Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen recently advised a disgruntled citizen that the city’s new three-can collection program for garbage waste is only a six-month “pilot program.”
While most pilot programs are tested in small areas of town, the Modesto City Council implemented the garbage collection experiment throughout the city, formulating rules with minimal citizen input. Now, the consequences of their dubious decisions have affected the entire city.
At the end of the six months trial period, the city council will review complaints and determine whether any changes should be made. The council will also have another opportunity to raise rates for garbage collection.
What Do our Gardeners Know?
A couple of citizens who talked to area gardeners about biweekly collection of green waste discovered that they had not been briefed by their employers or the city. As winter turns to spring and more green waste piles up, gardeners will start wondering what to do with the excess clippings, especially those who tend big yards.
Gardeners Have Few Options
One homeowner told his gardener to dump all green waste in the alley or street for the city’s monthly pickup one day before the scheduled pickup. If the next day is not a pickup day, better not let anyone see you dump it.
Bertolotti Garbage Company tells callers that extra green waste pickups are available at a cost of $10.
Green waste can also be stored on private property for composting. If you don’t know how to compost or don’t have needed equipment, seek advice.
Burning green waste is illegal. Illegal burning can result in huge fines.
My First Month Using the 3 Can System
Because I divert more waste to my green and blue cans, I put out my black can every other week, despite the weekly collection fees I pay for.
I don’t order much over the internet, so I don’t have much cardboard waste. So far, I’m filling the blue recycle can once a month despite paying for two collections a month.
Because the numbers of green waste can collections have been cut in half while the amount of recyclable paper and soiled pizza cardboard intake has increased, I fill my green waste can within about 48 hours after pickup. Recent storms have generated more wood debris, resulting in even more green waste.
As a result, my green can is nearly full for twelve out of every fourteen days. I have to tamp the contents daily to make room for new paper waste. Due to the 100-pound waste limit, I also have to make sure not to overfill it.
I can’t mow my lawn more than once every two weeks due to the collection schedule. One mowing fills the can. I don’t want to dump into the street because the waste can clog storm drains. Even moderate winds can blow green waste everywhere before the city picks it up.
Rather than compost, I will probably opt to pay for the extra collection of the green waste can. When I mulched my grass, the soil built up higher than my walkways, so I discontinued the practice.
For those who think the new system is no big deal, it isn’t if you aren’t inconvenienced. But for those who didn’t previously need to worry about the new rules, it is a pain to figure out and implement.
Garbage collection should provide a convenient way to maintain clean communities and neighborhoods. The current “pilot program” seems a failure on both counts; it’s neither convenient nor effective.
No need to wait six months to make changes. Fix it now.
I live in a gated community where the city does not pick up green waste from out of the street. I have to use the green can. With it only being picked up twice a month, the grass cuttings ferment in the can. I must keep my lawn mowed every week due to the HOA rules. This needs to be fixed now.
I’m an 83 yr old disabled woman. My neighbor brings my cans to the curb
I do my own food processing so have little paper, plastic or recycles.
I save food scraps in a can in my refrigerator and put in the green bin every week along with paper and shredded mail.
In 2 weeks this is the nastiest fly-ridden mess I’ve ever smelled. Even my normal garbage may have 1-2 kitchen sized garbage bags in it. All my disposables that can be washed are washed prior to garbaging. The blue bin gets perhaps 3 recyclables in 1 month.
While I agree with your separation concept your procedures and information smell like my green can
I am glad to have seen your article and realize i am not the only unhappy about this ridiculous blue container. I actually called Bertolotti complaining as to why the change. I use my green bin more than the blue one since i got 3 super large city trees in my front lawn. Every week i clean with my boys and just the front yard fills the bin up. What do we do now? We cannot afford the extra expense to pay Bertolotti more. How does this benefit our Modesto communities if the streets are filled with green picks. It makes no sense to me.
Why am I paying you more if I have to do your job? I recycle and don’t mind putting my paper and cardboard in a separate can from my green waste. But I am Not going to separate my Garbage
Picking up the green can every other week is a horrible idea. My gardener is now putting my yard clippings in my black can.
This is not working .. every other week! We have homeless going through recycling. If we are having to put in one can, why should I use your can and give to homeless. I will just take to recycle myself. But if we don’t use we are fined or punished for not using the cans?
And the homeless still come around the neighborhoods and go through regular trash cans and rip open bags and make a mess! Your cans are not solving the issues with our city! The city does not even take care of the roads in modesto and have someone going around to get the trash along the roads and major roads, and we will be punished if we don’t abide by your rules!
There is so much that needs to be fixed and implemented in this city and all you do is just sit, and talk around a table.. it takes forever to get things done. And let’s just raise the cost of everything and charge us more if we don’t have room for greens etc!
I understand the concept of the 3 can system and that’s not the part that I am bothered by, it’s the pick-up schedule and how it has all been handled by the city.
The black can isn’t ever full anymore, but it still stinks from meat packaging and litter box waste, so it needs to be picked up weekly.
The green can is full in 2-3 days and because of food waste and rotting grass, it now smells 100x worse than before and our days haven’t even hit 70⁰ yet. It’s not even spring yet and the flies are horrible. 6 months?! That puts us to June this city is going to smell like a giant green can once the heat rolls in. We already have a huge mosquito problem and the flies and gnats are about to get a whole lot worse. Also, being told that approval is needed to use compostable bags that were sold by a store within the city is ridiculous, if you want to control that too, then limit what kind can be sold in town so that they are approved.
The blue can, personally, mine needs to be picked up weekly and I’m not even putting in CRV type of stuff into it. Someone in my neighborhood had the entire can filled with CRV cans and bottles and a homeless person didn’t even bother to go through it, they just took the whole can.
Our trash bills have already gone up a lot over the last few years and now a new program that is beyond flawed is being forced on us without our input. I feel like whoever agreed to this pilot program knew it would fail and purposely did it as a way to justify increasing our bills again in 6 months.
This garbage thing is very confusing at times. We separate and have to pay poor. BS
This is not working for me ,i have a lot of green waste, and now food waste ,it smells so bad and sitting there til every other week is so Gross, and unhealthy to breathe and the flies r bad .
The green can needs to be picked up every week mine fills up every week so now some is going in blk can which is defeating the purpose of recycling which then fills up also no win in this……
A 3 can 6 month pilot program for trash you raised the fees for the blue cans and then what citizens pay for your blunder!!!! Will the fees go back down after the 6 month trial???
I have a huge yard. The green can fills up every week. My black can doesn’t as there is only two of us. However cost of living is going up that adding extra fees on top of something ineffective is a horrible idea. It’s seems like a double dip. We separate and you recycle making money off our recyclables seems like we should be getting a discount not an increase. This city has raped us in fees. If this continues people will not be living here due to the city greed. There are other things that can be addressed. Noise, road violators, people are getting hit every day by some jack wagon speeding, a strict curb appeal for the city, train blowing his horn at 4 am for whatever reason. There is barley traffic at that time, homeless and their trash. Charge them! I’m sure state gives them money. It’s a sore eye in some places. Not welcoming at all. The list is huge.
I have seen a new you tube video showing a guy making hot water off the composting process… so many ways to do the green thing without making 40,000 new green trash bin out of F’ing plastic.
The only positive thing here is diverting green matter from going to the inSINerator on Fink road.
Stop making the plastic, selling the plastic and making the voters clean it up..
This is a corporate problem!
Target the producers!
I live in a patio home, the space I have is very limited even with the 2 cans, and now the city adds a blue can to rob me of more space.
I am glad to finally have a blue can to avoid adding non-decomposing waste to the landfills. I have a lot of green waste from a large number of trees on my property. I do not understand why there is an issue about where to put excess green waste. Since it decomposes it shouldn’t be a problem to put it into the black can destined for a landfill.
By the way I am a 75yr old woman of average fitness & on a fixed income. One more expense and one more can isn’t a hardship compared to the benefits of doing something to reduce harm to our environment.
I appreciate the city’s effort to comply with the new law. I just wish the communication had been better about the changes. Like others, I wish the green can could get picked up every week, but the lid on my green can keeps most smells/insects away, so it’s not a big problem for us.
I’ve been able to find more things to put in my blue bin than I thought, but I’m curious if these things (like soup cans, milk jugs and packaging) are actually being recycled, or if it’s just for show.
I’m a 75 year old slightly disabled lady who lives in a patio home.
I have found the three can system has a positive and a negative impact on me.
Positive…I put out the blue can one time a month, the green can one time a month and the black can two times a month. This is easy for me, but when Spring clippings start, I wonder if the green can will need to be weekly at times.
Negative…I have to have three small garbage cans in my kitchen. The compost bin stinks and attracks ants. And I pay extra for my kitchen to look like a garbage dump.
We’ve been doing this for years in Merced, but our garbage is picked up every week. Our regular and recycle garbage would probably overfill with bi-monthly pickups. Our green would definitely would overflow. Modesto residents should advocate for weekly pickups. Gardeners for hire should be required to haul away whatever they cut and take it to the dump at their convenience.
I used to live in Montana, and Big Horn County placed dumpsters throughout the county for rural garbage collection. The spaced garbage containers may help decrease illegal dumps on streets and private property.
Requiring gardeners to take green waste to the dump would be prohibitively expensive for the customer and add to air pollution each trip, offsetting the benefit of recycling.
What works in Merced would probably work here, making one wonder why Modesto is not using a system that has already been proven successful elsewhere.
Sometimes, a one size fits all Program does not work well and needs to be tailored to fit different living arrangements.
Agree. This recycling is not a new concept to California. Modesto just chose to wait til the last minute. They are recreating the wheel which is causing us money and distress, so shameful and inefficient.
We recycle and do not use the blue can.
Our black can is filled only 4th.of july and christmas, otherwise a bag or 2. And the green unless we are cutting down a tree or something it’s never full.
BUT YET WE PAY FULL PRICE FOR ALL OF IT!
DOESN’T SEEM RIGHT.
And certainly not fair to people on fixed incomes after retirement.
Thank you. Your post could be my post.
My black can has one bag a week.
I have put my blue can in the garage to accumulate the recycles.
And I don’t even have a green can. When I called I was told they didn’t know why I hadn’t received it. They were going to check in to it. That was September.
As a retiree on a very fixed income, I resent paying for three cans when I have two and use only one.
And none of us had any input on this, and the only change we can expect is for the bill to continually, regularly increase.
The whole thing is completely ludicrous and in my opinion, whoever came up with it isn’t playing with a full bin…Er, deck.
Enjoy another unfunded eco mandate from our beneficent State government – controlled en toto by Leftist Democrats (in case you’ve been politically comatose for the last 25 years). If you’re shouting at the Modesto City Council, enjoy the circular firing squad. They’re just trying to comply w CA/Dem/Newsom mandates. And fundamentally, let’s just ignore that landfills are far, far from capacity. But much like “anthropomorphic climate change”, this is religious dogma to the Left.
Stop. If you want a sensible outcome to your 3 can problem, start with who you elect to CA state government. That’s wherein lies the problem.
Thank you for explaining so eloquently exactly what I am thinking!!!
I agree completely with you!!
[…] Story continues […]
I really need my green can picked up weekly, because I have so many trimmings from my garden, my bushes and my trees, all year long. As far as my blue can goes, I take three kinds of recyclables to recycling centers because it’s worth it for the money. Thus, I essentially do not need the blue can.
I wonder if the city had a workgroup of stakeholders who came up with different design options and/or did they hire a consultant to create a proposal, or what exactly was done?
I don’t ever remember getting a proposal where you could offer feedback, do any of you?
How about your city council person, did they discuss any of this with you when in the design stage?
We should understand the process since it’s what created the design that was implemented. Does anyone reading this know?
Gilton had a rep at a City Council meeting speak on how something was sent out,with the city bill, asking for suggestions. Gilton based their decision on the 218 responses they received back. Not many responses. I don’t receive a bill as i am on auto-pay. I also have Bertolotti for garbage pickup. I watch City Council meetings which I feel more citizens should do.
There is some information here that mentions customer feedback, but I don’t recall hearing about this change before it was made: https://www.modbee.com/news/local/article270357717.html#storylink=cpy
“The City Council approved these changes in June. City staff recommended picking up the recyclables and organic waste every two weeks rather than weekly because it would save residential customers $3 a month on their garbage bills and based upon the results of a survey of customers….
Several residents complained at the June council meeting that leaving household waste in a bin for two weeks will bring flies and other pests as well as rank odors when the weather is warm….
Modesto spokeswoman Diana Ruiz-Del Re said city staff encourages residents to bring their questions and concerns to the city. She added the city’s solid waste staff will monitor the changes and update the City Council. She said solid waste staff could recommend modifications as needed.”
Good one, Frank, and Valley Citizens.
Did someone end up wasting precious tax dollars hiring consultants to bring into being this Frankensteinish debacle?
This issue reminds me of a book/audio, authored by Edward Humes, Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash.
When I used to be County Chairperson, for…wait for it…The Green Party, I was surrounded by activists from many circles. I say, “wait for it” because I would never venture there, again. For one of many reasons, I was aghast learning how many Communists exist in the Central Valley. They came out of the closet promoting their way or the DIE way… Literally!
One, activist, church, was pushing, and gaining momentum, for smaller packaging for all commodities. I am certain all consumers have been struck with all the empty packaging, after products have settled in the box, can, or, you name it. Is there room for all the unnecessary land fillage.
“Settling” is my polite way of pointing to their greed, since, as I see it, they fool the average consumer by their intentional placing of less content into larger containers. WE DO NOT NEED ALL THIS WASTE. STOP BUYING IT. Online, see advertisements, for products with less packaging and plastic. ASK your store to order it in for you. WE MUST ACT DELIBERATELY, TOGETHER, IN UNISON.
And, don’t get me started on the use of plastics, still, after we have been warned about forever chemicals, hormone disruptors, plasticides in soil, water, and each and every human body, and, other, animals. Plastic trash cans, plastic cartons, plastic anything, including, so called, disposable, compostable bags, are NOT working to lessen the load.
The inconvenient truth is WE need to be alot more cognizant about WHAT WE buy, and THINK ahead, about, HOW, WE will be discarding. WE can vote with our actions, NOTICE the producers that they MUST get their ACTS together, or WE will live without their product UNTIL they curb waste.
Consumers successfully MOVED producers for various reasons, so, it CAN work, but not if WE do not ACT. Every reply here NEEDS to find itself on the personal desk of Sue Zwahlen, regardless of what Diana Ruiz-del Re stated, AND, wherever else it can be LODGED. Make them each deal with it, NOT able to pass the buck. Somehow, they are in it together. NEVER seems to fail them, ONLY US.
I gather we citizens, and tax payers, DEMAND a say BEFORE decisions are made. Tell these people who work for US, exactly THAT. DEMAND prior notice and AMPLE time to DISCUSS and VOTE. Tell them to STOP slipping
these dastardly actions under the radar. This is my suggestion.
The 3 can system does not seem to be working for some people, but our garbage trucks are divided into two sections. I feel $50 a month is enough to pay for garbage collection. What do you think the rates will go up to if they have to purchase new larger trucks. Be careful what you ask for. This is a state mandate. Who did you vote for?
Don’t know how much good it will do, but perhaps adding some comments here could help:
https://modestogov.com/1954/Make-a-Request-GoModesto
Select: “A Compliment or Bright Idea”
“Suggest a Bright Idea: Both citizens and employees often have great ideas, but don’t know how to get them to the right person. Now you can submit your ideas right here.”
My concerns about the blue can are more fundamental. Don’t get me wrong. I am very much concerned about global warming and filling up the landfills. But I don’t hear anyone giving any actual data that would justify the blue cans, and i looked. There are no studies. I am wondering if the huge production of massive amounts of blue plastic pencil out any net benefit to the environment. Also, I wonder if the greenhouse gas produced by the truck is anyway balanced by the use of the blue can. Add to that that only clean cardboard is recyclable. The chances of cardboard remaining clean after being thrown into a huge truck with a bunch of dirty cans and bottles is practically nil. None of that cardboard is going to be recycled. And the last time that we had the blue bags very little of that got recycled either. Final point, there is no system for recylcling plastic these days, if there ever was one. That will all go in the landfill or the incinerator. The Chinese don’t want it any more.
And the worse part is this. All the blue cans are good for is to assuage our guilt about being wasteful over-consumers. Keeps us from actually doing something. “Oh, but I recycle my garbage.” Gemma a break.
Tell me a good reason to believe I’m wrong here.
This is a very good citizens discussion that should of gone on before the city made a decision. However since it’s a 6 month pilot perhaps the information shared here can be organized into a report to the city staff as well to each council member. Just saying Bruce :).
As far as recycling goes, we already have Master class recyclers, some homeless folks have been doing it for years! Why not organize teams similar to the Downtown Street Teams that recycle! Maybe the current DST organization would take it on?
I’d also like to know how other cities/counties have approached this issue. Here are a couple of interesting links:
https://calrecycle.ca.gov/ and
https://www.westerncity.com/article/heres-how-cities-are-responding-organic-waste-recycling-regulations-and-resources-available; also, see this informational video on our own program: ttps://youtu.be/lgi9Pv7qvKk..
Digging into the info at the calrecycle link I found the city of Modesto was awarded $310,078 to implement this new program. Wonder how it was spent?
I live in Ceres and this three can system works just fine. And has for years. However we get the green can collected once a week along with black can. It is going to take time to know how to use them but it can be done. You are suppose to wash out your cans and bottles before you put them in the recycle bins so you don’t have a mess. . You can put dirty cardboard in the green bin as it can be composed. Clean card board just means no food grease or other stuff on it. People, you figure out your checkbook, you can do this. I think that every little bit helps.
I do agree that we need to use less plastic to begin with but this is a start.
I like many of you was filling my green can weekly with garden trimmings, paper, and cardboard. I have been adding paper junk mail and most garden clippings. Now that we have a blue can, I put in all plastics, cans, glass, plastic containers for lettuce, and clean cardboard. I have very little trash now. My husband and I are relearning what goes into each can. Change is hard and I was complaining but now I am just trying to put my energy into how to do it. Now I put all bush and tree trimming into the alley. I am putting cardboard in the blue bin. I am thinking about removing some plants and grass to minimize green waste. I may even do a green dumpster once a year. I wonder if we could talk the city into two green cans one week followed by blue and black the next. It could be an option that would work for some of us. The city of Modesto didn’t want to inconvenience us. They were forced to by state legislation. There is a huge investment by the trash haulers in trucks. This is the most cost effective way they could find to be compliant with the state in time they were given. If we had the recycling system of our dreams, we would really be paying for it . It does seem like a gated community could add a green dumpster. There are lawn mowers which will cut your clippings short enough to spread back on the lawn so you don’t put them in green waste. I have set up 3′ round chicken wire cages in the front and back yards. My veg waste and leaves and non weedy yard clippings are dumped in. When you have a smaller home those trash cans do take up some room.so that is tough one. Maybe someone else has some ideas. Can you share one with a neighbor?
You can always pay extra for an extra green waste can that you might not have needed if it were picked up weekly.
Putting more green waste in the alley for a monthly pick up is not beneficial to those who use the alley. For us who don’t have an alley, we have piles in front of our homes.
Blaming the state of California legislature for a bad Council decision will not improve the Council’s performance.
Separating recyclables is a noble endeavor until one finds out how little actually gets recycled. Much of the separation we are doing now for recycling used to be done by the garbage company. The company will still have to resort waste as we put the wrong items in the wrong can due to lack of knowledge, inattention, or willful disregard.
My green can, which has been sitting unemptied for over a week, presently stinks and the weather is not even warm. It is not okay to have garbage ferment in the backyard when it could have been hauled off.
I don’t have a problem with the recycling or deal when I have a problem with is a fact that I’m doing your guys’s job and you guys are charging us more on top of this half of us are barely struggling to pay our rent right now and utilities adding more on to the trash it seems a bit ridiculous if you don’t have the people who applied for the job doing their job why should I pay you more money when I’m doing your men’s work doesn’t seem right or fair. But then again why in the world did we give our life earnings into the hands of men and bodies that will never understand student loans understand social security none of them will ever have a need to wonder where their next meal is going to come from none of them understand but going out without means and yet they’re untried to what we can and can’t do with our money I don’t understand that and I don’t understand this fine or increase in payment and trash can or job you’re not doing just peeing honest.