Over the last year, residents across Long Beach have begun receiving bright green bins to fill with food scraps as part of a State mandate to reduce waste and pollution.
Long Beach entered the fourth and final phase of its organics waste program this week, as the last remaining households began receiving their bins. Meanwhile, residents already have grown frustrated with the program in its early phase, reporting missed pick-ups, flies and maggots in their carts, inability to swap out their carts and difficulty saving their scraps throughout the week. In September, 1,792 missed trash pickups were reported, according to City documents, less than 1% of all households.
“It’s been the number one issue we’ve been hearing day after day for a number of weeks,” said Councilmember Kristina Duggan about the missed trash pickups at a recent city council meeting.
As a result of the growing frustration, the city council will discuss its first update on the organics waste program at its Oct. 21 meeting.
According to a report from the Manager’s Office, when the City distributed green bins to households, it did not clearly communicate to residents that their first pick-up date wouldn’t occur for another two weeks. As a result, many households began immediately throwing food scraps and organic waste into containers and afterwards, calling the City to report missed pickups.
For the 118,000 households that have or are about to receive their green bins, only 3,700 kitchen pails have been distributed, with another 2,000 in the works, according to City documents. As of Oct. 7, 1,685 households have been able to exchange their carts for a different size.
Bins come in three sizes:
- 35-gallon
- 65-gallon
- 95-gallon
As of now, there is a shortage of 35 and 65-gallon carts. The City expects to receive more in November, at which point exchanges will pick back up.
Refuse operators also say they are struggling to keep up with the extra workload from the organics waste program. Though the City has made strides in creating more positions and filling vacancies, the Environmental Services Bureau Department said nearly one fourth of refuse workers are out on any given day, due to injuries, leave or callouts. To address this, the department is looking to hire another 20 operators as soon as possible.
The department also did not receive the 25 new trash collection vehicles they were supposed to get for the organics waste program. So far, the department has only received nine vehicles from the state, and they’re expecting to get the other 16 sometime in November. To mitigate the shortage, the department is renting six mini-packers until the new vehicles arrive.
Refuse operators have had to adapt to routes that change day-by-day in order to keep up with the changes caused by the organics waste pick-ups. Due to these constantly changing routes, households that have historically gotten their trash picked up in the morning can now be experiencing a later pickup time, or vice versa. The City Manager’s Office said some of the missed pickup reports are not missed, but in fact just later than residents are used to.
The City asks that residents only report a missed pickup after 6 p.m.
What You Can Do:
- Attend the city council meeting on Oct. 21 to be a part of discussions about the organics waste program. The meeting will be held at City Hall (411 W. Ocean Blvd). To speak during public comment, submit a comment card to the City Clerk before 5 p.m.
- Read instructions on separating waste on the City website.
