After hearing only one protest during a public hearing, the Signal Hill City Council voted on Aug. 24 to approve waste rate increases of 40% to 70% to help pay for new organic waste recycling services.
Signal Hill residents will start paying a 40% higher rate per month as of Oct. 14—going from $16.50 to $23.15 per month—and receive a 64-gallon green bin to dispose of food scraps and yard trimmings.
Businesses will also see rate increases of about 40%, or about $71 per month, depending on the number of containers and collection frequency.
Multifamily residential buildings, such as apartments, will see an even higher increase of more than 70%, or nearly $94 per month more, depending on the number of containers and collection frequency.
Public Works Department Contracts Manager Thomas Bekele said multifamily residents can reduce fees by cooperatively using trash bins less.
“Neighbors can work together to reduce the trash by diverting more trash to organics and therefore reducing the frequency of the service, which will reduce the overall cost,” he said.
Steven South, president and CEO of EDCO, which collects waste for Signal Hill, said single-family residents using more than one trash bin can also save by switching instead to an additional recycling bin or additional organics bin, both of which EDCO provides for free.
“Rates are still some of the lowest of surrounding cities,” Bekele said.
Besides additional costs for organic-waste recycling, the new rates include a consumer price index (CPI) increase of 5.2% to cover the past three years, offset by a slight rate decrease due to changes in the trash waste stream, he said.
EDCO will start delivering green organic-waste containers to Signal Hill residents and businesses between Oct. 18 and Oct. 22. It will then begin collecting organic waste, along with trash and recycling, the week of Nov. 1.
EDCO will also educate the community about how to use the new third bin in compliance with the law.
Like all other cities in California, Signal Hill has scrambled to implement organic-waste recycling by Jan. 1, 2022 to comply with Senate Bill (SB) 1383, passed in 2016 to reduce “short-lived climate pollutants” such as methane gas from dairy livestock and landfills.
SB 1383 seeks to reduce organic waste in landfills by 75% by 2025 and recover 20% more of the edible food currently thrown away by grocery stores and other food providers.
The council approved ordinances that not only increase fees but allow EDCO to monitor, investigate and enforce organic-waste compliance.
The City may face fines up to $10,000 per day if it does not comply by Jan. 1.
Prior to the hearing, the City had posted public notices of the proposed rate increases and mailed 7,444 residents, businesses and property owners about it on July 2, City Clerk Carmen Brooks said.
Per California’s Proposition 218: Right to Vote on Taxes Act, with 5,409 property parcels in Signal Hill, the City would have had to receive 2,705 written protests to prevent it from raising rates.
Deputy City Manager Scott Charney read aloud a single letter of protest by a Signal Hill property owner he did not identify.
“I am protesting any and all increase at this time due to the COVID epidemic hardship on all,” the sole objector wrote.
The council will conduct a second hearing in September before fully adopting ordinances increasing rates and amending EDCO’s contract.
Besides collecting organic waste and enforcing that policy, EDCO will report compliance data to CalRecycle, the state agency in charge of implementing SB 1383.
EDCO will process the organic waste before transporting it to another processing facility in Riverside for further processing, South said. It will also transport some to Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (LACSD) facilities.
“The organic waste will ultimately be composted,” he said.
Councilmember Lori Woods said LACSD applies anaerobic digesters to organic waste to generate fuel for vehicles. It also sends some to California’s central valley to support agriculture.
“I’m encouraged to know some of our organics are going to that,” she said.
