on how to properly and effectively establish and maintain composting procedures.
• Evaluate a “third bin” program, providing all residential customers a third container for organic material in addition to a refuse container and a recycling container.
• Modify collection processes to increase diversion of organic material from the landfill and to make it available for a centralized composting program.
• Evaluate public use of the city transfer station.
• Encourage transform landscaping from grass to dessert landscaping to reduce the amount of yard waste.
• Lead by example though composting landscaping waste at city facilities.